A17 specifications leaked ahead of iPhone 15 Pro release

AppleInsider

A new leak from a generally reliable source says that the A17 processor in Apple's iPhone 15 Pro will come with 6GB RAM.

The forthcoming iPhone 15 Pro has previously been rumored to come with 8GB RAM -- although so was the iPhone 14 Pro the year before. Now a new leak from "Unknownz21," aka URedditor, says the new iPhone range will again include only 6GB RAM.

Apple A17 - t8130 - Coll

6 CPU Cores + 6 GPU Cores
3.70 GHz
6GB LPDDR5 DRAM - Micron/Samsung
TSMC 3nm Process

LPDDR = Low Power Double Data Rate SDRAM

The A17 is used by both the D83 and D84, also likely planned for D47 and D48 (16 series), as the D9x will use t8140 (A18).

-- Unknownz21 (@URedditor)

August 9, 2023

"Unknownz21" most recently weighed in on leaks concerning purported images of the iPhone 15 range's USB-C components. Prior to that, the leaker has claimed that 2024's iPhone 16 will return to the vertical camera arrangement of the iPhone 12.

The leaker claims that the A17 Bionic in the iPhone 15 Pro will come with 6 CPU and 6 GPU cores, running at 3.70 GHz. "Unknownz21" also says that the processor, made with TSMC's latest 3 nanometer manufacturing process, will appear in the iPhone 16 in 2024.

In the rest of the thread on Twitter/X, the leaker says that dark blue is "looking more and more likely to be the final color."

Read on AppleInsider

JinTech

Those are pretty easily guessed specs based on what has been discussed and speculated. How come they don't know anything about the camera or anything else? 

dennyc69

Big deal…. Nothing amazing there. Apple leaks are not what they used to be. Ohhhh a spec bump!

mayfly

Man, the iPhone 15 is the worst kept secret in the history of Apple leaks!

eriamjh

These numbers mean nothing to me.   

melgross

Actually, the “bump” this year is thought to be the biggest jump in three generations. I’m not just talking about the SoC, but for the entire phone, camera, SoC, screen, etc.

darkvader

mayfly said:

Man, the iPhone 15 is the worst kept secret in the history of Apple leaks!

Nah, nothing about it is all that interesting.

The Mac mini leak was way better.  The Cube was a pretty sweet leak too.

And some of the QuickTime leaks were pretty amazingly good.

9secondkox2

3.7 GHz??? And an additional GPU core? 
if true…
at 3 nm this thing is going to absolutely rip! 

But… how will the performance be utilized in a phone? 

techconc

9secondkox2 said:

3.7 GHz??? And an additional GPU core? 
if true…
at 3 nm this thing is going to absolutely rip! 

But… how will the performance be utilized in a phone? 

This doesn't look like the update many of us have been hoping for.  Many are hoping for significant architecture changes with higher IPC in the CPU and a GPU with hardware ray tracing support.  This looks more like the same CPU and GPU architecture with a slightly higher clock speed and an extra GPU thrown in thanks to the move to 3nm. 

charlesn

melgross said:

Actually, the “bump” this year is thought to be the biggest jump in three generations. I’m not just talking about the SoC, but for the entire phone, camera, SoC, screen, etc.

Wow, seriously, DO TELL, because even alleged leakers don't have this info. The ENTIRE phone is getting the biggest jump in three generations? Really? And this would be what, exactly? A USB-C port? Slightly narrower bezels? WiFi 6e? Maybe a better zoom lens on the Pro Max model? 

soundsinmotion

Apple stopped innovating a while back, now they just slightly improve the phone with specs but no breakthrough technologies anymore.

bluefire1

With what appears to be minimal improvements in the Pro model, it looks like I’ll be keeping my 14 Pro for another year.

danox

soundsinmotion said:

Apple stopped innovating a while back, now they just slightly improve the phone with specs but no breakthrough technologies anymore.

When you are a vertical computer company you can optimize hardware and software, most of the improvements are going to be behind the scenes with software, if Microsoft, Google and Amazon can get a free ride on the latest fad AI (buzzword), then what is the problem with Apple optimizing their hardware/software combo to work better with their SOC’s, software improvement, always follows hardware, and with that new R1 co-processor coming up next year who says they can’t innovate, three companies are currently stopped in their tracks, scratching their heads like a monkey trying to figure out where do they go next in answer to the Apple Vision Pro….

Apples, latest iPhone chip will simply stomp all over the competition, in every way, hardware industrial design and SOC chip/OS software under one roof, is where the innovation/disruption to the competition comes in. (This allows Apple to do more with less, less power wattage, less megahertz, less memory), and that’s what being a vertical computer company means.

9secondkox2

techconc said:

9secondkox2 said:

3.7 GHz??? And an additional GPU core? 
if true…
at 3 nm this thing is going to absolutely rip! 

But… how will the performance be utilized in a phone? 

This doesn't look like the update many of us have been hoping for.  Many are hoping for significant architecture changes with higher IPC in the CPU and a GPU with hardware ray tracing support.  This looks more like the same CPU and GPU architecture with a slightly higher clock speed and an extra GPU thrown in thanks to the move to 3nm. 

With the noise Apple has been making about 3D, gaming, and GPU based rendering, I’ll be shocked if hardware raytracing wasn’t there already. It was originally planned for m2 after all, which leads me to wonder if raytracing isn’t the only major inclusion. 

charlesn

danox said:

soundsinmotion said:

Apple stopped innovating a while back, now they just slightly improve the phone with specs but no breakthrough technologies anymore

Apples, latest iPhone chip will simply stomp all over the competition, in every way, hardware industrial design and SOC chip/OS software under one roof, is where the innovation/disruption to the competition comes in. (This allows Apple to do more with less, less power wattage, less megahertz, less memory), and that’s what being a vertical computer company means.

