Higher limits, full frames in all games. A special performance test of the iPhone 17 series

Preface: Better late than never. This time, as usual, we'll wait for the system update first.

Back in mid - September, our team at 3eLife was among the first to bring you an in - depth analysis of Apple's 2025 fall product launch event titled "The Most Revolutionary Apple Products Ever: Everyone Should Be Satisfied This Time," as well as hands - on experiences with the real devices before their official release, featured in the article "First Hands - on with Apple's Fall Products: Full of Cost - effectiveness and Professional Upgrade."

After that, we actually got our hands on the new iPhone 17 and iPhone 17 Pro Max quite quickly. However, we haven't provided you with the evaluation content regarding their performance, imaging capabilities, and other aspects until now.

On the one hand, naturally, we wanted to wait for one or two system updates after the official release before conducting the tests. This was to avoid any potential interference from bugs in the initial system version that could affect the test results.

On the other hand, our regular readers at 3eLife are probably aware that there have been an overwhelming number of new product launches and events recently. As a result, despite starting preparations for testing the new iPhones, collecting data, and taking sample photos early on, we've had to keep you waiting a bit longer for the final evaluation content.

Specification Analysis: New Process and Architecture Across the Board, Main Difference Lies in Cache

As usual, we've compiled the currently available public information into a table to give you a detailed look at the chip specifications of the iPhone 17 series this time.

First of all, the entire iPhone 17 series is powered by the A19 series chips, which are based on the new N3P process and feature a new architecture. Different from other manufacturers who often reduce the clock speed or use older architectures in their "sub - flagship" models, the CPU, GPU, and NPU of both the A19 and A19 Pro have the same architecture and frequency.

In fact, Apple's way of differentiating between its "flagship" and "sub - flagship" chips in this generation is mainly reflected in the CPU cache, the number of GPU cores, and the memory frequency.

As we all know, a smaller CPU cache means that the A19 may need to read from and write to the memory more frequently during daily use compared to the A19 Pro. In other words, reducing the cache not only decreases the chip size but may also result in the A19 having lower energy efficiency than the A19 Pro, which has the same clock speed but a higher - end positioning. From this perspective, Apple is quite practical.

Moreover, those who followed the product launch event may know that the Pro version of the iPhone 17 series is the first to feature a vapor chamber as an internal heat - conducting material compared to the "standard" version. In theory, it can more quickly dissipate the heat generated by the chip throughout the device (and release it through the frame and the device surface). Therefore, even without considering the slightly higher GPU computing power of the Pro version's chip and its theoretically better CPU energy efficiency, we still recommend that performance - conscious users go for the Pro or Pro Max models of this generation.

Theoretical Performance: Ambient Temperature Has a Great Impact, A19 Pro Can Match M4 at Its Peak

Next, let's move on to the actual benchmarking section to verify the performance of the iPhone 17 series through theoretical performance tests.

A19's Benchmark Results in GeekBench 6.5 at Room Temperature

First, let's look at the performance of the A19 chip in the iPhone 17 in GeekBench 6.5. At room temperature, the single - core score of our iPhone 17 has increased by approximately 5.9% compared to last year's iPhone 16 with the A18 chip. The multi - core score has also increased by about 5.8%.

A19's Benchmark Results in GeekBench 6.5 at Low Temperature

After lowering the ambient temperature, the performance of the A19 has improved significantly. The single - core score of the CPU has increased by about 3%, and the multi - core score has increased by 8.5%.

A19 Pro's Benchmark Results at Room Temperature (Left) and Low Temperature (Right)

So, how about the A19 Pro? As mentioned earlier, it has the same CPU architecture as the A19 but comes with a larger cache, faster memory, and significantly better heat - dissipation configuration. In the same benchmark tests, the A19 Pro in our iPhone 17 Pro Max is 5.5% faster in single - core performance and 6.8% ahead in multi - core performance compared to the A19.

However, since the iPhone 17 Pro Max already has a more powerful internal heat - dissipation system, the performance improvement from lowering the ambient temperature is not as significant. At this time, its single - core performance is only 1.5% faster than at room temperature, while the multi - core performance has increased by 7.8%, indicating that the internal heat - dissipation system may still be insufficient under heavy loads.

A19's 3DMARK Results at Room Temperature

A19's 3DMARK Results at Low Temperature

Next, let's look at the 3DMARK test results. Compared to the CPU performance, the ambient temperature has a more significant impact on the A19's GPU performance, with a maximum score difference of 11.3%. This indicates that it's necessary to use a radiator when playing games on the iPhone 17.

A19 Pro's 3DMARK Results at Room Temperature

How about the iPhone 17 Pro Max? Obviously, with an additional set of GPU cores, larger memory, and cache, the graphics performance of the iPhone 17 Pro Max is much better than that of the iPhone 17. In fact, its benchmark score at room temperature is already higher than the iPhone 17's score at low temperature.

A19 Pro's 3DMARK Results at Low Temperature

However, due to the increased number of cores, the GPU thermal throttling of the iPhone 17 Pro Max has become more severe. As we can see, after lowering the ambient temperature, the performance can be improved by nearly 15%. It seems that even with the vapor chamber, an external radiator is still necessary for the iPhone of this generation to play games at full capacity.

In the AnTuTu Benchmark for iOS, our 512GB iPhone 17 has achieved a comprehensive score of 2.24 million at room temperature and nearly 2.71 million at low temperature. The performance difference caused by the temperature change is more than 20%.

In contrast, the 1TB iPhone 17 Pro Max can achieve comprehensive scores of 2.6 million and 2.94 million under the same conditions. It should be noted that the benchmark results of AnTuTu on iOS and Android cannot be directly compared. However, according to the iOS rankings, the overall performance of the iPhone 17 Pro Max at low temperature can match that of the iPad Pro with the M4 chip.

Gameplay Tests: A19 Pro Shines in Low - load Games, Both Have High Power Consumption in High - load Games

Of course, many of you are not only curious about the benchmark performance of this generation of iPhones but also about their gaming performance. For example, after the iPhone 17 is equipped with a 120Hz ProMotion display, can it support 120FPS games? And after the significant improvement in the heat - dissipation design of the iPhone 17 Pro Max, will its gaming performance be significantly better than the "standard" version?

Let's start with the low - load game Honor of Kings. As of mid - October when our tests were completed, the high - frame - rate mode of the current version of Honor of Kings is not yet compatible with the standard version of the iPhone 17. With an average frame rate of 59.4FPS and an average power consumption of 2853mW, the energy - efficiency performance is not particularly outstanding at present.

Next, we tested the performance of NIRVANA: The Endless Journey and Yan Yun 16 Sins on the iPhone 17. Currently, these two high - quality games on the standard version of this generation of iPhones do not offer options higher than 60FPS. Fortunately, the iPhone 17 can run these games smoothly, and the average power consumption of around 5W is at the mainstream level among current flagship phones.