Apple uses two different processors in its newly launched iPhone 15 series. iPhone 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max come with A17 Pro, what Apple calls the most powerful processor in a smartphone. iPhone 15 and 15 Plus use the processor of the previous generation. So how different is the Apple A17 Pro compared to the A16 Bionic in terms of speed, efficiency and features? A17 Pro vs A16 Bionic comparison is here.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 says the A17 Pro’s CPU performance cores are up to 10% faster than the A16 Bionic, and with the first Geekbench results available, the performance boost looks even better. In terms of single-core performance, the A17 Pro is around 16% faster than the A16. It performed approximately 13% faster in multi-core.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
The USB-C port on iPhone 17 Pro with A17 Pro processor supports USB 3 speeds. The USB-C port on iPhone 15s with A16 Bionic chip supports the same speeds (480Mbps) as Lightning on iPhone 14 and previous models. iPhone 15 Pro models – when using a suitable cable – provide data transfer at almost 20 times higher speeds (10Gbps) than plain models.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.
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