Apple's A19 chip has become the world's fastest single-threaded CPU according to PassMark

Apple introduced the A19 chip along with the iPhone 17, and it’s already seen record-breaking results in benchmarks. In PassMark’s single-threaded benchmark, the A19 scored 5,149 points and beat all existing CPUs, including desktop models.

Record-breaking performance and power efficiency

The standard A19 in the iPhone 17 and the A19 Pro, which powers the iPhone 17 Air and Pro, are nearly equal in performance. The difference was only a few dozen points: 5,149 for the A19 and 5,088 for the A19 Pro.

Apple M3 Ultra (in 28-core and 32-core versions),
Intel Core Ultra 9 285K,
AMD EPYC 4585PX.

These processors run with active cooling and significantly higher power consumption. PassMark estimated the power consumption when loaded per core: the iPhone 17 A19 uses about 4 watts, the Intel Core Ultra 9 uses 44 watts, and the AMD EPYC uses about 56 watts. Even with possible errors, the difference is still a multiple.

Multicore Limitations

The A19’s main weakness is scaling under multithreaded workloads. Because of the lower number of cores compared to desktop processors, it is inferior in overall performance. However, for a mobile device without a vapor chamber, these results look impressive.