In the ongoing back-and-forth between Qualcomm’s Snapdragon silicon and Apple’s A series chipsets, it’s Apple’s point to serve with the launch of the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max. And based on the performance we’ve measured from the new chip powering those phones, Apple has aced the ball right back at its rival.
Apple’s new Pro models feature an A19 Pro system-on-chip built on the latest 3nm process. With six CPU and six GPU cores, the A19 Pro figures to deliver some measure of performance improvements to the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max. And now that we’ve had the chance to benchmark those phones for our iPhone 17 Pro reviews, we see just how much improvement there is — especially when compared to the Snapdragon 8 Elite silicon found in the latest Android flagships.
If you cast your mind back to the start of this year, Samsung’s Galaxy S25 series was among the first phones to feature the Snapdragon 8 Elite. And all three S25 models released at that time certainly benefitted from Qualcomm’s improved silicon, posting numbers that left other phones in the dust. That included the iPhone 16 series, running on Apple’s A18 silicon, as those phones trailed Samsung’s latest in graphics tests as well as multicore CPU testing. (The A18 posted strong numbers in Geekbench’s single-core test relative to the Snapdragon 8 Elite.)
Now that it’s Apple’s turn to roll out its new silicon, the premium iPhones are re-establishing themselves as the devices to turn to for the very best performance among handsets. Here’s what we learned after testing the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max.
A19 Pro: Overall performance
Every time we review a phone, we run the latest version of Geekbench on it. Both the single-core and multicore Geekbench tests give us a good idea of how overall CPU performance compares across devices on different platforms.
|
Phone |
Processor |
Geekbench results |
|
iPhone 17 Pro |
A19 Pro |
3834 / 9988 |
|
iPhone 17 Pro Max |
A19 Pro |
3871 / 9968 |
|
Galaxy S25 |
Snapdragon 8 Elite |
2916 / 9886 |
|
Galaxy S25 Plus |
Snapdragon 8 Elite |
3141 / 10153 |
|
Galaxy S25 Ultra |
Snapdragon 8 Elite |
3031 / 9829 |
The iPhone 17 Pro Max — the top-device in Apple’s new lineup — turns in respective single and multicore results of 3,871 and 9,968. That’s a 14% improvement over the iPhone 16 Pro Max’s single-core result on Geekbench, while the multicore score went up by a more impressive 20%.
As for the iPhone 17 Pro, its Geekbench scores of 3,834 and 9.988 were in the same range as the Pro Max.
More importantly, the gains in multicore performance put the latest iPhones on a level playing field with Samsung’s current flagship devices. In fact, both the iPhone 17 Pro edged past the Galaxy S25 Ultra’s multicore result of 9,829. (The iPhone 17 Pro Max’s result was just behind that, but only slightly.) The Galaxy S25 Plus continues to post the best multicore result on Geekbench, but that feels like kind of an outlier when looking at the scores.
The A18 Pro chip already turned in better single-core Geekbench test numbers than the Snapdragon 8 Elite, and the A19 Pro expands on that. And now multicore performance differences a largely negligible between the two platforms.
|
Phone |
Processor |
Adobe Premiere Rush transcoding (Mins:Secs) |
|
iPhone 17 Pro |
A19 Pro |
0:22 |
|
iPhone 17 Pro Max |
A19 Pro |
0:22 |
|
Galaxy S25 |
Snapdragon 8 Elite |
0:53 |
|
Galaxy S25 Plus |
Snapdragon 8 Elite |
0:52 |
|
Galaxy S25 Ultra |
Snapdragon 8 Elite |
0:52 |
Another test we run on phones involves transcoding a video clip using Adobe Premiere Rush and timing how long it takes. iPhones traditionally lap the competition, and that’s not changing with the A19 Pro. Both iPhone 17 Pro models completed the task in 22 seconds, while every Galaxy S25 model took over twice as long.
A19 Pro: Graphics performance
The real story with the A19 Pro is how much it’s improved graphics performance for Apple’s premium phones. In recent years, the top-of-the-line Snapdragon chipset has pulled well ahead of Apple’s silicon in this area, posting much better numbers than the latest iPhones.
Earlier this year, for example, the Galaxy S25 Ultra’s performance on the 3DMark Solar Bay Unlimited graphics test resulted in much higher frame rates compared to the iPhone 16 Pro Max — 42.4 fps vs. 28.4. With the A19 Pro upgrade, though, Apple’s phones close that gap — and then some.
|
Phone |
3DMark Solar Bay Unlimited (fps) |
3DMark Wild Life Unlimited (fps) |
|
iPhone 17 Pro |
46.6 |
158.4 |
|
iPhone 17 Pro Max |
46.6 |
159.5 |
|
Galaxy S25 |
43.4 |
158 |
|
Galaxy S25 Plus |
43.7 |
157.1 |
|
Galaxy S25 Ultra |
42.4 |
161.7 |
Both iPhone Pro models turned in 46.4 fps results on the Solar Bay Unlimited test, which measures GPU performance. That was better than all three Galaxy S25 models.
On the more forgiving Wild Life Unlimited test, the Galaxy S25 Ultra still has the best result at 161.7 fps. But the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max weren’t that far off — something the iPhone 16 Pro Max couldn’t claim.
Other A19 Pro testing notes
This year’s iPhone Pro models also are the first Apple phones to ship with a vapor chamber cooling system, a feature that directs heat away from the important components inside your phone. That should result in better sustained performance and less of the overheating that’s affected recent iPhone Pro models.
You can read about the impact of the vapor chamber on the iPhone 17 Pro’s sustained performance in our separate report, but as noted in the iPhone 17 Pro Max review, in multiple runs of the 3DMark Wild Life Extreme Stress Test, we calculated a stability score of 72% for Apple’s latest phone. That was a slight improvement over the iPhone 16 Pro Max’s 70% score, but it was much better than the 58.3% we recorded with the Galaxy S25 Ultra.
A19 Pro outlook
Recent iPhone Pro phones have hardly been sluggards, turning in very strong performance in both testing and real-world use. But at the same time, Android phones powered by the latest Snapdragon silicon were making big gains, particularly in the area of graphics performance. The A19 Pro chipset inside the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max shows a bold response from Apple.
And we may not have to wait long to see what future Android phones will have to offer compared to Apple’s latest. Qualcomm holds its Snapdragon Summit next week, and that’s likely to bring a first look at the silicon powering next year’s Android phones.
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