The Apple A17 Pro is the latest silicon marvel powering the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max models, marking a significant upgrade from the A16 Bionic that runs the show in the iPhone 15 and 15 Plus.
In the following comparison, we’ll dive into the subtleties of these two formidable chips, illuminating their speed, efficiency, and capabilities.
So, let’s get started on this journey of discovery into the heart of Apple’s smartphone lineup.
Feature | A16 Bionic | A17 Pro |
Process Technology | 4nm | 3nm |
Transistors | 16 billion | 19 billion |
CPU Cores | 6 (2 high-performance, 4 efficiency) | 6 (2 high-performance, 4 efficiency) |
CPU Clock Speed | Up to 3.5 GHz | Up to 3.8 GHz |
GPU Cores | 5 | 6 |
Neural Engine | 16-core | 32-core |
Memory | 6GB LPDDR5 | 8GB LPDDR5X |
Display Support | Up to 4K 120Hz | Up to 8K 144Hz |
Camera Processing | ProRes video capture | ProRes RAW video capture |
Machine Learning | 17 trillion operations per second | 35 trillion operations per second |
Geekbench 5 Score (Single-Core) | 4095 | 4510 |
Geekbench 5 Score (Multi-Core) | 11112 | 12208 |
The comparison between the A17 Pro and A16 Bionic chips demonstrates Apple’s commitment to pushing the boundaries of mobile technology.
The A17 Pro not only enhances the foundational elements of smartphone performance, such as CPU and GPU capabilities, but also introduces next-generation features like hardware-accelerated ray tracing and USB 3.2 Gen 2 support, setting new standards for what users can expect from their devices.
The A17 Pro utilizes a groundbreaking 3nm process compared to the A16 Bionic’s 4nm, leading to a higher transistor count, faster CPU and GPU speeds, and enhanced energy efficiency.
With hardware-accelerated ray tracing and a 32-core Neural Engine, the A17 Pro significantly enhances gaming graphics and doubles the machine learning capabilities over the A16 Bionic.
The A17 Pro supports USB 3.2 Gen 2, enabling up to 10Gbps data transfer speeds, a significant leap from the A16’s USB performance, thus improving charging and file transfer experiences.
Yes, thanks to its advanced process technology, increased RAM, and higher operation capacity, the A17 Pro is better equipped to handle demanding applications and multitasking more efficiently than the A16.
The A17 Pro supports up to 8K 144Hz displays and introduces ProRes RAW video capture, enhancing both the visual and camera capabilities beyond what the A16 Bionic offers.
The GPU with the A17 Pro gets an even bigger improvement over the A16 Bionic with a focus on 3 aspects:
Performance and efficiency
Complex applications
New rendering features
Speed
Apple labels the GPU “pro class” and says the new 6-core design offers 20% faster graphics performance than A16. And it remains efficient for extended gaming sessions thanks to features like mesh shading.
Hardware-based ray tracing
Another big change with the A17 Pro GPU is hardware-accelerated ray tracing. Apple says that offers much smoother graphics at higher frame rates. That’s 4x faster ray tracing than with A16 Bionic.
To highlight the capabilities, developers like CAPCOM say the new A17 Pro GPU has enabled console-quality games like Resident Evil 4 and Resident Evil Village to launch on iPhone (coming soon).
We don’t have any real-world tests for the A17 GPU.
The A16 Bionic is a system-on-chip introduced by Apple in September 2022 with the launch of the iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max. Like past chips, the A16 Bionic uses 64-bit ARM-based architecture (like Apple Silicon, but unlike traditional x86 PC processors).
A system-on-chip (SoC) is an integrated circuit that includes a CPU, GPU, RAM, and other components. In 2023, Apple put the A16 Bionic into its base iPhone 15 and its Plus model, continuing the trend of using last year’s top-tier chip in this year’s non-Pro iPhone model.
The A16 features six CPU cores with two of them designed for high performance (clocked at just short of 3.5GHz) and four efficiency cores (running at just over 2GHz) for general compute tasks. These cores do most of the “thinking” on an iPhone, including handling background tasks, with the efficiency cores designed to preserve power and extend battery life.
On top of this, the A16 Bionic features five GPU cores running at just short of 1.4GHz, which handle graphics-intensive tasks including 3D gaming and visual effects like iOS transparency. There’s also Apple’s 16-core neural engine for machine learning tasks like identifying faces and objects in your Photos library. The A16 Bionic is equipped with 6GB of RAM and features 16 billion transistors.
The A16 Bionic introduced a new image signal processor (ISP) to improve computational photography abilities. This means better processing of images coming from the camera, resulting in less noise and ultimately better images.
Apple claimed that the A16 Bionic was the first 4-nanometer chip in a smartphone, a term that refers to the size of the transistors. Analysts discovered this is up for debate and that the chip was manufactured on a slightly improved 5nm process (known internally by chip manufacturer TSMC as N4P).
The A17 Pro is an updated system-on-chip that first made its way into the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max in 2023. It too uses the same ARM-based architecture, but performance is slightly improved with its six-core CPU featuring two performance cores running at just shy of 3.8GHz and four efficiency cores hitting 2.1GHz.
The A17 Pro also ups the total RAM included on the SoC to 8GB, from 6GB last time around.
Apple also improved the GPU, adding an additional GPU core for a total of six cores with Apple claiming a 20% improvement over the A16 Bionic and support for hardware ray tracing and better shading for improved handling of realistic lighting effects in 3D applications.
Apple boosted the transistor count to 19 billion and added hardware support for AV1 decoding, a video codec that’s set to one day replace HEVC. The A17 Pro is manufactured using TSMC’s N3B process, which is considered to produce “true” 3-nanometer chips.
Apple only claimed a 10% improvement in CPU speed over the A16 Bionic when introducing the A17 Pro, and according to many of the benchmarks, this happens to be the case.
Taking a look at the iPhone 15 Pro Geekbench single-core score shows an improvement from 2540 on the A16 Bionic to 2890 on the A17 Pro, while multi-core scores go from 6420 to 7159 respectively.
More impressive at the Metal scores, which measure GPU performance and corroborate Apple’s claim of 20% taking scores from 22574 on the A16 Bionic to 27074 on the A17 Pro.
Also Read: Apple A18 and M4 Chips to Feature Advanced 3nm Manufacturing For Handling Gen-AI
Also Read: Apple’s A17 Pro Chipset: Revolutionising Mobile Graphics and Performance
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