Performance

Apple has equipped the iPhone 7 with a new-generation A10 Fusion chip. It has a quad-core CPU, a first for the iPhones, with two high-performance cores running at 2.34GHz and two power-saving ones. The high-performance ones run about 40% faster than the A9 chip and two times faster than the A8. The other two are more power-efficient cores and require only 20% of the power needed for the high-performance cores.

There's a new GPU inside as well. It's a six-core one and is 50% faster than the A9's GPU and draws just 66% of the power.

Finally, the iPhone 7 uses 2GB of RAM, while the iPhone 7 Plus will offer 3GB.

The guys over Chipworks have been working hard to decrypt the new A10 Fusion chip and what's interesting is that they can't find the two low-power cores. In fact, those are not available to anything but the OS itself. No benchmark or game can use those; in fact, the benchmarks can't detect them at all - they show the CPU as dual-core.

Chipworks are still guessing the position on the chip of those two cores, but their placement is not of importance right now, but the fact that they are exclusive to the iOS and can't be found by anything else. So, as far as the processing performance is concerned - all benchmarks use the two high-performance A10 cores ticking at 2.34GHz.

And speaking of CPU cores, meet the most powerful mobile processor core in the world to date - the one inside Apple A10 Fusion. It runs on 2.34GHz, which is among the highest clocks we've seen, but it also offers the best performance right now. The new A10 core offers double the processing power of the Snapdragon 820's Kryo (OnePlus 3), double the Cortex-A72 performance (Huawei P9), and 40% increase over the CPU Twister core inside the iPhone 6s, 6s Plus, and SE.

GeekBench 4 (single-core)

Higher is better

Apple iPhone 7

3488

Apple iPhone SE

2514

Apple iPhone 6s Plus

2509

Apple iPhone 6s

2380

Samsung Galaxy S7

1854

Huawei Honor 8

1720

OnePlus 3

1719

Sony Xperia XZ

1578

Apple iPhone 6 Plus

1471

Apple iPhone 6

1465

Samsung Galaxy Note5

1332

Huawei nova

842

But how about two of those? Well, the dual-core A10 processor is more powerful than any other dual, quad, hexa, octa, or deca-core processor on the market. It's 40% better than the quad-core Kryo (S820, OnePlus 3) and the dual-core Twister inside the iPhone 6s generation, and just a hair on top of the latest Kirin chipset inside the Honor 8 (4x A72 + 4x A53).

GeekBench 4 (multi-core)

Higher is better

Apple iPhone 7

5654

Huawei Honor 8

5447

Samsung Galaxy S7

5245

Apple iPhone 6s Plus

4234

Apple iPhone SE

4158

OnePlus 3

4045

Apple iPhone 6s

4001

Sony Xperia XZ

3868

Samsung Galaxy Note5

3754

Huawei nova

3105

Apple iPhone 6 Plus

2465

Apple iPhone 6

2459

Chipworks hasn't yet determined the exact GPU model, but it confirmed it's indeed a six-core unit (just like the PowerVR GT7600 six-core GPU inside the iPhone 6s). We know Apple promises a 50% performance bump, so let's see.

The 1080p offscreen tests which help us determine the raw performance put the A10 GPU on top of any other GPU we've tested so far. The 3.0 test gives the A10 GPU about 20% more power over the Adreno 530 in the OnePlus 3 and 30% over the latest Mali-T880MP12 inside the Exynos-powered Galaxy Note7. It is also 50% better than the PowerVR GT7600 inside the iPhone 6s, as promised.

GFX 3.0 Manhattan (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

Apple iPhone 7

61

Samsung Galaxy Note7 (Snapdragon)

49

OnePlus 3

46

Samsung Galaxy Note7 (Exynos)

40

Apple iPhone SE

39.6

Apple iPhone 6s

39.5

Apple iPhone 6s Plus

39.5

Samsung Galaxy S7

38

Samsung Galaxy Note5

21

Apple iPhone 6 Plus

18.6

Huawei Honor 8

18

Huawei P9

18

Apple iPhone 6

17.7

Sony Xperia X

14

Huawei nova

10

The 3.1 test gives the A10 GPU 30% more power over the Adreno 530 and 50% sharp over the Mali-T880MP12 (Note7) and PowerVR GT7600 (iPhone 6s).

