It is no longer news that there is a new Apple SoC in town. The Apple A17 Pro is one of the best Socs in the world at the moment. However, how does it hold up against last year’s A16 Bionic, and is it worth upgrading to? Let’s examine the Apple A17 Pro vs. A16 Bionic.
The Apple A17 Pro is Apple’s current flagship SoC. It is currently the fastest SoC in the world running at a whopping 3.78GHz. No other SoC currently comes close. The A17 Pro has made its way onto the Apple iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max.
The Apple A16 Bionic was Apple’s flagship SoC for 2022. It was arguably (up until recently) the best SoC in the world until it was succeeded by the A17 Pro. The A16 Bionic can be found on the iPhone 14 Pro, iPhone 14 Pro Max, iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus.
With that out of the way, let’s have these SoCs go up against each other. How well does the A17 Pro stack up against the A16 and is it worth upgrading to?
Apple A17 Pro vs. A16 Bionic
Performance
Both SoCs are set up in the usual 2+4 big.LITTLE architecture that Apple favors for their SoCs. However, the A17 Pro is a lot faster (3.78GHz) than the A16 Bionic.
However, this massive increase in clock speed does not necessarily reflect in performance. Even Apple themselves state that the A17 Pro is only 10% faster than the A16 Bionic. Is a 10% increase in CPU performance enough for you to get the latest iPhone?
Gaming
Unlike what we just saw with the CPUs, the A17 Pro GPU is miles better than that of the A16 Bionic. The A17 Pro GPU has 6 cores and offers way better performance than the A16 GPU. The A17 Pro GPU also has hardware-based ray tracing and can support triple-A games like Resident Evil.
On the other hand, the GPU on the A16 Bionic is older, slower, has one less core, and lacks hardware-based ray tracing. If you are a gamer, then the A17 Pro GPU is more than enough to get you to upgrade.
RAM and Storage
Both SoCs use the same LPDDR5 RAM, however, the A17 Pro supports more RAM (8GB) than the A16 Bionic (6GB). Thus the A17 Pro would be able to multitask and hold more apps in memory as well.
Cameras
Both the A17 Pro and the A16 Bionic support up to 48MP cameras and record 4K HDR video at 60fps. This should be a tie, only that it is not. The A17 Pro has a better Image Signal Processor and an even better 16-core Neural engine. This means that photos and videos on the A17 Pro would be better processed than those from the A16 Bionic.
Network Connectivity
Both SoCs seem to have the same modem. So far Apple hasn’t released any information to the contrary so this is a tie.
Battery
Due to the 3nm process that the A17 Pro is built on, it boasts a better battery life when compared to its predecessor.
Conclusion
Other than the connectivity aspect, the A17 Pro is a good upgrade over the older A16 Bionic. However, the choice to upgrade will depend largely on you. I am sure that gamers will jump at this upgrade, however, the average user may want to skip this one and wait for next year’s update.
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