Apple’s newest iPhone 17 family arrives powered by the A19 chip series — the standard A19 for the base models, and the A19 Pro for the Air and Pro editions. Both chips represent the peak of Apple’s mobile silicon to date. According to PassMark’s single-thread benchmark, the A19 managed to outperform every processor tested, even full-sized desktop CPUs, all while staying cool without the help of active cooling systems. The results were so strong that the A19 is currently recognized as the fastest single-core processor available.
Interestingly, the A19 actually edged out its Pro counterpart in official testing, scoring 5,149 points compared to the Pro’s 5,088. The small gap is logical since both processors share the same core architecture, with the Pro model simply featuring more total cores. These results put the A19 ahead of heavyweight chips like Apple’s M3 Ultra desktop processors, Intel’s Core Ultra 9 285K, and AMD’s EPYC 4585PX — all of which require substantial cooling to operate.
PassMark also estimated power efficiency, suggesting that the A19 likely consumed just 4 watts under single-core load, compared to around 44 watts for the 285K and 56 watts for the EPYC. Even if those estimates are off, the gulf is wide enough to show that Apple’s mobile chip dominates when it comes to efficiency.
That said, the A19 is still a smartphone processor, so its performance doesn’t scale as strongly in multi-threaded workloads. With fewer cores available, it naturally falls behind desktop-class CPUs in that area. Still, the fact that these results come from a phone without a vapor chamber cooling system makes the achievement even more notable. While the test isn’t the most scientific measurement available, the outcome clearly demonstrates just how far Apple’s chip design has advanced.
