New iPad Mini Has Downclocked A15 Chip Compared to iPhone 13

Both the iPhone 13 and the new iPad mini are equipped with Apple's latest A15 Bionic chip, but benchmark results reveal that the chip is downclocked to 2.9GHz in the iPad mini, compared to 3.2GHz in all iPhone 13 models.

As to be expected, the downclocked chip appears to have a small 2-8% impact on the iPad mini's performance compared to iPhone 13 models. In early Geekbench 5 results, the new iPad mini has average single-core and multi-core scores of around 1,595 and 4,540, compared to averages of around 1,730 and 4,660 for the iPhone 13 Pro.

MacRumors ran the benchmarks by Geekbench founder John Poole, who said the results appear to be legitimate, including the 2.9GHz clock speed.

It's unclear why Apple has downclocked the A15 chip in the iPad mini, but most users are unlikely to encounter any issues with performance using the device. Even with a downclocked A15 chip, the new iPad mini is up to 40% faster in single-core performance and up to 70% faster in multi-core performance compared to the previous-generation iPad mini with an A12 chip, according to benchmarks. We've reached out to Apple for comment.

The new iPad mini is available to order now and launches Friday, September 24. iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Pro pre-orders begin tomorrow at 5 a.m. Pacific Time, and we've also shared iPhone 13 benchmarks for those interested.