The first Geekbench scores for the iPhone 15 Pro have confirmed Apple's performance improvement claims for its new A17 Pro chip over last year's A16 Bionic chipset found in the iPhone 14 Pro.
As spotted by MySmartPrice, the benchmarking platform has recorded an iPhone 15 Pro tested in the wild with the model number iPhone 16,1 and a six-core CPU with a base frequency of 3.78GHz.
In the test result, the device scored 2,908 and 7,238 points in the single-core and multi-core tests, while last year's iPhone 14 Pro scored 2,642 and 6,739, respectively.
Meanwhile, an iPhone 15 Pro Max with the model number iPhone 16,2 scored 2,846 and 7,024 points in the single-core and multi-core tests respectively. That also compares favorably to last years iPhone 14 Pro Max, which scored 2,546 and 6,631 points in the same respective tests.
The Geekbench results also recorded 8GB of RAM for both iPhone 15 Pro models, compared to 6GB of RAM in last year's Pro models, corroborating previous reporting.
Apple's A17 Pro chip is made with a first-of-its-kind 3-nanometer process. The A17 Pro has a six-core CPU, for 10% faster CPU performance and 20% faster GPU performance. It also has a two-times faster 16-core neural engine to accelerate machine learning such as more accurate autocorrect or pulling a subject from an image. It can process up to 35 trillion operations per second.
In addition, the A17 Pro contains a brand new GPU with an Apple-designed shader architecture. Apple says it is the biggest redesign in the history of Apple GPUs, with a focus on performance and efficiency, running complex applications, and new rendering features.
The iPhone 15 Pro starts at $999 for 128GB of storage, while the iPhone 15 Pro Max starts at $1,199 for 256GB of storage. All of the new iPhone 15 models are available to pre-order starting Friday, September 15, and will launch on Friday, September 22 in more than 40 countries and regions around the world.
Top Rated Comments
I kind of agree as this can open new features and capabilities not possible before. There’s quite a few new software features being added these days that are driven by those parts of the chips. Things that might help sell more phones vs 10% more CPU performance on a phone that no one I’ve ever come across says is too slow.
Will the iPhone 16 receive a non "Pro" A17 chip while the iPhone 16 Pro will simply receive a minor bump of the existing A17 Pro? Or is it going to be A17 and A18 Pro chip at the same time? Sounds weird
Lots of talk in the Apple Silicon forum about whether M3 is based on A16 or A17 - could it be that A16 and A17 are the same (with just ML cores, ray tracing and USB 3.0 in A17)?
In terms of the iPhone 16 SoC - I've read that the current 3 nm process is a stepping stone before the more scalable second gen 3 nm process and that the differences mean you can't just switch a chip from one process to the other, meaning Apple would have to redesign the chip anyway for the second gen process. Whether they chose to redesign the A17 Pro or just design two versions of the A18 will probably come down to a battle between the financial interests of saving money on the production line (i.e. using binned chips for the regular/pro phones) vs "encouraging" people to buy the Pro models through having a higher SoC generation than the non-Pro.
Now we know the whole M3 family will support ray tracing and higher clock speeds, AV1 codec is also good and also based on scaling the M3 Ultra can be something great (not to mention that even the M3 Max is suppose to go for more power than something on the even side like the M1 and M2 Max were)