The arrival of the iPhone 16 means new Apple silicon: the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus will feature the A18 chipset, while the iPhone 16 Pro model will have the A18 Pro And while the phones won't ship until next Friday (September 20), benchmarks of the new models are already starting to appear online

Specifically, test results for the A18-equipped iPhone 16 have been posted on the Geekbench site, reporting how Apple's latest phone handles general performance tests The results show improved performance, though not as much as Apple advertised when it unveiled the iPhone 16 at Monday's Glowtime event

The first Geekbench results show a single-core score of 3,114, a 24% improvement over the iPhone 15 with A16 Bionic tested iPhone 16's multi-core result is 6,666, an 8% This is an improvement of 8% from the iPhone 15 results

Comparing the iPhone 16 results to the iPhone 15 Pro with A17 Pro, the single-core results are only 8% better iPhone 16's multi-core results are behind the iPhone 15 Pro's 7,194 score

This is a single test session, so it could be due to errors or environmental factors However, Apple claims that the A18 chip has a 30% faster CPU than the A16 processor

With this in mind, based on these early results, how does the iPhone 16's A18 stack up against standard bearers from rivals Google and Samsung?

The difference with the Pixel 9 is not surprising Historically, Google's Pixel phones have not been very good in the bare bones; the Pixel 9 is a good phone and performs miles better than the Pixel 8, but it is still outclassed by the iPhone 15

Google doesn't seem interested in prioritizing silicon performance Instead, it seems to be focusing on AI capabilities with its system-on-chip Tensor core However, with the Pixel 9 now priced on par with the standard iPhone 15 or 16, Google has a lot of catching up to do

Samsung's Galaxy S24 failed to keep up with the iPhone 15 in the Geekbench single-core test However, when it comes to multi-core testing, the Galaxy S24 and its Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset outperformed Apple's new phone by 4%, assuming the iPhone 16's numbers are accurate We'll see if our own benchmark results show the same thing when we get a chance to test the iPhone 16 ourselves

Keep in mind that the iPhone 16 will only compete with the Galaxy S24 for a few more months; in early 2025, Samsung should release the Galaxy S25 This Galaxy S25 should be powered by the next generation Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 This silicon will debut in October and will give us a better idea of how the iPhone 15 compares to the Galaxy S25

As a reminder, this is one leaked benchmark of a phone that has not yet been released outside of Apple's demo center We cannot speak to the accuracy of the test or that it was run on the model intended for release; only when the iPhone 16 finally ships can we definitively conclude whether it will compete with the latest Snapdragon system-on-chip That is [Reservations for the iPhone 16 will open on Friday, one week before Apple's new phone goes on sale