GFX 3.1 Manhattan (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

Apple iPhone 7

43

Samsung Galaxy Note7 (Snapdragon)

32

Sony Xperia XZ

31

OnePlus 3

31

Samsung Galaxy Note7 (Exynos)

28

Samsung Galaxy S7

28

Apple iPhone 6s Plus

27.9

Apple iPhone SE

26.8

Samsung Galaxy Note5

15

Huawei Honor 8

10

Huawei P9

10

Sony Xperia X

9.2

Huawei nova

6.3

The iPhone 7 runs on a sub-1080p resolution, which gives it an advantage over the flagship competition running at 1080p or 1440p. The iPhone 7 reaches the 60fps refresh-rate cap on both tests, so there is nothing the phone can't handle not today, and not for the next couple of years to come.

GFX 3.0 Manhattan (onscreen)

Higher is better

Apple iPhone 7

60

Apple iPhone SE

59.2

Apple iPhone 6s

53.6

OnePlus 3

45

Apple iPhone 6s Plus

38.6

Apple iPhone 6

29.2

Samsung Galaxy Note7 (Snapdragon)

29

Samsung Galaxy S7

27

Samsung Galaxy Note7 (Exynos)

27

Huawei Honor 8

19

Huawei P9

19

Samsung Galaxy Note5

15

Sony Xperia X

15

Huawei nova

10

GFX 3.1 Manhattan (onscreen)

Higher is better

Apple iPhone 7

60

Apple iPhone SE

58

Sony Xperia XZ

32

OnePlus 3

30

Apple iPhone 6s Plus

27.9

Samsung Galaxy Note7 (Snapdragon)

16

Samsung Galaxy S7

15

Samsung Galaxy Note7 (Exynos)

15

Huawei Honor 8

11

Huawei P9

11

Sony Xperia X

10

Samsung Galaxy Note5

6.7

Huawei nova

6.5

BaseMark ES 3.1 is a super-heavy GPU benchmark that only flagships can finish without crashing or taking an hour or two. The iPhone 7' GPU not only topped that one by a mile, but it also received another gold medal by BaseMark for being the best device in their database so far!

Basemark ES 3.1 / Metal

Higher is better

Apple iPhone 7

1547

Apple iPhone 6s Plus

916

Apple iPhone SE

882

Apple iPhone 6s

879

Samsung Galaxy S7

732

Samsung Galaxy Note7 (Exynos)

727

Samsung Galaxy Note7 (Snapdragon)

629

OnePlus 3

625

Huawei Honor 8

345

Huawei P9

341

Samsung Galaxy Note5

316

Sony Xperia X

251

Huawei nova

138

Next, it's time to run the compound benchmarks, which compute CPU, GPU, RAM, storage, UX performance among others. You bet the iPhone 7 topped the BaseMark OS II 2.0 test with a huge gap between the second-best phone - the two Galaxy Note7 models. The device also received a Gold medal for being the best device in BaseMark OS II 2.0 all-time chart taking the first place! A respectable moment of awe silence goes here.

Basemark OS 2.0

Higher is better

Apple iPhone 7

3416

Samsung Galaxy Note7 (Exynos)

2676

Samsung Galaxy Note7 (Snapdragon)

2432

OnePlus 3

2365

Apple iPhone 6s Plus

2261

Apple iPhone 6s

2195

Apple iPhone SE

2163

Sony Xperia XZ

2151

Samsung Galaxy S7

2128

Huawei Honor 8

2099

Huawei P9

2068

Samsung Galaxy Note5

1880

Sony Xperia X

1714

Huawei nova

1218

Finally, AnTuTu 6 pretty much confirms the BaseMark OS 2.0 conclusions - there isn't any better smartphone than the iPhone 7 right now.

AnTuTu 6

Higher is better

Apple iPhone 7

179386

OnePlus 3

141764

Apple iPhone 6s Plus

137420

Samsung Galaxy Note7 (Exynos)

134660

Samsung Galaxy S7

132084

Samsung Galaxy Note7 (Snapdragon)

130111

Apple iPhone 6s

129990

Apple iPhone SE

123961

Huawei P9

98069

Huawei Honor 8

94892

Samsung Galaxy Note5

81615

Sony Xperia X

77537

Huawei nova

65021

Apple has done it again - it made the best mobile chipset from which others can only learn from. Its dual-core processor, even without the help of the tiny energy efficient cores, beats any other processor out there. The A10 GPU is equally impressive acing every graphic benchmark.

The iPhone 7 is the fastest and most powerful smartphone in the world. It runs cooler than any other flagship even at peak performance though along the edge around the power key there is a zone that gets quite hot at times when the phone is under load but it's still within reasonable limits.