Recently, Apple released its budget iPhone- The iPhone SE with a very lucrative price tag and some very interesting features. The most prominent aspect of this phone is its internals. The iPhone SE 2020 has a body of an iPhone 8 but has the brains of an iPhone 11. It is powered by the same breed of Apple A13 Bionic and has 3GB of RAM. However, recent benchmark scores suggest that the A13 Bionic Chipset present in the iPhone SE is actually weaker than the ones present on the iPhone 11 series.
AnTuTu benchmark of the new iPhone SE shows a score way lower than the likes of the iPhone 11 series. The iPhone SE scored 492166 while the iPhone 11 and the iPhone 11 pro scored 517400,521010 respectively. This seems like a case of underclocking of the SoC on the iPhone SE.
What is underclocking?
Underclocking is in lucid terms is basically running the Processor slower than its true potential. It is done usually by reducing the clock speed of the CPU cores
Why is it being done?
There are many reasons for underclocking a CPU. In the case of the iPhone SE, the most plausible reason seems battery consumption. As the iPhone SE has a very small battery (less than 2000mAh) and there is a chance that Apple might have reduced the A13 Bionics’ power in order to preserve battery life. It could also be that since the iPhone SE has a lower Resolution screen, it might not need as much horsepower as the 11 series to perform. Thermal performance should not be an issue as the A13 bionic is built on the 7nm architecture making it very thermally efficient.
The real reason behind the underclock is not known but, the iPhone SE is still is a very capable phone with excellent value for money and features.