Other A17 Pro. A new step forward.

[Populus]

And… a big leap forward?

In 10 minutes the September 2023 event will take place, and I wanted to open a thread to talk about what I personally think is going to be the most important announcement of the keynote: the A17 Bionic SoC.

The first mainstream chip built on 3nm, with an unmatched efficiency. The only mystery to be resolved, is the core count of the CPU, GPU and Neural Engine. We assume the SoC will retain the same 6 cores CPU and possibly a 6 cores GPU. However, will the GPU have Ray Tracing? Will it have a complete redesigned architecture? Will it be capable of Machine Learning tasks? And what about the Neural Engine? Being AI and Machine Learning unavoidably part of the future of computing, will Apple increase the core count of the Neural Engine from 16 cores to maybe 24?

There are still many mysteries about the first Apple SoC build on 3nm, and many expectations, especially if we take into account that the past chips, such as the A15 and especially the A16, were very iterative, being rather ”overclocked“ versions of the previous chip. Will the A17 come with a new CPU architecture? Maybe implementing ARM 9 features?

In just a few minutes we’ll know. Feel free to share your in-depth thoughts, and keep the discussion civil and respectful, thank you.

 

[floral]

Do we... even know for sure it'll be 3nm, though?

 

[Populus]

Do we... even know for sure it'll be 3nm, though?

It would be funny if, after a few years talking about the 3nm chips, the A17 was still a 5nm chip like the three previous ones

Aside from the A17 itself, I’m also interested on the chip it as the foundation of the future M3 family.

 

[Populus]

Oh wait… A17 Pro?

AV1 DECODER! FINALLY!!!

And a redesigned architecture of the GPU!!!

AND HARDWARE RAY TRACING!!!

M3s are going to be great!

 

[NotApplicable]

Strangely no improvement to battery life despite the rumors

 

[Populus]

Strangely no improvement to battery life despite the rumors

Certainty. They mentioned efficiency but they didn’t elaborate too much on that. We’ll have to see the specs of the new iPhones…

I feel more and more tempted to wait until next years iPhone 16, with stacked batteries…

Do you think we’ll see an A18 for the iPhone 16 and an A18 Pro for the 16 Pro, like @sw1tcher suggested on another thread?

 

[Macalicious2011]

I feel more and more tempted to wait until next years iPhone 16, with stacked batteries…

How likely are stacked batteries? The only temptation to wait for the 16 is if the telephoto lens is 1st gen and could do with a polishing.

 

[Silentwave]

Certainty. They mentioned efficiency but they didn’t elaborate too much on that. We’ll have to see the specs of the new iPhones…

Specs on 15 pro max vs. 14 pro Max are identical.

 

[JulianL]

Strangely no improvement to battery life despite the rumors

I was really surprised at that too.

The figure I look at first re battery life is Apple’s spec for non-streamed video playback since of all the numbers that Apple publishes for battery life that one most closely approximates reading an ebook which is what I do most and since Apple presumably doesn’t change its test conditions year-on-year it allows a point of comparison for whether my battery life is likely to get better, worse or stay about the same.

With the new A17, rumours of a bigger mAh battery and Qualcom’s claims of better power efficiency in the Q70 I was very surprised (and disappointed) to see Apple still specifying 29 hours of video playback for the 15 Pro Max. I was expecting a minimum of a 10% increase and was secretly hoping for something more like a 20% increase this year.

 

[NotApplicable]

I was really surprised at that too.

The figure I look at first re battery life is Apple’s spec for non-streamed video playback since of all the numbers that Apple publishes for battery life that one most closely approximates reading an ebook which is what I do most and since Apple presumably doesn’t change its test conditions year-on-year it allows a point of comparison for whether my battery life is likely to get better, worse or stay about the same.

With the new A17, rumours of a bigger mAh battery and Qualcom’s claims of better power efficiency in the Q70 I was very surprised (and disappointed) to see Apple still specifying 29 hours of video playback for the 15 Pro Max. I was expecting a minimum of a 10% increase and was secretly hoping for something more like a 20% increase this year.

Same. Really confused how an increase didn’t automatically happen with the combination of factors you mention. Maybe iOS 17 is just that much thirstier.

 

[Populus]

Well, after reading some numbers and early calculations and comparisons, I honestly feel disappointed with this new SoC. It is late here so I won’t be reading or replying for a while, but given the jump to a new lithography, I really expect a bigger jump than just a 10% in CPU and one more core on the GPU. And, yeah, the Ray Tracing and AV1 codec are welcome of course, but still, I expected a much bigger jump in performance and efficiency.

 

[dumastudetto]

Well, after reading some numbers and early calculations and comparisons, I honestly feel disappointed with this new SoC. It is late here so I won’t be reading or replying for a while, but given the jump to a new lithography, I really expect a bigger jump than just a 10% in CPU and one more core on the GPU. And, yeah, the Ray Tracing and AV1 codec are welcome of course, but still, I expected a much bigger jump in performance and efficiency.

We're just getting started with this new class of iPhone SoC.

 

[BootLoxes]

Maybe implementing ARM 9 features?

