A17 Bionic chip to feature only on iPhone 15 Pro models and will come with more GPU cores

We are just weeks away from the grand unveil of Apple's newest iPhones and the rumours are coming in thick and fast.

The latest rumours indicate that code in tvOS 17 suggests that only the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max will be getting Apple's newest A17 Bionic chip.

Furthermore, it says the iPhone 15 and 15 Plus will be powered by the A16 Bionic chip that's currently in the iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max.

This arrangement makes sense since it's the same as what Apple is doing for the iPhone 14 lineup. If you recall, only the iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max got the new A16 Bionic chip, the iPhone 14 and 14 Plus are powered by the older A15 Bionic.

To add, another rumour suggests that the new A17 Bionic will feature 6 CPU cores and 6 GPU cores – that means it has one extra GPU core over the A16 Bionic.

Furthermore, the A17 Bionic will feature a slightly higher clock speed – 3.7GHz vs. 3.46GHz – and it will have the same 6GB of RAM as the A16 Bionic.

This rumour comes from the leaker URedditor who elaborated that they have only seen 6GB examples so far and did not rule out the possibility of chips with 8GB of memory.

The A17 Bionic is particularly exciting because it's rumoured to be built on TSMC's newest 3nm process, which would therefore make it the first production 3nm smartphone chip. 

Moving to a 3nm process should improve both performance and efficiency and when you add that to the higher clock speed and extra GPU core, it should make the A17 Bionic a beast of a smartphone chip.

Source: MacRumors, Twitter / URedditor

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