The first seemingly real benchmark for the A19 Pro chip in the iPhone 17 Pro, Pro Max and iPhone Air have started to appear in the Geekbench 6 database. The scores are unconfirmed but the initial results reveal a very powerful CPU.
The new A-series chip is more around 15% faster than last year's A18 Pro in the iPhone 16 Pro and on par with the Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset in the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra. Apple said in its press release that the A19 Pro delivers 40% improved "sustained" performance in comparison to the A18 Pro.
"When paired with the Apple-designed vapor chamber, A19 Pro enables iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max to deliver up to 40 percent better sustained performance than the previous generation — ideal for gaming, video editing, and running large local language models," the press release reads.
The benchmark looks to have been made using a 12GB iPhone 17 Pro. The iPhone 17 Pro Max uses the same chip but has more thermal headroom so it might provide slightly better performance, but this is a good baseline. Here's how this single benchmark compares to its biggest rivals and predecessor.
| Header Cell - Column 0 | Single Score | Multicore Score |
|---|---|---|
iPhone 17 Pro | 3,895 | 9,746 |
Galaxy S25 Ultra | 3,031 | 9,829 |
iPhone 16 Pro Max | 3,386 | 8,306 |
OnePlus 13 | 2,893 | 9,058 |
Google Pixel 10 Pro XL | 2,322 | 6,286 |
Google's Tensor chips have slowly improved, making the Pixel 10 Pro XL a good phone, but it can't compete performance-wise.
Apple has tended to best Samsung when it comes to single-core scores. The same appears true here with the iPhone 17 Pro hitting 3,895 while the S25 Ultra comes in at 3,031.
The S25 Ultra slightly beats out the A19 Pro in multiscore at 9,829 compared to 9,746. But this is just one test. In our testing we'll make multiple runs and then find an average score.
We've been able to do an initial hands-on review of the iPhone 17 Pro and 17 Pro Max but we won't know how they will truly perform until we're able to put the phones through the paces in our testing lab.
iPhone 17 Pro graphics performance
Interestingly, another leak (via Vadim Yuryev) revealed a Geekbench score for the phone's graphics performance and the A19 Pro is insane.
This leaked benchmark gave the chip a Metal score of 45,657. Metal is a fancy word for the way Apple describes its GPU. For our comparisons, the 45,657 score is on par with the M2 chip, which was available in the 6th-generation iPad Pro and 2022 MacBook Air and MacBook Pro.
Currently, the M2 chip powers the Apple Vision Pro headset and the iPad Air Gen 6, both of which launched in 2024. As my colleague Jason England points out, if these numbers hold up, the A19 Pro may be overkill in your iPhone. He suggests that it needs to be slotted into a less expensive 12-inch MacBook.
The leaked numbers already are better than several of the best budget laptops, including the M1 MacBook Air.
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