With each new generation of iPhone, Apple is obviously making progress with its processors and other hardware, as well as iOS. But according to recent reports, the iPhone is about to make a big jump in processing speed this time around.

Apple has decided to stick with the Taiwan-based TSMC for its A12 chip, the processor that will go into the 2018 iPhones. These use a new 7nm manufacturing process, as opposed to the 10nm used for the previous A11 Bionic. According to Macworld’s Jason Cross, that might make a huge difference. 

“The company paints a very rosy picture,” he says in the piece. That’s because TSMC claims the 7nm offers “1.6X logic density, ~20% speed improvement, and ~40% power reduction.”

“In other words,” Cross adds, “if Apple were to produce the exact same A11 Bionic chip with the 7nm process, it could be roughly 40 percent smaller, and use either 40 percent less power running at the same speed, or run at a 20 percent higher clock speed at the same power.”

However, Cross does note that the A11 itself provided a huge jump in performance. So while the A12 should provide a year-on-year improvement, the difference may not be as stark as say, when the iPhone 8 came out.

In short, Cross and others believe the new 2018 iPhones should exhibit a 25 to 30 percent performance boost on average. On the other hand, GPU performance should climb even higher this year, somewhere in the range of 40 percent. Whether or not this actually gives you a better gaming experience will depend on the memory available to the device.

As a side note, while “screen on” battery consumption may not change all that much, the A12 should also improve idle time on the new iPhone. In addition, the larger battery should account for longer single charge usage all around.

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