Apple iPhone 11 review

The A13 Bionic is the fastest chip Apple has ever made

Apple iPhone 11, just like the 11 Pro and 11 Pro Max, runs on the latest Apple A13 Bionic chip. The A13 has 8.5 billion transistors and is built on a 7nm+ process. The chipset is faster and more power-efficient than the A12.

As the Bionic name suggests the A13 chip is more of an improved sequel, rather than a major chip redesign. That was to be expected - usually the Speed models are the bearers of new chip innovations.

The Apple A13 Bionic chip packs a hexa-core processor with 2x2.65 GHz Lightning high-performance cores and 4x1.8 GHz Thunder efficient CPU cores. The Lightning cores are 20% faster, 30% more efficient. Once again Apple has chosen some cool names for its processor cores.

The A13 SoC has a new GPU that keeps the 4-core design introduced with A12. But is now 20% faster and a whopping 40% more efficient when delivering the same performance as A12's GPU.

The third generation Neural Engine has 8 cores (20% faster, 15% more efficient) and is in charge of image processing features such as Deep Fusion and Night Mode. Deep Fusion will be released as a software update later this year and it's Apple's version of HDR+. It takes 4 photos before you press the shutter, 4 when you do and then 1 long exposure. Then it picks the best shots and fuses them together. Night Mode is available at launch.

Finally, all iPhone 11 devices come with 4GB of RAM. There are theories that the new ISP has dedicated 2GB of RAM because it would be close to impossible to do what it does without, but it is integrated within the A13 chip and until someone reverse engineers its complex architecture, this will remain just a theory.

And now it's time to run some benchmarks.

We ran GeekBench first. Apple has been a leader in GeekBench charts, and with the A13, it continues to be the chart-topper. The Lightning core is much faster than anything the Android competition has to offer and 15% faster than the Vortex core within the iPhone XS and Apple A12.

GeekBench 4.1 (single-core)

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone 11 Pro
  5483
• Apple iPhone 11
  5477
• Apple iPhone XS
  4823
• Apple iPhone XR
  4818
• Samsung Galaxy Note10
  4544
• Samsung Galaxy S10e
  4518
• Apple iPhone X
  4256
• Sony Xperia 5
  3493
• OnePlus 7 Pro
  3402
• Huawei P30 Pro (perf. mode)
  3323
• Redmi K20 Pro/Mi 9T Pro
  3000

The multi-core performance is now 20% faster than the previous generation iPhone XS/XR and their A12 processor. And much faster than any Android CPU.

GeekBench 4.1 (multi-core)

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone 11
  13882
• Apple iPhone 11 Pro
  13829
• Apple iPhone XS
  11472
• Apple iPhone XR
  11437
• OnePlus 7 Pro
  10943
• Sony Xperia 5
  10941
• Redmi K20 Pro/Mi 9T Pro
  10684
• Samsung Galaxy Note10
  10353
• Apple iPhone X
  10215
• Samsung Galaxy S10e
  10081
• Huawei P30 Pro (perf. mode)
  10014

Now, let's see if the new 4-core GPU will also live up to the promise of 20% performance upgrade. We know little about Apple's custom GPUs. The A11 had a 3-core one, the A12 had a 4-core, and the A13 also has a 4-core one. But that's pretty much it.

The best way to inspect the raw performance is to run some offscreen benchmarks. And the A13 GPU demonstrated chart-topping performance across the four offscreen tests we ran - Manhattan 3.0 and 3.1, Car Chase, and 3D Mark. It seems Apple has delivered once again on its promises.

