Apple A18 phones: benchmarks, gaming & which to buy
What the Apple A18 delivers in real phones: benchmark scores, gaming performance, battery efficiency and the phones that ship with it.
What the Apple A18 is
The base chip of the iPhone 16 generation — and the first non-Pro iPhone silicon with hardware ray tracing and Apple Intelligence support. It ranks #15 of 79 in our catalog (AnTuTu about 1.97 million, Geekbench 6 near 3,430 single-core and 8,640 multi-core), out-muscling most Android flagships of the same year. Full scores on the Apple A18 page.
Performance and gaming
About 60/100 on our gaming scale — the highest non-Pro score in our catalog's current generation, ahead of every Snapdragon 8-class chip except the Elites. Every current iOS game runs at high settings, and the 8 GB of RAM Apple pairs with it keeps tabs and photo editing fluid for years. Software support runs to the early 2030s, so the performance headroom is not just for show.
Phones that ship with it
| Phone | Year | Used / Launch |
|---|---|---|
| Apple iPhone 16 | 2024 | $470 / $799 |
| Apple iPhone 16 Plus | 2024 | $555 / $899 |
| Apple iPhone 16e | 2025 | $390 / $599 |
Buying advice
The iPhone 16e near $390 is the cheapest door into this performance tier, while the iPhone 16 near $470 adds the second camera and MagSafe — our iPhone 16 Plus review covers the big-battery variant near $555. If you are cross-shopping Android at the same money, the A17 Pro guide shows last generation's Pro chip at similar used prices, and the A16 Bionic guide the cheaper rung below.
Benchmarks
| Geekbench 6 single-core | 3,431 #5 of 80 SoCs |
|---|---|
| Geekbench 6 multi-core | 8,638 #9 of 80 SoCs |
| AnTuTu benchmark | 1,972,476 #15 of 80 SoCs |