Apple iPad mini (2026) in Geekbench: Single-core performance ahead of the iPad Pro

The smallest iPad overtakes the biggest – at least on a single core. Even before the new iPad mini starts shipping on November 6, a unit has turned up in the Geekbench 7 database. According to GSMArena, the entry for the iPad19,2, the cellular model, lists 3,879 points in the single-core and 9,870 points in the multi-core test, along with 12 GB of RAM. Apple's Xcode 27.2 developer tools also confirm the 12 GB, while Apple itself does not list the memory in its tech specs.

The lower configuration was measured: the A20 Pro in the listing has five CPU cores, two performance and three efficiency cores, with the performance cores clocked at 4.93 GHz. According to Apple's tech specs, that is the configuration of the 128 GB and 256 GB models; only the 512 GB model gets a sixth core. Compared with its predecessor, the new iPad mini gains 47% in single-core and 39% in multi-core. Against the iPhone 18 Pro Max with the full six-core chip, it is around 4% behind in single-core and about 14% in multi-core – so the missing core does show.

The comparison with the larger tablets is more exciting. In single-core, the iPad mini is around 8% ahead of the current iPad Pro and 21% ahead of the iPad Air 13. As soon as all cores are at work, however, the picture clearly reverses: the iPad Air is 29% faster in multi-core, the iPad Pro as much as 53%. Besides, a single Geekbench run is just a short sprint and reveals nothing about sustained performance and heat.

What the benchmark also does not show is the second debate surrounding the tablet: the OLED display runs at 60 Hz, while ProMotion with up to 120 Hz remains reserved for the iPad Pro. Apple vice president Dave Pakula defends this in an interview with Christopher Lawley: the display experience depends on more than a single spec, OLED switches its pixels more than an order of magnitude faster than an LCD, and motion blur is significantly reduced. That is true – but it does not replace a higher refresh rate, because anyone scrolling or drawing with the Pencil still gets 60 frames per second.

For reading, notes and most apps, that is more performance than the small form factor will ever call on, and 12 GB leaves headroom for games and local AI models – even in the base model. Whether the A20 Pro holds these scores under sustained load in the thin chassis remains for a review to show. The 60 Hz stays anyway, no matter how fast the chip computes.