iOS 18 dramatically accelerates iPhone 15 Pro Max neural processing

Geekbench results comparing iPhone 15 Pro Max Machine Learning performance in iOS 17 versus iOS 18 are showing that there is a significant speed increase, even in beta.

The iPhone 15 Pro Max hardware was already a considerable speed improvement over its predecessor, according to general Geekbench 6 figures. Now, however, the first results of the iPhone 15 Pro Max using iOS 18 and specifically its Neural Processing Unit, have shown that the device can be even faster.

As first singled out in a thread on X/Twitter, the figures are surprisingly high. But they appear to be borne out by a series of results on Geekbench's site.

So using iOS 17.5.1 — and again, specifically for neural engine processing — the iPhone 15 Pro Max earned a Geekbench score of 6249. Seemingly the same device updated to iOS 18, earned a score of 7816 on the same test.

Scores and specifications don't tend to translate easily into universal real-world scenarios. That's especially true when the scores are solely for the Machine Learning element.

But it still demonstrates that iOS 18 is optimizing the iPhone's neural engine cores more than iOS 17 did.

The same source says that the results are even more dramatic over Geekbench's various text classification tests. There updating to iOS 18 improved one result over by 1,000%.

AppleInsider still recommends that no one update to iOS 18, unless they have a business need, or they have a spare iPhone.