Before the iPhone 15 event, you should be aware of four specifications and feature differences between the A17 and A16 Bionic models
The A17 Bionic is anticipated to make its debut at the September “Wonderlust” event, where Apple’s flagship iPhone 15 series will be the focus of attention, in keeping with the company’s launch customs. Of course, this year’s four models won’t all be powered by the state-of-the-art technology; only the more costly ‘Pro’ variants will receive the SoC, while the less expensive ones will be propelled by the A16 Bionic.
Although we do not currently have any reliable performance or power-efficiency figures to compare, here are four specification and feature differences that we anticipate to exist between the two chipsets this year. We anticipate significant disparities between the two chipsets.
An upgrade to TSMC’s 3nm (N3P vs N4P) technology will result in a number of advantages
Apple will probably concentrate its marketing efforts on TSMC’s 3nm technology, which was used to create the A17 Bionic in large quantities. The majority of you are aware that a better manufacturing process enhances chipset performance and power efficiency.
Assuming that the A17 Bionic is a “true” 3nm chip, the differences between the two will be more obvious. However, there was a rumour going around that the A16 Bionic was actually a 5nm silicon that was sold as a 4nm one.
The single best feature of TSMC’s new technology is power savings, with up to 30% less usage than N5 and up to 15% better performance while using the same number of watts. Customers who upgrade to the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max should notice an improvement in battery timings right away. The A17 Bionic is also less likely to experience thermal throttling as a result of its greater efficiency.
The other specifications, like transistor count, die size, Neural Engine core count, and other information, are yet unknown, but Apple will probably make sure that everyone watching the event, whether in person or via the livestream, learns more.
A16 Bionic has more GPU cores than that
Apple is anticipated to maintain the six CPU cores, divided into two performance cores and four power-efficient ones, that are present in the two chipsets. However, a prior rumour that discussed the forthcoming SoC’s specifications stated that the A17 Bionic GPU count will be increased to six cores.
Another difference we noticed in that rumour was that the performance cores were claimed to run at a frequency of 3.70GHz, which is a little bit faster than the performance cores of the A16 Bionic, which run at 3.46GHz.
While we would love to see the business go in a different route with more cores, it is probable that it will stick with this configuration for the foreseeable future given that Apple has demonstrated for several years that a 6-core CPU surpasses its 8-core competitors in both single-core and multi-core benchmarks.
For the top-tier iPhone 15 devices, a higher RAM variation
According to certain rumours, Apple will likely stick to last year’s LPDDR5 technology and limit the RAM on the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max to 6GB. However, a comparison of specifications published by TrendForce revealed that the A17 Bionic’s logic board would include 8GB RAM in the top-end variants. Given that the A16 Bionic is expected to be included in the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus, it seems possible that Apple will reuse the same hardware from the previous year to cut costs.
Possibly supporting ray tracing
Before the A16 Bionic’s formal release in 2022, Apple’s developers tested it using ray tracing. Unfortunately, despite the team’s lofty goals, they were forced to abandon ray tracing support for last year’s chipset due to too many obstacles.
This involved a substantial power consumption, which decreased battery life and caused the SoC to overheat severely. If the A16 Bionic had come pre-installed on the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max, it would have come with official ray tracing capabilities, which would have solved all of the issues that millions of users may have complained about.
Ray tracing functionality may be possible with the A17 Bionic thanks to TSMC’s third-generation 3nm manufacturing process, but readers should be aware that Apple often adopts new standards slowly. Ray tracing capability will be available out of the box on the next Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 and Dimensity 9300, thus it is only fair that the A17 Bionic can deliver the same aesthetic enhancements as the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max.
We’ll learn exactly what innovations the A17 Bionic brings to the table with only one day till the iPhone 15 event. Stay tuned for more information as we get closer to having performance results ready and compared before the new iPhones are made available for pre-order.
