Apple rolled out its latest iPhone lineup recently. At the “Awe Dropping” event, held at Apple Park in California on September 9, 2025, we saw four new models: the iPhone 17, iPhone Air, iPhone 17 Pro, and iPhone 17 Pro Max. As always, tech fans immediately wanted to know how powerful these new phones really are.
That’s where Geekbench comes in. This popular testing tool quickly got its hands on all four iPhone 17 models. The tests gave us our first look at the performance of Apple’s new A19 and A19 Pro chips. These chips are the brains behind this year’s iPhone family.
Let’s start with the standard iPhone 17, known by its model number iPhone 18,3. This phone uses the A19 chip and comes with 8 GB of fast LPDDR5x RAM. Its main processor scores were quite good:
- Single-Core (one processor core working): 3,608 points
- Multi-Core (all processor cores working together): 8,810 points
These numbers show a decent jump from last year. The single-core score was 10% higher, and the multi-core score was 11% higher than the A18 chip found in the iPhone 16. The graphics chip also saw a big improvement, scoring 37,014 Metal points. That’s a 33% boost over the iPhone 16.
Moving on to the iPhone Air (model iPhone 18,4), this model steps up to the A19 Pro chip and a larger 12 GB of LPDDR5x RAM. Its main processor scores were:
- Single-Core: 3,674 points
- Multi-Core: 8,824 points
For graphics, the iPhone Air scored 37,743 Metal points. It seems the “Air” model gets more RAM and the “Pro” chip, but its core CPU performance is very close to the regular iPhone 17.
The true powerhouses, the iPhone 17 Pro (model iPhone 18,1) and iPhone 17 Pro Max (model iPhone 18,2), both also use the A19 Pro chip and have 12 GB of LPDDR5x RAM. The iPhone 17 Pro’s main processor scores were:
- Single-Core: 3,523 points
- Multi-Core: 9,028 points
Its graphics chip hit 44,342 Metal points. This is a nice 17% gain over the iPhone Air and a 32% jump compared to last year’s iPhone 16 Pro.
Finally, the top-tier iPhone 17 Pro Max really shines. Its main processor scores were:
- Single-Core: 3,781 points
- Multi-Core: 9,679 points
The Pro Max’s graphics performance was particularly strong, reaching 45,657 Metal points. This is an impressive 40% faster than the iPhone 16 Pro Max. While the CPU gains across the board are modest, the graphics power seems to be where Apple focused its efforts, especially with the Pro Max. It makes you wonder what kind of demanding games or apps they expect us to run.
