Apple has launched the iPhone 18 Pro and the biggest upgrade this year is the A20 Pro, which is the first iPhone chip built on TSMC's 2nm process. On the Android side, its natural rival is MediaTek's Dimensity 9500 chipset. Last year, the Dimensity 9500 proved that it's a flagship silicon, especially the GPU. So in this guide, we have compared the A20 Pro and Dimensity 9500 across Geekbench, AnTuTu, 3DMark, etc. On that note, let's begin.
A20 Pro vs Dimensity 9500: AnTuTu Score
| AnTuTu V11 Benchmark | Apple A20 Pro | Dimensity 9500 |
|---|---|---|
| AnTuTu Score | 3,424,974 | 3,331,723 |
| CPU | 905,331 | 964,510 |
| GPU | 1,391,732 | 1,330,281 |
| Memory | 428,272 | 395,484 |
| UX | 699,639 | 641,448 |
First up is AnTuTu V11, where the A20 Pro scored 3,424,974 points total and the Dimensity 9500 scored 3,331,723 points. Keep in mind that AnTuTu has different backends for iOS and Android and its developers don't recommend comparing results across the two.
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A20 Pro vs Dimensity 9500: Geekbench Score
| Geekbench 6 CPU | Apple A20 Pro | Dimensity 9500 |
|---|---|---|
| Single-core | 4,707 | 3,315 |
| Multi-core | 12,598 | 9,914 |
In Geekbench 6 CPU, the A20 Pro chipset, running on the iPhone 18 Pro Max scored 4,707 points in single-core, whereas the Dimensity 9500 managed 3,315 points. It makes the A20 Pro around 42% faster than the Dimensity 9500 in single-core, which is a huge margin.
The multi-core result is more surprising. MediaTek has added eight CPU cores while Apple has packed six CPU cores, yet the A20 Pro scored 12,598 points, compared to Dimensity 9500's 9,914 points. It means Apple leads by around 27% in multi-threaded workloads too.
This year, Apple has included two Super cores, which are clocked at 4.93GHz, while the Dimensity 9500's single C1-Ultra core peaks at 4.21GHz. Apple has also improved a lot over its own last-gen chip and our A20 Pro vs A19 Pro comparison shows 21% and 29% gains in single-core and multi-core.
By the way, MediaTek has also launched its 2nm flagship chip and we have compared the Dimensity 9600 Pro with A20 Pro in a separate guide. Despite the claimed figures, Apple still leads in single-core tasks.
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A20 Pro vs Dimensity 9500: 3DMark Score
| 3DMark Wild Life Extreme Stress Test | Apple A20 Pro | Dimensity 9500 |
|---|---|---|
| Best Loop Score | 8,793 | 7,184 |
| Lowest Loop Score | 7,032 | 3,286 |
| Stability | 80% | 45.7% |
The 3DMark Wild Life Extreme Stress Test loops the same heavy scene 20 times to test the GPU performance over a longer time. Here, the A20 Pro's 7-core GPU scored a best loop of 8,793 points. The Mali G1-Ultra inside the Dimensity 9500 peaked at 7,184 points, so Apple is around 22% faster at peak performance.
Now, when we looked at the GPU performance across 20 loops, things got worse for MediaTek. The Dimensity 9500's score dropped to 3,286 points with a stability of just 45.7%. Apple's GPU never went below 7,032 points and finished with an impressive 80% stability.
Basically, the A20 Pro's weakest loop score was over 2x higher than the Dimensity 9500's weakest score. Apple has substantially improved the thermal performance this year, thanks to the new chipset packaging, which moves the RAM beside the chip. In addition, the vapour chamber inside the iPhone 18 Pro Max is 3x bigger in surface area than last year's iPhone 17 Pro Max.