GFX 3.0 Manhattan (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone 11
  179
• Apple iPhone 11 Pro
  178
• Apple iPhone XR
  136
• Apple iPhone XS
  114
• OnePlus 7T
  112
• Redmi K20 Pro/Mi 9T Pro
  101
• Samsung Galaxy Note10
  99
• Samsung Galaxy S10e
  95
• OnePlus 7 Pro
  92
• Huawei P30 Pro (perf. mode)
  90
• Sony Xperia 5
  88
• Apple iPhone X
  81

GFX 3.1 Manhattan (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone 11
  121
• Apple iPhone 11 Pro
  118
• Apple iPhone XS
  98
• Apple iPhone XR
  97
• OnePlus 7T
  79
• Redmi K20 Pro/Mi 9T Pro
  71
• Sony Xperia 5
  69
• OnePlus 7 Pro
  68
• Samsung Galaxy S10e
  67
• Apple iPhone X
  65
• Samsung Galaxy Note10
  59
• Huawei P30 Pro (perf. mode)
  56

GFX 3.1 Car scene (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone 11
  76
• Apple iPhone 11 Pro
  66
• Apple iPhone XR
  60
• Apple iPhone XS
  60
• OnePlus 7T
  48
• Samsung Galaxy S10e
  42
• Redmi K20 Pro/Mi 9T Pro
  42
• OnePlus 7 Pro
  41
• Sony Xperia 5
  40
• Apple iPhone X
  37
• Huawei P30 Pro (perf. mode)
  33
• Samsung Galaxy Note10
  28

3DMark SSE 3.1 Unlimited

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone 11
  6162
• OnePlus 7 Pro
  6093
• Apple iPhone 11 Pro
  6091
• Sony Xperia 5
  5592
• Samsung Galaxy Note10
  5269
• Redmi K20 Pro/Mi 9T Pro
  4850
• Apple iPhone XS
  4818
• Samsung Galaxy S10e
  4545
• Huawei P30 Pro (perf. mode)
  4315
• Apple iPhone X
  3217

We also ran the Car Scene onscreen test with the iPhone 11 (828p) and the iPhone 11 Pro (1125p) as all other onscreen tests of the GFX Benchmark reached 60fps - the maximum a 60Hz screen can display. Well, the numbers speak for themselves.

GFX 3.1 Car scene (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone 11
  60
• Apple iPhone XR
  58
• Apple iPhone 11 Pro
  57
• Apple iPhone XS
  47
• OnePlus 7T
  41
• Samsung Galaxy S10e
  40
• Redmi K20 Pro/Mi 9T Pro
  36
• Sony Xperia 5
  33
• Huawei P30 Pro (perf. mode)
  29
• Apple iPhone X
  28
• Samsung Galaxy Note10
  28
• OnePlus 7 Pro
  19

Finally, we ran the compound AnTuTu 7 test and the iPhone 11 aced it, although it scored a bit lower than the iPhone 11 Pro.

AnTuTu 7

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone 11 Pro
  460784
• Apple iPhone 11
  419453
• Redmi K20 Pro/Mi 9T Pro
  368846
• OnePlus 7 Pro
  364025
• Apple iPhone XS
  346379
• Samsung Galaxy Note10
  344442
• Apple iPhone XR
  341196
• Sony Xperia 5
  334809
• Samsung Galaxy S10e
  325192
• Huawei P30 Pro (perf. mode)
  316156
• Apple iPhone X
  233100

There was no doubt the Apple A13 chip is be the fastest smartphone SoC on the planet right now. It has been this way since Apple switched to inhouse designed chips and that was probably one of the best decision Apple could make since the first iPhone.

The A13 is a noticeable upgrade over the A12, and with the added graphene layers it offers better cooling and sustained performance for a very long time. The graphene disperses the heat equally over the frame and the glass back and instead of hot spots, the iPhone 11 just get warm all over the back. And we didn't observe much throttling even after consecutive benchmark tests.

The Apple A13 Bionic chip is once again way ahead of the Android gang, which by the way finally managed to match the A11 chip performance from 2017. Of course, this doesn't really matter as A13, or any other Apple chip, will never see the light of day running under Android.

So, long story short, the A13 is the promised upgrade over the A12 chip, and also - the new king in smartphone markets and we bet it will keep topping charts until Apple's A14 comes next year.