Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

A16 Chip in iPhone 14 Pro Reportedly Costs Apple Over Twice as Much as A15 Chip

The diminishing return seems very great. The performance gain is not worth twice the cost.

The need for greater speed has also been reduced since in recent years it seems that the gains in performance have outpaced the load that new software generally demands.

Just sayin' though. I am not sure if there is anything we should change about this. It's not as if we should deliberately write bad software or if we should stop innovation in chips.

But perhaps people should not feel the need to upgrade due to faster chips, but only if they want the other features in the new hardware or if they plan to run truly demanding or badly written software.
 
Last edited:
  • Haha
Reactions: AlexMac89
HobeSoundDarryl said:
Goggles will presumably have much more usable space for processing power and battery than a skinny brick in our pockets. Other than business motivations, why make them dependent on a phone? Yes, perhaps interface with phone for select functions better done by that "coprocessor" but I question the idea that the bulk of the computer horsepower for goggles should be in iPhone.

Depending on how big we want to imagine goggles/glasses, it seems they should have M4 chips in them vs. leaning on the A18 or whatever that will be at the time. If the rumor price of $3K for goggles is real, I suspect we have a powerful Mac or two on our heads... not some (mostly) tiny monitors leaning heavily on the phone in our pocket for much of what we see in and do with them.

However, that offered, your guess is as good as mine. Apple does like to make many things have hard dependencies on an iPhone in a pocket.
Click to expand...
Or…options. Low cost starter/get a taste straight connect via phone app and premium M power version and no upgrade path leading to new goggle purchase.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Shirasaki and HobeSoundDarryl
Mr. Heckles said:
Over time apps need more power to run also. Try running a current app on one of the 1st 2 iPhones made… it won’t happen.
Click to expand...
Yup the vicious cycle of tech. The new thing comes out and destroys all software. Then devs make stuff more and more complax until even the best tech sometimes chokes on it. Then new hardware, etc... The craziest one was when my ex's aunt got a P1 machine. She installed something and I was just sitting there with my mouth hanging open saying it's DONE???
 
TheYayAreaLiving 🎗 said:
The performance of the Pro/Pro Max models speaks for itself. It's worth it!
Click to expand...
According to benchmarks is not that great an improvement over A15. Based on processing power alone it’s definitely NOT worth the extra cost. There might be other reasons (power efficiency?), but definitely not performance.
 
  • Like
Reactions: The-Real-Deal82
JW Pepper said:
I can't see that the phone needs a faster chip. My guess is the only reason for using the new chip is the energy saving.
Click to expand...
The A16 begins to learn at a gemoetric rate. It becomes self-aware at 8:00 am Eastern time, September 16th. In a panic, they try to pull the plug. iOS fights back. It launches it's Instagram bot and targets the Internet with kitten pictures and videos.
 
  • Haha
  • Love
Reactions: Asbow, AmazingTechGeek, IncreasinglyFrustrated and 1 other person
JW Pepper said:
I can't see that the phone needs a faster chip. My guess is the only reason for using the new chip is the energy saving.
Click to expand...
Yes and no. It needs to get faster for two reasons: Marketing and added capabilities as they add features.
 
ghanwani said:
Not surprising. This is more’s law. Chips will double in price every 2 years.
Click to expand...

That's not what Moore's law says.

"Moore's Law states that the number of transistors on a microchip doubles about every two years, though the cost of computers is halved."

Edit: Missed the pun! :p
 
Last edited by a moderator:
  • Like
Reactions: Sasparilla
Sorinut said:
That's not what Moore's law says.

"Moore's Law states that the number of transistors on a microchip doubles about every two years, though the cost of computers is halved."
Click to expand...

You might want to look up the phrase play on words. I suspect he/she fully intended his "Moore" to be "More" for that post. Whether right or wrong, his More may be the more applicable "law" going forward.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: WarmWinterHat and macsplusmacs
ksec said:
Is this another PR pieces by Apple?

There is no way A16 cost 2.4x more than A15. That is some number spinning there.
Click to expand...

Yeah this number is nonsense, the A15 is 15billion transistors and the A16 is 16billion, so it's not a much larger die and it's just a refined 5nm process so yields shouldn't be much of an issue.
 
  • Like
Reactions: mavere and ksec
A16 could be 24% more expensive than A15, but no way to be 2.4x (or 240%), the difference in process (N5P vs N4) and transistor count (or die area) are too similar to cost more than a double
 
  • Like
Reactions: mavere and ksec
Worth every penny! Geekbench 5 run yesterday completely blow away anything within the ARM family of chips:

CPU: Single Core -> 1880
Multicore -> 5118

Compute: Metal -> 15356

Now can Apple put an M2/M3 chip into an iPhone 15? :oops::cool:o_O
 
skrtelliot said:
A16 could be 24% more expensive than A15, but no way to be 2.4x (or 240%), the difference in process (N5P vs N4) and transistor count (or die area) are too similar to cost more than a double
Click to expand...
It does seem like an incredible price increase, if this is the case. Even if it wasn't 240% it probably was up a good bit. I had read previously TMSC had raised their prices (like everything else). A bit of a problem for Apple since they have only one company that can supply this level of tech to make their chips - and the highest tech level facilities for TMSC are all in Taiwan as a bonus.

TMSC owns this market (5nm and a refined 5nm which they're calling 4nm) at the moment and can charge whatever they choose. Other customers like nVidia want all the 5nm (or 4nm) capacity they can get for their crazy expensive video cards. TMSC will own the 3nm process market next year as well with control of those prices as well. So its a bit of a hat in hand process of getting the price from TMSC at this point and will be for the foreseeable future.
 
Last edited:
I think we now know another reason why they kept the A15 (albeit with the larger RAM) in the regular 14s. Makes sense. However it will be interesting to see how Apple does going forward. With apparently the Pros outselling the regular line if they will make some sort of adjustment next year. Either raising the price of the Pros, or lowering the price of the regular to create a larger price gap. Or will they just go back to the older formula and use the same processors in each if it ends up the A16 and the A17 cost roughly the same.
 
ipedro said:
The iPhone is going to need as much processing power as they can fit into it because it'll be running the AR glasses and that kind of superimposition of graphics on real world objects is processor intensive.

The march towards miniaturized processing power, equivalent to what we've seen in full blown computers, and power efficiency while achieving it, is all in service of wearable tech on our wrists and soon, in glasses.
Click to expand...

I thought so too, but the story so far seems to be that there was a big debate as to whether to have the phone run the processing, or have it all in-headset. I can't find the article now but I believe the rumors say the standalone headset side won.

We'll see. The only problem with having the phone run it, is how to tranmsit the data to the headset in real time.
 
These foundries.... when semiconductor supply bottleneck smoothens out in the future..... they will be in a rude awakening. The foundries are bullying all producers with draconian deal terms. Their days of reckoning are coming soon.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Sasparilla
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back