For context, the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 fared even worse at 25%, as you can see in our A20 Pro vs Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 comparison.
| 3DMark Test | Apple A20 Pro | Dimensity 9500 |
|---|---|---|
| Solar Bay Score | 15,752 | 14,450 |
| Solar Bay Average FPS | 59.9 | 54.94 |
| Steel Nomad Light Score | 4,018 | 3,179 |
| Steel Nomad Light Average FPS | 29.8 | 23.55 |
In the Solar Bay ray tracing test, the Dimensity 9500 put up a good fight. It scored 14,450 points at 54.94 FPS, while A20 Pro's GPU delivered 15,752 points at 59.9 FPS. Apple has a lead of around 9% in ray tracing.
Steel Nomad Light, however, is a different story. This test has more complex scenes and here, the A20 Pro got 4,018 points (29.8 FPS), whereas the Mali-G1 Ultra managed 3,179 points (23.55 FPS). Apple's 7-core GPU is around 26% faster despite having fewer cores than the 12-core Mali G1-Ultra GPU.
Last year, Apple was chasing MediaTek in graphics performance, but this year, the roles have reversed. Nevertheless, MediaTek may still take the first position with Arm's latest Mali G2-Ultra NX GPU integrated inside the Dimensity 9600 Pro processor.
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A20 Pro vs Dimensity 9500: Speedometer Score
Finally, we ran Speedometer, which measures how fast a browser handles modern web apps and heavy webpages. The A20 Pro recorded a whopping 66.1 points in Speedometer 3.1, while the Dimensity 9500 scored 18.1 points in Speedometer 3.0.
Since the two results come from different versions, it's not an exact comparison. Even then, a 3.6x gap is massive and it shows how fast the A20 Pro is in handling complex webpages.
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A20 Pro vs Dimensity 9500: Benchmark Gallery
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A20 Pro vs Dimensity 9500: Specs Comparison
| Specs | Apple A20 Pro | Dimensity 9500 |
|---|---|---|
| Process Node | TSMC's 2nm (N2) | TSMC's 3nm (N3P) |
| CPU | 6-core Apple CPU (2 + 4) | 8-core Arm C1-series CPU |
| CPU Cores | 2x Super cores at 4.93GHz, 4x Efficiency cores at 2.64GHz | 1x C1-Ultra at 4.21GHz, 3x C1-Premium at 3.50GHz, 4x C1-Pro at 2.70GHz |
| GPU | 7-core Apple GPU at 1620MHz, Neural Accelerators, HW-accelerated Ray Tracing | Arm Mali-G1 Ultra MC12 |
| NPU | Dual 16-core Neural Engine (32-core), 44 TOPS FP16, 73 TOPS INT8 | MediaTek NPU 990 |
| ISP | 4K Dolby Vision video recording up to 120 fps, 1080p slow-motion up to 240 fps | Imagiq 1190, 320MP image, 8K60FPS video capture |
| Storage and Memory | 12GB LPDDR5X, 96-bit bus, 9600MT/s, 115.2GB/s bandwidth | UFS 4.1 (4-lane), LPDDR5X, Up to 10667 Mbps |
| Modem | Apple C2 5G modem | MediaTek Release 17 5G (Sub-6GHz), Up to 7.4Gbps peak |
| Connectivity | Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6, Thread (Apple N1) | Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6.0 |
Verdict
In conclusion, the A20 Pro is a beast of a chip and and it easily beats the Dimensity 9500. The A20 Pro CPU is 42% faster in single-core and 27% faster in multi-core performance. Not to mention, its 7-core GPU is up to 26% faster in 3DMark.
When we first compared these two chips, I expected MediaTek's 12-core Mali-G1 Ultra to hold on to the graphics lead. Instead, Apple's 7-core GPU defeated it both in peak and sustained performance with a remarkable 80% stability.
Still, the Dimensity 9500 has its strengths. My only advice is to pick a phone with strong cooling because this chip loses over half of its performance under long loads.
Nevertheless, to check where MediaTek stands against Qualcomm's 2026 flagship, check out our Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 vs Dimensity 9600 Pro comparison.