This is what I want to know the most. But other than this, my wishlist has been met. Now to see if the M3 base gets an additional monitor support

 

[mprime_17]

The raw performance is disappointing but the actual improvement is the incorporation of metalfx to the GPU.
Digital Foundry did a comparison with REVIII between it, dlss 2 and fsr2, and their temporal solution (quality mode) is quite good, better than fsr2.
This will bring higher sustained framerates to games that suffer from throttling like GI.

 

[BijouMan]

And… a big leap forward?

In 10 minutes the September 2023 event will take place, and I wanted to open a thread to talk about what I personally think is going to be the most important announcement of the keynote: the A17 Bionic SoC.

The first mainstream chip built on 3nm, with an unmatched efficiency. The only mystery to be resolved, is the core count of the CPU, GPU and Neural Engine. We assume the SoC will retain the same 6 cores CPU and possibly a 6 cores GPU. However, will the GPU have Ray Tracing? Will it have a complete redesigned architecture? Will it be capable of Machine Learning tasks? And what about the Neural Engine? Being AI and Machine Learning unavoidably part of the future of computing, will Apple increase the core count of the Neural Engine from 16 cores to maybe 24?

There are still many mysteries about the first Apple SoC build on 3nm, and many expectations, especially if we take into account that the past chips, such as the A15 and especially the A16, were very iterative, being rather ”overclocked“ versions of the previous chip. Will the A17 come with a new CPU architecture? Maybe implementing ARM 9 features?

In just a few minutes we’ll know. Feel free to share your in-depth thoughts, and keep the discussion civil and respectful, thank you.

Is there any sign of an iPhone model in the works that would use an A17 Max chip? The fact that this one is called A17 Pro looks like it would leave room for an A17 Max, much like the M2 Pro and M2 Max.

 

[mprime_17]

This must be the biggest meh update I've ever seen for an Apple CPU.
But it confirms the pros have 8GB of RAM, that's nice.

Revegnus (@Tech_Reve) on X

A17 Pro Geekbench 6

x.com

 

[zonai]

It's a 13-15% increase YoY, which is not terrible. I think there was a similar upgrade from the 13 Pro to 14 Pro. The real story is the increased graphics capabilities, Bloomberg reported that the GPU upgrade was originally planned for the 14 Pro but wasn't ready in time and it was a rare miss for the hardware team.

Is there any sign of an iPhone model in the works that would use an A17 Max chip? The fact that this one is called A17 Pro looks like it would leave room for an A17 Max, much like the M2 Pro and M2 Max.

My feeling is that they will go the opposite direction and release a regular A17 for lower-end products. 3nm is a very new process and the yields have to be pretty terrible. They can use binning and ship less CPU cores and/or GPU cores. Such a configuration might be suitable to an iPad Mini (not updated since 2021), iPhone SE 2024, or a new Apple TV.

 

[sack_peak]

Can anyone confirm if the "A17 Pro" has more transistors and is faster than the M1 SoC that released less than 3 years ago?

Also what's the TDP between the two?

 

[sack_peak]

It's a 13-15% increase YoY, which is not terrible. I think there was a similar upgrade from the 13 Pro to 14 Pro. The real story is the increased graphics capabilities, Bloomberg reported that the GPU upgrade was originally planned for the 14 Pro but wasn't ready in time and it was a rare miss for the hardware team.

Jumping from a 14nm to a 5nm chip spoiled us.

We will not get the same high in the future unless you replace every 10 years or so.

 

[zonai]

Jumping from a 14nm to a 5nm chip spoiled us.

We will not get the same high in the future unless you replace every 10 years or so.

Uh no, we went from 7nm to 5nm. And before that was 10nm.

Can anyone confirm if the "A17 Pro" has more transistors and is faster than the M1 SoC that released less than 3 years ago?

Also what's the TDP between the two?

More transistors, yes, more power, no. TDP of A17 Pro will be significantly less than M1. Probably if the TDP range of A17 Pro is increased, the power levels could then be comparable.

 

[Onimusha370]

I wondered if A17 would be similar in performance to M1, but I think it probably falls short (although ray tracing obviously better!)

By my very rubbish calcs, I’d expect the CPU to be around 30% slower than M1 and GPU to be 10% slower than M1. But given the ray tracing stuff I imagine it will outperform M1 in gaming. If anything this just makes me want a new “MacBook” with the same design as the 2015 release and an A17 Pro for the SOC. Think of the battery life of that machine…

 

[Torty]

Is there any sign of an iPhone model in the works that would use an A17 Max chip? The fact that this one is called A17 Pro looks like it would leave room for an A17 Max, much like the M2 Pro and M2 Max.

Maybe standard iphone 16 gets A17 non pro with only 5 GPU Cores.

 

[sack_peak]

Uh no, we went from 7nm to 5nm. And before that was 10nm.

I was thinking Intel 14nm to Apple Silicon 5nm.

 

[mprime_17]

It's a 13-15% increase YoY, which is not terrible. I think there was a similar upgrade from the 13 Pro to 14 Pro.

That's the bad part. Apple has been increasing CPU performance by just increasing the clocks in a similar % two years in a row.
To me this is a clear confirmation that the engineers leaving Apple a few years ago was a huge blow to Apple Silicon, and who knows if they'll ever recover.

Now, if the efficiency went up like with the A15, then it's a huge win IMO. But again, that didn't happen with the A16.

 

[sack_peak]

An explainer video on the A17 Pro chip from the iPhone 15 Pro & 15 Pro Max