I'm sorry, of course the "Test script" should be:

<?php

var_dump(max("A", 1));
var_dump(max(1, "A"));

The next sentence is: "The actual value returned will be of the original type with no conversion applied."

Which seems quite clear to me.

Well, it says "a non-numeric string WILL BE compared to an int as though it were 0." (emphasis mine). To my understanding, the sentence you cited is the general case (comparing, maybe, an object and a resource), whereas comparing int/string is a case with defined behavior. If comparing int/string is the same as comparing any other two different types, "will be" is not a good wording, IMHO. Better completely remove the sentence then, because it does not give any information.

Well, after reading it again, it does not seem clear at all.

If a string is treated as int(0), why is the string returned in my example? Isn't 1 larger than 0?

"will be COMPARED...The actual value RETURNED will be of the original type".

This behaviour (comparing numbers and non-numeric strings) changed in PHP 8.0.0, resulting from the "saner string to number comparisons" RFC [1].

It is briefly mentioned as a backwards incompatible change in the migration guide for PHP 8.0.x [2].

The descriptions (in the comparison operators page [3], on the max() [4] and min() [5] pages, and all other relevant pages) has to be updated accordingly, if not done already.

[1] https://wiki.php.net/rfc/string_to_number_comparison
[2] https://www.php.net/manual/en/migration80.incompatible.php
[3] https://www.php.net/manual/en/language.operators.comparison.php
[4] https://www.php.net/manual/en/function.max.php
[5] https://www.php.net/manual/en/function.min.php

@danack: Sorry, I still don't get it. 

If `max(1, "A")` is COMPARED like `max(1, 0)`, why isn't int(1) returned? Isn't int(1) larger than string("A"), which is treated like int(0)?

When the page, currently, says, "a non-numeric string will be compared to an int as though it were 0" it is incorrect as of PHP 8.0.0.

For your specific example of max(1, "A"), the 1 is (as of PHP 8.0.0) converted to a string ("1") then compared to "A" and the latter ("A") is the greater of the two.  If your example was max(1, "/"), then the comparison would be of "1" and "/", in which case "1" is greater so the result would be 1.

The actual value returned will be of the original type with no conversion applied.

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