Apple iPhone 12: A14 chipset expected to set high performance benchmarks

Apple is expected to offer faster iPhones this year. Powering the 2020 iPhones would be the new A14 chipset. A new report now suggests the iPhone 12 series could be as powerful as the new 15-inch MacBook Pro.

According to MacWorld's Jason Cross, the A14 chipset could be built on the 5nm process which would be a big jump from the 7nm process. It would also make the A14, the first 5nm commercial chipset. 5nm chipsets are said to run either 15% faster at the same power as 7nm chipsets or use 30% lower power at the same performance level.

The A15 chipsets could also house up to 15 billion transistors. This would make way for a third big core on the A15 which would then increase multithreaded performance. Cross says it wouldn't be surprising if the A15's Geekbench 5 multi-core score even reaches 5,000 making its performance at par with high-end laptops like the 15-inch MacBook Pro.

Graphics performance would also see a jump by up to 50% for the graphic intensive games. One of Apple's primary focuses is the Neural Engine which is set to get an upgrade in the A14. Apple could integrate Neural Engine cores in the A14 chipset and make architectural improvements as well.

Apple is also expected to use LPDDR5 RAM this year on the iPhone 12 series, at least on the high-end models. Samsung's Galaxy S20 series is expected to be the first phones with the LPDDR5 RAM. As for the 2020 iPhones, reports suggest the high-end 6-inch iPhone and the 6.7-inch iPhone will house 6GB of RAM. The low-end iPhone models will come with 4GB of RAM.

Apple's 2020 iPhones are highly expected to have 5G support with notable analysts like Ming-Chi Kuo reiterating the same on multiple occasions. The A14 chipset will most likely feature Qualcomm's X55 modem for 5G support on the new iPhones.