Some dude on Reddit with an iPhone 16 Pro Max strapped a cooling setup to their phone and managed to beat the binned A19 Pro chip inside the iPhone Air in benchmark tests. The actively cooled A18 Pro pulled 3,630 single-core and 9,648 multi-core on Geekbench 6 while the iPhone Air with its A19 Pro hit 3,687 single and 9,390 multi.
Apple basically left performance on the table by skipping a vapor chamber in the previous generation flagships. With proper thermal management, the older silicon runs neck and neck with the newer stuff, which makes the whole generation gap look pretty weak. Another test showed the 16 Pro Max hitting 90 percent performance stability in 3DMark when strapped with M.2 SSD coolers, proving thermal solutions actually work on these phones.
Apple basically left performance on the table by skipping a vapor chamber in the previous generation flagships. With proper thermal management, the older silicon runs neck and neck with the newer stuff, which makes the whole generation gap look pretty weak. Another test showed the 16 Pro Max hitting 90 percent performance stability in 3DMark when strapped with M.2 SSD coolers, proving thermal solutions actually work on these phones.
