Leaked A14 Bionic AnTuTu score surfaces online; Apple's newest silicon fails to surpass the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865

Chipmakers like Qualcomm, Samsung, and Huawei have long struggled to keep up with Apple's hardware. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that Apple's newly-unveiled A14 Bionic chip blows all competition out of the water. It appears that things are quite the opposite if some leaked benchmarks are to be believed.

Renowned leaker Ice Universe just posted some alleged A14 Bionic AnTuTu scores. The device in question is an Apple iPhone 12 Pro Max, and it nets a total score of 572,333. It is a far cry from the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 Plus-powered Asus ROG Phone 3's 629,245. The regular Snapdragon 865 featured on the Xiaomi Mi 10 Ultra manages to snag a score of 646,730 and tops AnTuTu's charts for August.

Prima facie, this might seem like a win for Team Qualcomm. However, we should take this leak with a grain of salt, as the score seems a bit too low for an Apple chip. In all likelihood, the test was run on a pre-production iPhone 12 Pro Max running unstable hardware. We should have a better idea about the A14 Bionic's performance metrics once the new iPad Air is out and about.

However, there could be a slim chance that the A14 Bionic's disappointing score is due to discrepancies in TSMC's 5nm process node. If any defect exists, it is unlikely to affect the Snapdragon 875 as Samsung will manufacture it. Team Apple enthusiasts can only hope that the numbers (or lack of thereof) are a statistical outlier and not representative of the chip's actual capabilities.