Geekbench benchmarks: Apple's A11 Bionic is 25% faster in single core and 80% faster in multicore than A10 Fusion, beats i5 MacBook Pro and all other phones
Daniel Eran Dilger / AppleInsider :
Context & Ripple Effects
Apple's chip story has become an annual benchmark ritual: last September the company claimed its A10 Fusion was 40% faster than the A9 on the strength of its big.LITTLE core pairing, and each fall since has brought a new generation with fresh Geekbench numbers. The A11 Bionic's scores are the first independent confirmation of that cadence rather than a vendor claim.
What makes these numbers matter beyond the spec sheet is where they land: a phone SoC now outruns the i5 in Apple's own MacBook Pro line on Geekbench, a gap that foreshadows the M1 later topping every previous Mac in single-core Geekbench even under x86 emulation.
First-order effects
- iPhone 8 and iPhone X buyers get a device whose Geekbench single-core score beats every shipping phone and Apple's own i5 MacBook Pro, collapsing the performance hierarchy between Apple's phone and laptop lines.
- AppleInsider's read of the numbers hands Apple a marketing asset it didn't have with the A10, which rested on vendor-supplied percentage claims rather than independent cross-device benchmarks.
Second-order effects
- Android flagship makers are forced to answer on Geekbench terms each fall, turning third-party benchmark deltas — not spec-sheet percentages — into the public scoreboard for Qualcomm, Samsung, and HiSilicon silicon.
- A phone chip outscoring a MacBook Pro i5 puts internal pressure on Apple's Intel-dependent Mac line, making the case for running Mac hardware on Apple-designed cores.
Third-order effects
- If the year-over-year gains hold — A10's claimed 40%, A11's measured 25% single-core and 80% multicore — mobile-derived Apple silicon keeps compounding until it competes with x86 incumbents in PCs, which is exactly the endpoint the M1 Geekbench results later confirm.
- Benchmark leadership shifting from PC processors to phone SoCs restructures the industry around ARM-style designs, leaving x86 vendors defending the segments Apple hasn't yet entered.
The trend: Apple's annual SoC cadence is compounding phone-class performance past PC processors, setting up the transition from Intel Macs to Apple Silicon.