But to what end from the consumer's perspective? I'm too invested in Apple's ecosystem to ever leave it, but I still look at competing phones and -- in terms of hardware -- the best from Samsung and Huawei are at least as compelling, and in some ways more so, than Apple's Pro models. You would think, at the very least, that Apple's "do more with less" would translate into significantly better battery life for consumers, but no. Battery life for Samsung's 23 Ultra is essentially even with the 14 Pro Max. And while the design for Huawei's P60 Pro is stunningly modern and beautiful, especially the way the camera module (with an f1.4 main lens!) is implemented. Meanwhile, Apple is still coasting on a 13-year-old design it introduced in 2010 with the iPhone 4. 

melgross

techconc said:

9secondkox2 said:

3.7 GHz??? And an additional GPU core? 
if true…
at 3 nm this thing is going to absolutely rip! 

But… how will the performance be utilized in a phone? 

This doesn't look like the update many of us have been hoping for.  Many are hoping for significant architecture changes with higher IPC in the CPU and a GPU with hardware ray tracing support.  This looks more like the same CPU and GPU architecture with a slightly higher clock speed and an extra GPU thrown in thanks to the move to 3nm. 

That might be so, but I’ve found over the years that while the leakers can get some basic thing right, they miss all the more sophisticated advances. That is something that Apple is good at hiding. I don’t think they care as much about people knowing, a month before release, how many cores there are, or at what frequency they run at. 

melgross

charlesn said:

melgross said:

Actually, the “bump” this year is thought to be the biggest jump in three generations. I’m not just talking about the SoC, but for the entire phone, camera, SoC, screen, etc.

Wow, seriously, DO TELL, because even alleged leakers don't have this info. The ENTIRE phone is getting the biggest jump in three generations? Really? And this would be what, exactly? A USB-C port? Slightly narrower bezels? WiFi 6e? Maybe a better zoom lens on the Pro Max model? 

Yes, every tech site has said that, smartpants. Maybe if you read some of them you would know too. They’ve talked about it here as well..

melgross

charlesn said:

danox said:

soundsinmotion said:

Apple stopped innovating a while back, now they just slightly improve the phone with specs but no breakthrough technologies anymore

Apples, latest iPhone chip will simply stomp all over the competition, in every way, hardware industrial design and SOC chip/OS software under one roof, is where the innovation/disruption to the competition comes in. (This allows Apple to do more with less, less power wattage, less megahertz, less memory), and that’s what being a vertical computer company means.

But to what end from the consumer's perspective? I'm too invested in Apple's ecosystem to ever leave it, but I still look at competing phones and -- in terms of hardware -- the best from Samsung and Huawei are at least as compelling, and in some ways more so, than Apple's Pro models. You would think, at the very least, that Apple's "do more with less" would translate into significantly better battery life for consumers, but no. Battery life for Samsung's 23 Ultra is essentially even with the 14 Pro Max. And while the design for Huawei's P60 Pro is stunningly modern and beautiful, especially the way the camera module (with an f1.4 main lens!) is implemented. Meanwhile, Apple is still coasting on a 13-year-old design it introduced in 2010 with the iPhone 4. 

It depends on what you use your phone for. High end gaming? Photo or video editing? Computational photography? I’m sure you can come up with a few more.

charlesn

melgross said:

charlesn said:

melgross said:

Actually, the “bump” this year is thought to be the biggest jump in three generations. I’m not just talking about the SoC, but for the entire phone, camera, SoC, screen, etc.

Wow, seriously, DO TELL, because even alleged leakers don't have this info. The ENTIRE phone is getting the biggest jump in three generations? Really? And this would be what, exactly? A USB-C port? Slightly narrower bezels? WiFi 6e? Maybe a better zoom lens on the Pro Max model? 

Yes, every tech site has said that, smartpants. Maybe if you read some of them you would know too. They’ve talked about it here as well..

Well, educate us Melgross! What are these advances you say are coming? C'mon, some quick bulletpoints, other than what I've listed. You can't because they don't exist. Here, I'll make it easier: what's this biggest jump in screen tech in three generations that you say we're going to get? Bezels thinner by a millimeter or two? I'm in television production and use the Pro for both its high end video and photo capabilities. Current speeds are great. The biggest bottleneck is getting high rez video or photos off the phone because the Lightning connector is slow. USB-C won't solve that unless the Pro models offer Thunderbolt speed capability, and nobody is suggesting that's coming. 

charlesn

melgross said:

techconc said:

9secondkox2 said:

3.7 GHz??? And an additional GPU core? 
if true…
at 3 nm this thing is going to absolutely rip! 

But… how will the performance be utilized in a phone? 

This doesn't look like the update many of us have been hoping for.  Many are hoping for significant architecture changes with higher IPC in the CPU and a GPU with hardware ray tracing support.  This looks more like the same CPU and GPU architecture with a slightly higher clock speed and an extra GPU thrown in thanks to the move to 3nm. 

That might be so, but I’ve found over the years that while the leakers can get some basic thing right, they miss all the more sophisticated advances. That is something that Apple is good at hiding. I don’t think they care as much about people knowing, a month before release, how many cores there are, or at what frequency they run at. 

Considering the 12 to 14 Pro models, which are the most clear in my memory. the only surprise I can think of is Dynamic Island. Other than that, rumors had pretty much nailed everything else that was major before Apple announced them. We'll see soon enough if the rumor mill has missed anything about the 15 Pro. Personally, I hope the answer is yes because what's out there is pretty mundane. 

mac_dog

…scratching their heads…

Scratching their balls more like.