The iPhone 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max feature Apple’s newest chip, the A17 Pro. This is currently the only 3nm chip in the industry, and it’s an SoC that even in 2024 flagship Android devices will have a hard time surpassing. Reports say that currently only Apple will be able to supply the 3nm chip due to the company purchasing all TSMC stock for the first year.
- What exactly is Apple’s A17 Pro chip? Here is the new brain of iPhone 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max…
Apple focused heavily on the gaming power of the A17 Pro during its iPhone 15 event last week. Benchmark tests that followed showed the phone to be faster than the M2 MacBooks in single-core tests. The boost in GPU performance suggests that the upcoming 3nm M3 chip to power the new MacBook Air and Pro models will be even better for gaming.
And now we have an in-depth analysis of the A17 Pro chip. According to an expert from China, the A17 Pro can overheat during intense tasks and reach temperatures as high as 48ºC. Additionally, the chip reduces performance when under stress.
Chinese reviewer Geekerwan subjected the iPhone 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max to various benchmarks and gaming sessions to see what the A17 Pro can do.
Apparently, the iPhone 15 Pro Max temperature reached 48ºC while playing Genshin Impact with high graphics settings. The screen was set to 300 nits brightness when the room temperature was 25ºC.
https://twitter.com/Tech_Reve/status/1704151430431699081
After 30 minutes, the A17 Pro maintained a frame rate of 59.1 with 4.13W power consumption. The A16 Bionic, which powers the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 15 / Plus, reached 56.5 fps while drawing 4.32 W power.
— Revegnus (@Tech_Reve) September 19, 2023
Geekerwan then loaded Resident Evil Village onto the iPhone 15 Pro Max, running it at 1,560 x 720 resolution. That’s when he noticed the performance drop. The A17 Pro dropped from mid-40s to 30fps.
The Apple of Power Efficiency is Dead pic.twitter.com/KaSCf71OCA
— Revegnus (@Tech_Reve) September 19, 2023
Performance can suffer during intensive tasks on all smartphones, and the iPhone is no different. As for cooling, the iPhone 15 Pro does not have active cooling. At least Apple never mentioned it.
All iPhone 15 models started arriving at buyers on Friday, and we’ll see more testing focused on A17 Pro performance at this point. And these tests will definitely highlight slowdown and overheating problems.
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