A12 Bionic vs A10 Fusion

We compared the 6-core Apple A12 Bionic (Apple A12 GPU) with the older 4-core A10 Fusion (PowerVR GT7600) SoC. Here you will find the pros and cons of each chip, technical specs, and comprehensive tests in benchmarks, like AnTuTu and Geekbench.

Review

General comparison of performance, power consumption, and other indicators
CPU Performance
Single and multi-core processor tests
Gaming Performance
GPU performance in games and OpenCL/Vulkan
Battery life
Efficiency of battery consumption
NanoReview Score
Overall chip score

Key Differences

Main differences and advantages of each chip
Pros of Apple A12 Bionic
  • Has a smaller size transistor (7 versus 16 nm)
  • Performs 2.3x better in floating-point computations
  • Supports 129% higher memory bandwidth (34.1 against 14.9 GB/s)
  • Higher GPU frequency (~73%)
  • Shows significantly better (up to 73%) AnTuTu 11 score โ€“ 895K vs 516K
  • Has 2 more cores
  • 6% higher CPU clock speed (2490 vs 2340 MHz)
  • Better instruction set architecture

Benchmarks

Performance tests in popular benchmarks

AnTuTu 11

The AnTuTu Benchmark measures CPU, GPU, RAM, and I/O performance in different scenarios
A12 Bionic +73%
895627
516981
CPU 309104 202669
GPU 144993 63274
Memory 139578 84317
UX 301952 166721
Total score 895627 516981
Samples Less than 3 Less than 3

GeekBench 6

The GeekBench test shows raw single-threaded and multithreaded CPU performance
Single-Core Score
A12 Bionic +49%
1318
Multi-Core Score
A12 Bionic +111%
3134
1484
Asset compression 116.8 MB/sec 57.7 MB/sec
HTML 5 Browser 59.4 pages/sec 38.7 pages/sec
PDF Renderer 71.7 Mpixels/sec 44.8 Mpixels/sec
Image detection 23.7 images/sec 14.2 images/sec
HDR 98.7 Mpixels/sec 56.1 Mpixels/sec
Background blur 11.2 images/sec 4.38 images/sec
Photo processing 36.1 images/sec 13.5 images/sec
Ray tracing 3.49 Mpixels/sec 1.7 Mpixels/sec
Samples 5 tests 4 tests
Compute Score (GPU)
A12 Bionic +81%
7868
4352
Background blur 16.1 images/sec 11 images/sec
Face detection 19.2 images/sec 9.32 images/sec
Horizon detection 0.26 Gpixels/sec 0.13 Gpixels/sec
Edge detection 0.39 Gpixels/sec 0.17 Gpixels/sec
Gaussian blur 0.73 Gpixels/sec 0.4 Gpixels/sec
Feature matching 0.12 Gpixels/sec 0.04 Gpixels/sec
Stereo matching 24.1 Gpixels/sec 10.9 Gpixels/sec
Particle physics 608.2 FPS 415.5 FPS
API Metal Metal
Samples Less than 3 2 tests

3DMark

A cross-platform benchmark that assesses graphics performance in Vulkan (Metal)
3DMark Wild Life Extreme
A12 Bionic +114%
1482
Score 1482 693
Stability 65% 85%
Graphics test 8 FPS 4 FPS

Recent User Tests

The latest benchmark tests that have been submitted by users
Apple A12 Bionic
DateBenchmarkResult
๐Ÿ“˜ 2026-09-16 -> op1GeekBench CPU1344 / 4757
๐Ÿ“˜ 2026-07-31 (ะ”ะธะผะฐ)AnTuTu644981
๐Ÿ“˜ 2026-06-27 -> USAball386GeekBench GPU7868
๐Ÿ“˜ 2026-06-27 -> USAball386GeekBench CPU1306 / 2770
๐Ÿ“˜ 2026-05-12 -> GiahuyAnTuTu756483
Apple A10 Fusion
DateBenchmarkResult
๐Ÿ“˜ 2025-08-15 (hellz1)GeekBench GPU4352
๐Ÿ“˜ 2024-02-21 (Cap1bara_tech)GeekBench CPU882 / 1484

Specifications

Full list of technical specifications of A12 Bionic and A10 Fusion

CPU

Architecture 2x 2.49 GHz โ€“ Vortex
4x 1.6 GHz โ€“ Tempest
2x 2.34 GHz โ€“ Hurricane
2x 1.05 GHz โ€“ Zephyr
Cores 6 4
Frequency 2490 MHz 2340 MHz
Instruction set ARMv8.3-A ARMv8-A
L1 cache 128 KB 64 KB
L2 cache 8 MB 3 MB
L3 cache - 4 MB
Process 7 nanometers 16 nanometers
Transistor count 6.9 billion 3.3 billion
TDP (Sustained Power Limit) 6 W 5 W
Manufacturing TSMC TSMC

Graphics

GPU name Apple A12 GPU PowerVR GT7600
Architecture Apple Bionic GPU PowerVR Series7XT (Rogue)
GPU frequency 1125 MHz 650 MHz
Pipelines 4 6
Shading units 64 32
Total shaders 256 192
FLOPS 576 Gigaflops 249.6 Gigaflops
Vulkan version - 1.1
OpenCL version - 1.2

AI Accelerator

Neural processor (NPU) Neural Engine No

Memory

Memory type LPDDR4X LPDDR4
Memory frequency 2133 MHz 1333 MHz
Bus 4x 16 Bit 2x 16 Bit
Max bandwidth 34.1 Gb/s 14.9 Gb/s
Max size 4 GB 4 GB

Multimedia (ISP)

Storage type NVMe NVMe
Max display resolution 2688 x 1242 2048 x 1536
Max camera resolution 1x 32MP, 2x 12MP 1x 32MP, 2x 12MP
Video capture 4K at 60FPS 4K at 30FPS
Video playback 4K at 60FPS 4K at 30FPS
Video codecs - H.264
- H.265
- Motion JPEG
- H.264
- H.265
- VC-1
- Motion JPEG
Audio codecs - AAC
- AACโ€‘LC
- AAX ะธ AAX+
- Apple Lossless
- HEโ€‘AAC
- HEโ€‘AAC v2
- Linear PCM
- MP3
- AAC
- AIFF
- CAF
- MP3
- MP4
- WAV

Connectivity

Modem Intel XMM 7560 Qualcomm MDM9645M
4G support LTE Cat. 18 LTE Cat. 12
5G support No No
Download speed Up to 1000 Mbps Up to 600 Mbps
Upload speed Up to 350 Mbps Up to 100 Mbps
Wi-Fi 5 5
Bluetooth 5.0 4.2
Navigation GPS, GLONASS, Beidou, Galileo GPS, GLONASS, Beidou, Galileo

Info

Announced September 2018 September 2016
Class Flagship Flagship
Model number APL1W81 APL1W24
Successor - Apple A19 Pro - Apple A19 Pro

Cast your vote

So, which SoC would you choose?
568 (84.6%)
103 (15.4%)
Total votes: 671

Comments

Please give your opinion on the comparison of A10 Fusion and A12 Bionic, or ask any questions
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Avatar
Carl March 21, 2021 at 03:53 PM
Will the A12 increase the performance when streaming vs. the A10 ?
+37 Reply
Avatar
John Vore April 20, 2021 at 07:57 PM
Yes with the Apple TV, streaming will be much better. A12 is in a whole new class.
+6 Reply