Although Apple did not announce any new iPhones during its September event, the company detailed the heart of the phones of the future: the Apple A14 chipset. Based on Apple’s claims in the announcement, we estimate it has a 17% faster CPU and 8% better GPU than its predecessor and a recently unveiled benchmark shows that these numbers are close enough.
An AnTuTu benchmark run on the iPhone 12 Pro Max reveals a 16% higher CPU score and a 4% better GPU result. However, there is a more pronounced increase in memory speed – 22%, but overall, the performance gains are clearly less.
The combined result of 572,333 The points may seem low, considering that the Android Snapdragon 865+ competition surpasses the 600,000 mark, but the cross-platform benchmark comparison is not really a level playing field because there are differences in how tasks are executed.
However, the comparison with the A13 should be completely relevant and shows that the world’s first 5nm chipset will not bring the performance leap that many expected. There are three explanations that come to mind.
For one thing, Apple could have prioritized battery consumption over total performance, causing the A14 to use less power, while achieving roughly the same performance. That is very likely to be the case, as the pioneering A14 Bionic, the fourth-generation Apple iPad Air, has the same battery life as its predecessor despite having an 8% smaller cell.
Alternatively, the switch to 5nm chipsets might not produce the gains we were all hoping for. While in theory the nearly 30% smaller process should offer a big efficiency boost, it can take time to fully utilize.
Finally, this could be an engineering sample and the performance of the final units can be much better. However, with Apple itself claiming modest earnings close to these results, it seems like a long shot.
