iPhone 12 Lags Behind iPhone 11 Pro In GPU Performance

The new smartphone, best performance: This statement is not entirely true with the iPhone 12. As benchmark tests show, the iPhone 12 lags behind the iPhone 11 Pro in terms of graphics performance. The iPad Air 4 with the same CPU is also ahead.

The iPhone 12 cannot quite match the performance of the iPhone 11 Pro

First things first: With the A14 Bionic, Apple offers one of the fastest smartphone CPUs in the entire industry. For normal users, the chip definitely has enough power for all situations. Nevertheless, a detailed examination of the hardware in the first benchmark tests shows something astonishing: As the benchmark site AnTuTu writes in an article about the latest results, the iPhone 11 Pro can score a higher graphics performance despite the older chip than the iPhone 12.

“The GPU performance of the iPhone 12 has actually decreased compared to the iPhone 11 Pro – possibly for the first time in Apple’s history,” said AnTuTu. As the authors also emphasize, with such early benchmark results it is of course always important to consider that the database is still quite small here. Since the GPU advantage in the current data is quite decent, we can definitely look forward to further results here.

The iPhone 12 versus the iPad Air 4

In search of a possible explanation, AnTuTu also refers to the comparison of the iPad Air 4 and iPhone 12. Both devices are equipped with the A14 Bionic, but the iPad Air 4 has a clear lead over the iPhone 12 in terms of benchmark values. AnTuTu “speculates” that Apple is throttling the performance of the chip in the much smaller device for two reasons: battery capacity and heat dissipation. The situation could be similar between iPhone 11 Pro and iPhone 12.