Hi! I'm glad I found this thread because I immediately noticed worse performance with 14.5.1, which was extremely frustrating because 14.5 seemed to actually improve the phone's performance, which I've been fairly unsatisfied with since getting the 12 Pro. I've been racking my brain over this for a week now.
First off it should be noted that you should not be running a benchmark immediately after an update, restore, or even a reboot. You should let the phone sit on charging for at least an hour after an update or restore before attempting a benchmark test, and give it at least 5 minutes after a reboot.
Second, you should try running two tests in a row. Sometimes, the second test will get improved scores. I know it's been stated that Geekbench has been giving unreliable scores with iOS 14, but I wouldn't have even checked it in the first place if I hadn't felt a noticeable performance downgrade.
I've been trying various fixes all week and determined a few things:
- I've tried multiple restore methods and also the 14.6 betas and they do not fix it, including beta 3.
- Sometimes a reboot fixes it, but not for long.
- The one consistent thing seems to be related to battery percentage. If my phone is almost fully charged, my benchmark scores are normal. Once the battery is below 90% they also start dropping. This seems to be pretty consistent. When the battery drops below 80% I start seeing test scores that are almost half of average. For the record, my battery's health is at 100% and Low Power Mode is not on.
So, I wonder if anyone else can produce similar findings related to battery charge?