What appear to be early benchmarks of the iPhone XS have appeared on Geekbench, giving a rawer view of the device's specifications than those offered by Apple.
The listed phone's A12 Bionic chip is clocked at 2.49 gigahertz, a relatively small boost over the 2.39 gigahertz of the iPhone X's A11. The XS does however have four times as much L1 cache memory, 128 kilobytes, and about 4 gigabytes of RAM, at least on the tested configuration. As it's only labeled "iPhone 11,6," it's not certain whether the device is an XS, an XS Max, or possibly even the XR, assuming the entry is authentic.
Comparisons with the A11 suggest the A12 may actually perform slightly worse in multi-core benchmarks, but over 500 points faster in single-core. In real-world situations the A12 is likely to be universally faster, taking advantage of things like its updated Neural Engine for machine learning tasks.
Apple typically leaves detailed numbers out of its "tech specs" pages, preferring to sell people on broader metrics and individual features instead. The company also counts on self-designed silicon and optimized software to provide a smooth experience.
Preorders for the iPhone XS start on Friday ahead of a Sept. 21 launch. Orders for the XR will only start on Oct. 19.