Danny Weber
17:02 27-09-2025
© Apple
Apple's A19 in iPhone 17 scores 5,149 in PassMark single-thread, besting desktop CPUs at ~4 W. A19 Pro hits 5,088. Exceptional efficiency, expected multi-core dip
Apple has set a new benchmark: the A19 chip in the iPhone 17 delivered the world’s best single-thread result in PassMark, outpacing even desktop-class processors. It scored 5,149 points, moving ahead of the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K, AMD EPYC 4585PX, and Apple’s own M3 Ultra used in desktops. All of this comes with passive cooling and a power draw of roughly 4 W, while competitors operate at tens of watts—an efficiency margin that’s hard to overlook.
Notably, the A19 Pro found in the iPhone 17 Air and Pro models landed only slightly behind at 5,088 points, which is attributed to an identical architecture and a difference only in core count. Taken together, these numbers make Apple’s mobile silicon the most efficient CPU in the world where single-core performance matters, laying bare a striking gap in energy efficiency and underscoring how firmly Apple holds the single-thread crown.
There is, however, a catch in multi-core workloads: the A19 falls back as expected, simply because a mobile chip has fewer compute units to bring to bear. Even so, considering the iPhone 17 doesn’t use a vapor chamber for cooling, the outcome is impressive. Experts caution that PassMark shouldn’t be treated as an absolute standard, yet the takeaway remains the same: in single-threaded performance, Apple has once again pulled ahead.