Apple A17 Pro By The Incredible Numbers

On Tuesday afternoon, Apple premiered a pre-recorded event on YouTube where they officially announced the iPhone 15 product line and Apple Watches Series 9. The former included the announcement of the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max, which both feature the new A17 Pro system on a chip, which Apple seems particularly proud of.

Numerically speaking, there's a lot to like. Apple is saying that the A17 Pro is the first-ever 3-nanometer chip, with 19 billion transistors and a six-core CPU. The CPU has two high-performance cores and four high-efficiency cores. Apple's presentation and press release claim that the performance cores are 10% faster than before. The chip's Neural Engine, meanwhile, is being pushed as being as much as twice as fast as before for machine learning models. It can process up to 35 trillion operations per second, and those improvements to on-device processing make it so that less data has to be sent to the cloud as often. In theory, that means a faster, better Siri.  

The A17 Pro also includes a new USB controller, making the iPhone 15 Pro sub-series the first iPhones to hit 10 gigabits per second over USB.

One aspect that Apple showcased particularly heavily was the new GPU. Apple has designed a new shader architecture for the A17 Pro's GPU, a six-core processor that Apple is promoting as having 20% faster peak performance than before. Gamers, in particular, will take notice of the added mesh shading and the new hardware-accelerated ray tracing.

This should lead to better lighting and frame rates if it's as advertised, and Apple gave good reason to think it might be. Console-quality games announced for the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max are Resident Evil Village, the Resident Evil 4 remake, and Death Stranding in late 2023, plus Assassin's Creed Mirage in early 2024 simultaneous to its console/PC release. In the video presentation, it was billed as the first time that an Assassin's Creed console game "will be natively available on a smartphone."

"This is the most pro lineup we have ever created, with a state-of-the-art titanium design, the best iPhone camera system yet that enables game-changing new workflows, and the A17 Pro chip, which ushers in a new chapter of performance and games never before seen on iPhone," said Greg Joswiak, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing, in a press release. "iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max represent the best of Apple design and industry-first innovations to help enrich the everyday experiences of our users while enabling them to unleash their creativity."