Apple’s first 3-nanometer processor
Apple says the A17 Pro is the industry’s first 3nm chip. It has 6 CPU cores like the A16 Bionic, but is faster and more capable thanks to microarchitecture and design improvements. Apple says the A17 Pro offers the “fastest single-threaded performance of any smartphone.” Having 6 GPU cores instead of 5, the A17 Pro comes with a 16-core Neural Engine like the A16, but it performs operations twice as fast. A17 Pro can perform 35 trillion operations per second.
Performance
Apple hasn’t made an efficiency comparison between the A17 Pro and A16, so this may not have changed much or at all. Apple says the A17 Pro is the most efficient mobile CPU, offering 3x better performance per watt than its competitors with its efficiency cores.
2GB more memory
A17 Pro supports 2 GB more memory than the 6 GB RAM found in the A16 Bionic. In other words, iPhone 15 Pros come with 8GB RAM. This means a faster and smoother experience when launching/switching between apps.
Hardware based ray tracing
The A17 Pro’s GPU offers a major improvement over the A16 Bionic, focusing on performance and efficiency, complex applications, new rendering features and speed. Apple labels the graphics processing unit as “professional grade” and says the new 6-core design offers 20% faster graphics performance over the A16. Another big change is hardware-based ray tracing. Apple says this will provide a gaming experience with much smoother graphics at higher frame rates.
USB 3
At first glance, the improvements made by the A17 Pro over the A16 may not seem that big, but it provides notable improvements, especially in graphics and neural engine performance. A17 Pro is the most powerful and efficient mobile chip at the moment.