Our iPhone 14 reviews are out, with Mark Spoonauer and I both impressed with the iPhone 14 Pro Max, iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14. In the case of the Pro models in particular, we need to select the new A16 Bionic chipset that powers Apple’s high-end phones. .
You read that right. The iPhone 14 (and iPhone 14 Plus) doesn’t get the A16, and instead sticks to last year’s A15 Bionic – albeit the more powerful version of the iPhone 13 Pro. This isn’t necessarily bad, because the iPhone 14 is still way ahead of even the best Android phones, as you’ll see in a bit.
As part of our smartphone review process, we run each phone through a set of benchmarks to test CPU and GPU performance. The test includes Geekbench 5, Geekbench ML, 3DMark Wild Life, and the 4K-1080p transcoding test in Adobe Premiere Rush. We’re also testing displays and battery life, but they’re a different story.
I’ve collected test results from a handful of different phones here to show how the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1, and Google Tensor compare to Apple’s chips. Spoiler alert, it’s not even close in some cases.
iPhone 14 benchmarks: Geekbench results
Geekbench measures CPU efficiency, in both single-core and multi-core applications. Geekbench ML measures the capabilities of a neural processing unit using machine learning.
| CPU | single core | multicore | TensorFlow Lite NPU | |
| iPhone 14 Pro Max | A16 Bionic | 1882 | 5333 | 3165 |
| iPhone 14 Pro | A16 Bionic | 1891 | 5469 | 3173 |
| iPhone 14 | A15 Bionic | 1727 | 4553 | 2777 |
| iPhone 13 Pro | A15 Bionic | 1733 | 4718 | 2700 |
| Galaxy S22 Ultra | Snapdragon 8 first generation | 1240 | 3392 | 3132 |
| Galaxy Z Fold 4 | Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 | 1328 | 3831 | 3165 |
| Pixel 6 Pro | tensor | 1027 | 2760 | 1745 |
| ROG Phone 6 Pro | Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 | 1316 | 4197 | 3303 |
| OnePlus 10 Pro | Snapdragon 8 first generation | 995 | 3482 | 2108 |
Always take the Geekbench results with the caveat that they don’t really mean much. By that, I mean the score is not a measurable metric that is easy to understand, unlike frames per second. You can only benchmark your Geekbench scores against each other.
However, the A16 Bionic crushes whatever else it tries to beat. The Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 is currently the best system-on-a-chip Qualcomm has to offer, with the Asus ROG Phone 6 Pro being the most powerful phone on this chip we’ve tested. However, A16-powered phones have a huge lead over the top-end Snapdragon silicon. There is a difference of more than a thousand points between the iPhone 14 Pro and ROG Phone 6 Pro.
Given how much I like the Pixel 6 Pro, I hate to say this, but Google’s Tensor chip is sorely lacking in all areas compared to Apple’s. Not only is it behind the single-core and multi-core performance leagues, but the power of machine learning in Tensor pales in comparison to the A16 Bionic. It’s kind of sad.
When it comes to raw CPU power, the iPhone 14 Pro and A16 Bionic destroy everything else. Even the iPhone 14 powered by the A15 Bionic leads the rest of the group. Qualcomm needs to know how to catch up.
With that said, one interesting result of the A15. The chip powering the iPhone 14 may be the same as last year’s iPhone 13 Pro models, but the iPhone 13 Pro Max posted slightly better numbers in the Geekbench flagship test — not enough to make much of a difference to real-world performance, but you’d expect the numbers to be more similar.
iPhone 14 benchmarks: 3DMark Wild Life
3DMark makes graphics benchmarks, and we use Wild Life to test the graphics performance of mobile devices. I usually choose to look at a couple of settings, Unlimited and Extreme Unlimited. These push the GPU as hard as possible, especially the Extreme Unlimited test. It’s a good test of phone gaming performance, and I look at the average number of frames per second (FPS) to determine my differences.
| Unlimited (FPS) | Extreme Unlimited (FPS) | |
| iPhone 14 Pro Max | 74 | 20 |
| iPhone 14 Pro | 74 | 19 |
| iPhone 14 | 69 | 18 |
| iPhone 13 Pro | 70 | 19 |
| Galaxy S22 Ultra | 57 | 14 |
| Galaxy Z Fold 4 | 53 | 16 |
| Pixel 6 Pro | 40 | 11 |
| ROG Phone 6 Pro | 66 | 17 |
| OnePlus 10 Pro | 61 | 16 |
This race between Apple and Qualcomm is much closer in graphics than the CPU test. Google is totally behind, as you might expect – a powerful gaming phone that isn’t the Pixel 6 Pro. The device to watch out for is ROG Phone 6 Pro, the best Android gaming phone.
Samsung’s Galaxy S22 Ultra trails the iPhone 14 Pro in this benchmark significantly at around 20 frames per second. The Galaxy S22 Ultra is technically lower than 60fps – what many consider the gold standard for gaming.
The 5-core A16 Bionic GPU is a powerhouse, delivering over 70 fps in our Wild Life Unlimited test. Even in Extreme Unlimited, it outperformed everything else.
Phones with the Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 processor perform better, which makes sense because Qualcomm has significantly raised the power of the GPU. The outside is a Galaxy Z Fold 4 and I doubt that since the foldable cooling system isn’t perfect, the on-chip system thermal throttle is cooling.
iPhone 14 standards: Adobe Premiere Rush
We conclude these benchmarks with our Adobe Premiere Rush test, tasking a phone with converting a 4K video file to 1080p as quickly as possible. The iPhone 14 Pro did not show a significant improvement over the iPhone 13 Pro. In fact, they posted the same time at 26 seconds. Don’t get me wrong, this is a very interesting time, but I find it strange that there is no improvement per year on this test. Even more intriguing, the iPhone 14 Pro Max was 4 seconds slower, lagging even than the A15-powered iPhone 14.
| Completion time (minutes: seconds) | |
| iPhone 14 Pro Max | 0:30 |
| iPhone 14 Pro | 0:26 |
| iPhone 14 | 0:28 |
| iPhone 13 Pro | 0:26 |
| Galaxy S22 Ultra | 0:47 |
| Galaxy Z Fold 4 | 0:45 |
| Pixel 6 Pro | 0:48 |
| ROG Phone 6 Pro | Unavailable |
| OnePlus 10 Pro | 1:02 |
However, all these iPhone times are much faster than the best that Android has to offer. Unfortunately, the test kept crashing on the ROG Phone 6 Pro, so we don’t have numbers from the most powerful Android phone. However, the Galaxy Z Fold 4 sat at 45 seconds, nearly twice as long as the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro.
Outside is OnePlus 10 Pro in one minute and two seconds. Even the Pixel 6 Pro managed to complete the task for 48 seconds, so something was up with the OnePlus 10 Pro.
iPhone 14 Standards: Outlook
Apple once again consolidated its leadership in the mobile platform on the chip, beating the best that Android has to offer by a large margin in some cases. But it’s important to remember that you don’t see most of that horsepower very often. For the vast majority of people, the capabilities of the A16 Bionic will mostly appear in games.
Otherwise, the A16 Bionic does not stop at anything. It’s a great chip that also has high power efficiency. You have to wonder if the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 will come close to what Apple did, but Qualcomm still needs to catch up with the A15 Bionic as well.
So the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max are without a doubt the fastest and most powerful phones ever. Combine it with its other features and you have the best phones ever.
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