2025 vs 2015 iPhone: 10 years reportedly afford iPhone 17 over 1,000% and 1,600% faster multi-core and GPU performance

As smartphones have matured over the years, the impact of gen-on-gen performance increases has arguably gotten smaller. Many consumers have lost sight of the fact that, if we zoom out, high-end phones are now powerful enough to handle demanding tasks like AAA gaming, video editing, and even AI inference. This is especially true for users who are accustomed to getting the most powerful phone whenever they shop.

Here, it helps to look at how far smartphones have come, at least from a purely performance perspective, to appreciate the power we carry every day with us. A user on r/iPhone has compiled several charts showing gen-on-gen performance improvements for iPhone models starting from the iPhone 6S (2015) to the latest iPhone 17 series.

Since the launch of the iPhone 6S in 2015 and its Apple A9 SoC, the Geekbench 6 single-core score of the base iPhone 17 has seemingly gotten an insane 588% better. The multi-core and graphics performance increases stand at an even more impressive 1,000% and 1,250%, respectively. These percentages have been calculated using numbers from the Geekbench 6 database and normalized against the score of the A19 at 100%.

Looking at gen-on-gen performance gains for the respective iPhone models in relation to their immediate predecessors, the iPhone 17 is reportedly 8% faster in single-core, 11% better in multi-core, and 34% better in graphics performance vs the iPhone 16. Interestingly, the iPhone 11 with the A13 Bionic stands as the model with the biggest single-core gen-on-gen performance gain at 36%. The multi-core and graphics gen-on-gen crown goes to the iPhone 8 (A11 Bionic) and the iPhone XR (A12 Bionic), respectively.

Moving on to the “Pro” iPhones, the iPhone 17 Pro Max is around 625% faster in single-core, 1,111% ahead in multi-core, and 1,667% better in graphics performance vs the iPhone 6S. Gen-on-gen performance increase for the iPhone 17 Pro Max seemingly stands at 9% for single-core, 14% for multi-core, and 40% for the GPU vs the iPhone 16 Pro Max (Available "Renewed" on Amazon).

In other words, in the 10 years since the release of the iPhone 6S, the latest iPhones have become more than 500% faster in single-core, more than 1000% faster in multi-core, and an insane 1,200+% better in GPU performance. This should make us appreciate the technology that powers our smartphones. Granted, this performance increase hasn’t been free, as iPhone prices have slowly crept up. But, considering that the iPhone 6S launched at a starting price of $649 and the base iPhone 17 costs $799, the price increase over the decade is far from terrible.