I expect a HUGE Benchmark advantage for the iPhone 18 PRO MAX using the fastest RAM on the Market.
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iPhone 17 Pro Max LPDDRX5 vs LPDDRX6 How will the change in RAM affect the 18 PRO MAX ?
- Thread starter TheRealAlex
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MarkX
macrumors 68000
Maybe so but that won't necessarily translate to noticeable difference in daily app usage.
Maybe but I bet the more noticeable differences (outside of AI use cases) will be power efficiency and possibly reliability (e.g. on-die ECC -- not as good as end-to-end ECC but better than nothing especially as density goes up and voltages go down).
Also note it's LPDDR5X not LPDDRX5. Similarly the next generation will be LPDDR6 not LPDDR6X (nor LPDDRX6). The X standards are basically standardized extensions to the base standard. So the progression is LPDDR5->LPDDR5X->LPDDR6->LPDDR6X (the last of which is likely several years away from standardization and then another 1-2 years before it appears in consumer phones).
throAU
macrumors G4
Just as possible they just halve the number of memory channels to maintain performance at lower power. The iPhone has been "powerful enough" for some time now, discounting some as yet unknown new super app to demand the power.
I'm not stating that as fact - merely that we have no idea what apple's plans are for this.
I'm not stating that as fact - merely that we have no idea what apple's plans are for this.
Cobold
macrumors 65816
Pretty much like back when switching from LPDDR4X to LPDDR5 back in 2022, when the iPhone 14 Pro/Pro Max with the A16 used LPDDR5 for the first time (vs. LPDDR4X in the A15 and the 13 Pro/Pro Max).
Can't remember ground breaking "Whoaaaaa"-Moments in everyday use. 🤣
Theroretical numbers always look impressive, but everyday usage barely even touches the theoretical limits of RAM bandwidths.
throAU
macrumors G4
This.
Fact is, iphones are faster than most users have any use for - this is why last year's iphone chip runs a laptop acceptably fast - in fact, more performant than most mainstream PC laptops running Windows 11.
A typical iphone's processor spends 99% of its time asleep waiting for something to happen.
This is great, as they can execute whatever work there is to be done very rapidly, and then go back to sleep to save power.
LPDDR6 used in an iPhone would be specifically for enhanced Apple Intelligence efficiency and performance.
There maybe some other performance benefits but mostly a coincidental side effect. For example better performance for other apps while an AI process is running. Or ProRes video processing being sorted by a faster memory controller.
Memory speed (and thus bandwidth) bottlenecks are exceedingly rare in normal use, it's the NAND or CPU/GPU.
Meanwhile an AI model needs to be limited and then throttled because it could easily saturate the memory bandwidth especially on a smartphone with relatively low memory bandwidth and limited resources. The addition of LPDDR6 would give more headroom for better AI performance and more of a buffer to prevent degraded system performance during inference.
There maybe some other performance benefits but mostly a coincidental side effect. For example better performance for other apps while an AI process is running. Or ProRes video processing being sorted by a faster memory controller.
Memory speed (and thus bandwidth) bottlenecks are exceedingly rare in normal use, it's the NAND or CPU/GPU.
Meanwhile an AI model needs to be limited and then throttled because it could easily saturate the memory bandwidth especially on a smartphone with relatively low memory bandwidth and limited resources. The addition of LPDDR6 would give more headroom for better AI performance and more of a buffer to prevent degraded system performance during inference.