Apple’s iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max just landed, and early speed tests show they’re a real jump over last year’s models. If you’re trying to decide whether this year’s iPhone is worth the money, the benchmarks are suggesting it could be.
That matters most if your current phone feels slow opening apps, editing photos, or juggling several things at once. Early tests put the new iPhones anywhere from about 20% to more than 40% faster than the iPhone 17 Pro, depending on what you’re doing with it.
How much faster is the new iPhone, really?
The numbers come from Geekbench, which measures how quickly a phone handles everyday tasks like browsing the web, along with heavier ones like editing video. MacRumors first spotted the new scores showing up in the Geekbench database this week. These are early, unverified listings, not something Apple has confirmed itself, but they line up closely with the company’s own performance claims.
In the everyday-task test, the iPhone 18 Pro scored 4,719 points and the iPhone 18 Pro Max scored 4,725. Last year’s iPhone 17 Pro scored somewhere between 3,523 and 3,895 in the same test, depending on which unit was tested. That puts the new iPhone as much as 21% to 33% faster at the stuff you do most, like opening apps and scrolling through your phone.
The gap gets bigger for heavier tasks like editing video or running several apps at once. The iPhone 18 Pro hit 12,677 points there, compared to the iPhone 17 Pro’s range of roughly 8,810 to 9,746. AppleInsider’s breakdown put that improvement as high as 30% to 44%, depending on which iPhone 17 Pro was used for the comparison.
Apple credits the jump to its new A20 Pro chip, part of the broader round of upgrades in this year’s Pro lineup, which uses a more efficient way of building the processor than last year’s model. The company says that alone should make the phone faster while also running cooler and lasting longer on a charge.
So is it worth upgrading? If you already own an iPhone 17 Pro, this speed bump alone probably isn’t reason enough unless you’re constantly editing video or gaming on your phone. But if you’re coming from an iPhone 15 or older, the difference should be obvious the moment you pick it up.