Apple's most powerful smartphone processor is the A17 Pro. But how does it compare to the A16 Bionic in terms of speed, efficiency and features? Read the detailed comparison between the A17 Pro and A16 Bionic.
The A17 Pro, as the name suggests, is designed exclusively for the iPhone 15. Pro and Pro Max, while iPhone 15 and 15 Plus use A16 Bionic. Below we'll focus specifically on the similarities and differences of Apple Silicon, but we also have a full comparison of the iPhone 15 devices:
- iPhone 15 vs 15 Pro: Here's what's different
Table of Contents
- A17 Pro vs A16 Bionic
- Hardware Specifications
- CPU Efficiency
Table of Contents
- A17 Pro vs A16 Bionic li>
- Memory
- GPU performance of A17 Pro and A16
- USB 3
- Multimedia mechanisms
- Review of A17 Pro vs A16 Bionic
A17 Pro vs A16 Bionic
Hardware Specs
Apple calls A17 Pro “the first 3- m device in the industry” – nanometer chip.” It features a 6-core processor like the A16 Bionic, but is faster and more efficient thanks to improvements in microarchitecture and design.
Apple says the A17 Pro offers the “fastest single-thread processor yet.” performance on any smartphone.”
The GPU includes an additional core with 5 to 6 cores with several upgrades and capabilities. And although the Neural Engine still has 16 cores, it is now twice as fast as the Neural Engine in the A16.
| A17 Pro | A16 Bionic | |
| CPU | 6-core | 6-core |
| GPU | 6-core | 5 -nuclear |
| Neural mechanism | 16-core, up to 35 trillion operations per second | 16-core, up to 17 trillion operations per second |
| Memory | 8 GB | 6 GB |
| Transistors | 19 billion | 16 billion |
| Chip design process | 3 nm | 4 nm |
CPU benchmark results
Apple says A17 Pro processor cores improve 10% performance higher than the A16 Bionic, and with the first available Geekbench results, the measured performance improvement is even better.
For single-core performance, the A17 Pro was about 16% faster than the A16. In multi-core mode, performance was approximately 13% faster.
| A17 Pro | A16 Bionic | A15 Bionic | |
| Single-core processor evaluation | 2914 | 2519 | 2183 |
| Multi-core evaluation | 7199 | 6367 | 5144 |
The A17 Pro even beat the M1 in single-core performance, but was below Apple's core desktop processor in multi-core performance.
CPU Efficiency
- Apple hasn't provided efficiency comparison results between the A17 Pro and A16, so perhaps the results haven't changed much or at all
- However, how little power it uses is still impressive: Apple claims that the A17 Pro is the “most efficient mobile processor”; and offers 3x better performance per watt than “competitors”; thanks to its efficiency cores
Memory
With 8GB of RAM, the A17 Pro increases by 2GB thanks to 6 GB detected in A16 Bionic.
This should help provide even faster and smoother app launch/switching. While Android smartphones still have more RAM than iPhones, Apple tends to outperform them with less memory because of its ability to fine-tune iPhone hardware and iOS software.
A17 Pro GPU performance compared to A16
The A17 Pro GPU gets an even bigger improvement over the A16 Bionic, focusing on 3 aspects:
- Performance and efficiency
- Complex applications
- New rendering features
Speed
Apple labels the GPU “pro-grade”; and says the new 6-core design delivers 20% faster graphics performance than the A16. And it remains effective for long gaming sessions thanks to features like grid shading.
Hardware Ray Tracing
Another big change to the A17 Pro Graphics The processor is hardware-accelerated ray tracing. Apple says it offers much smoother graphics at higher frame rates. Ray tracing is 4x faster than the A16 Bionic.
To highlight these capabilities, developers like CAPCOM say the new A17 Pro GPU allows you to play console-quality games like Resident Evil 4 and Resident Evil Village. launching on iPhone (coming soon).
We don't have any real tests of the A17 GPU, but we'll update this post when we know more.
USB 3
Another feature that Apple says is made possible by the A17 Pro chip is USB 3 performance through the new USB-C port. on iPhone 15 Pro.
That's 10Gbps data transfer speeds (USB 3.2 Gen 2), which is 20 times faster than the 480Mbps USB-C speed on iPhone 15 with A16 Bionic . This 480Mbps performance is the same as Lightning on the iPhone 14 and earlier.
Interestingly, the iPad mini with the A15 chip has USB 3.1 at 5Gbps – much faster than iPhone 15 and A16 chip – so it seems that the latter limitation may be artificial.
Media engines
Joining The dedicated ProRes codec and Pro display engine are a year old here with the A17 Pro – AV1 decoder. Apple says this should improve video streaming quality on the iPhone 15 Pro.
A17 Pro and A16 Bionic review
At first glance, the A17 Pro's improvements over the A16 may not seem like much, but together they add up to the most powerful and efficient mobile chip in the world – with notable improvements in graphics and neural engine. performance.
Whether most people need the world's most powerful smartphone chip is another matter, but for those who want the best, the A17 Pro is the way to go.
What you can do with the A17 Pro? Or did you stick with the A16 or earlier? Share your thoughts in the comments!
Thanks for reading our A17 Pro vs A16 Bionic comparison guide!
Top image via 9to5Mac, all other images via Apple
