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Leak of 3nm A17 chip - single core 60% faster?!

donawalt

donawalt

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Sep 10, 2015
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Leaker Max Tech reportedly got the Geekbench 6 scores for Apple's upcoming A17 Bionic chip coming to the iPhone 15, and if they're to be believed, will give Android phone fans something to grind their teeth over. The single-core A17 Bionic running score hit an astounding 3986 points, and the multi-core score was 8841 points. Compared to the iPhone 14's A16 Bionic chip, the power increase for the A17 Bionic clocks in at about a 60% increase on single core and 43% on multi-core. The current MacBook with the M2 chip has a single-core score of 2604 and a multi-core score of 9751 on Geekbench 6. In other words, the M2 CPU has been beaten by the single-core running score, with a very close multi-core score … for an iPhone!

In contrast, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 is the industry’s top flagship chip right now for Android. This chip scored 1953 points in single-core performance and 5449 points in multi-core performance on Geekbench 6. Apple's A17’s multi-core score testing is 1.6 times higher than that of the Android flagship. Its single-core running score is nearly twice as high.

www.patentlyapple.com

Leaked 3nm A17 Bionic Geekbench 6 Scores show a Major Power Leap Forward coming to the iPhone 15 Pro this Fall

During Apple's last Financial Conference Call, Apple's CEO Tim Cook stated: "I think people are willing to really stretch to get the best they can afford in that category." He further noted that the iPhone had become "integral" to life. Rumors surrounding this statement has given rise to a...
www.patentlyapple.com www.patentlyapple.com
 
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Basic75

Basic75

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donawalt said:
Interesting. What is your source? I have done some searching, of course it cannot be verified yet, but that does not mean it's fake. I don't see anyone saying that?
Click to expand...
Ok, then I'll say it: These numbers look fake as hell. We are way beyond the point where we can expect 60% single threaded improvement in one year when the starting point is already pretty much state-of-the-art.
 
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leman

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Oct 14, 2008
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I would believe 20-30% faster, but 60% is a bit too much. it’s really hard to predict. Apple has been essentially pushing Firestorm for three iterations now, with minor redesigns aimed at achieving higher clocks. It is likely that the next CPU core is going to be a new design, with whatever that entails.
 
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Scarrus

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Apr 7, 2011
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Basic75 said:
Ok, then I'll say it: These numbers look fake as hell. We are way beyond the point where we can expect 60% single threaded improvement in one year when the starting point is already pretty much state-of-the-art.
Click to expand...
4nm to 3nm is 20% reduction in size. A15 to A16 was 20% performance gain due to IPC improvements. 20% + 20% = 40% then give it a possibly new chip design and I would say it's possible this isn't fake...

If this is true and the M3 doesn't use this same architecture then I'm going to strangle Tim Cook with my own hands, lol.
 
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olimerkido2

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Feb 23, 2023
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donawalt said:
Leaker Max Tech reportedly got the Geekbench 6 scores for Apple's upcoming A17 Bionic chip coming to the iPhone 15, and if they're to be believed, will give Android phone fans something to grind their teeth over. The single-core A17 Bionic running score hit an astounding 3986 points, and the multi-core score was 8841 points. Compared to the iPhone 14's A16 Bionic chip, the power increase for the A17 Bionic clocks in at about a 60% increase on single core and 43% on multi-core. The current MacBook with the M2 chip has a single-core score of 2604 and a multi-core score of 9751 on Geekbench 6. In other words, the M2 CPU has been beaten by the single-core running score, with a very close multi-core score … for an iPhone!

In contrast, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 is the industry’s top flagship chip right now for Android. This chip scored 1953 points in single-core performance and 5449 points in multi-core performance on Geekbench 6. Apple's A17’s multi-core score testing is 1.6 times higher than that of the Android flagship. Its single-core running score is nearly twice as high.

www.patentlyapple.com

Leaked 3nm A17 Bionic Geekbench 6 Scores show a Major Power Leap Forward coming to the iPhone 15 Pro this Fall

During Apple's last Financial Conference Call, Apple's CEO Tim Cook stated: "I think people are willing to really stretch to get the best they can afford in that category." He further noted that the iPhone had become "integral" to life. Rumors surrounding this statement has given rise to a...
www.patentlyapple.com www.patentlyapple.com
Click to expand...
 
C

Confused-User

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Oct 14, 2014
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Scarrus said:
4nm to 3nm is 20% reduction in size. A15 to A16 was 20% performance gain due to IPC improvements. 20% + 20% = 40% then give it a possibly new chip design and I would say it's possible this isn't fake...

If this is true and the M3 doesn't use this same architecture then I'm going to strangle Tim Cook with my own hands, lol.
Click to expand...
There's nothing here that's right.

IPC improvements from A15->A16 were close to zero. Almost all gains were from pushing clocks. That's because the A16 was a stopgap design forced on them when their N3 ("3nm") design had to be put on hold because N3 wasn't ready.

4nm to 3nm would be a reduction of 25%, not 20%, but that's irrelevant since nothing in the A16 or A17 is 3, 4, or 5 nm in size. Those "sizes" are marketing nonsense that has taken over the industry, and they are entirely divorced from reality.

Nonetheless the 60% number isn't entirely impossible. I think it's entirely plausible, in fact, but it's misunderstood. If it's true, it's likely the score Apple was able to get by pushing clocks as far as they could go on their A17 cores, *in a desktop form factor*. In other words, you're looking at a plausible single-core score for an M3 Mac Pro right there.

How do you get 60% improvement? Not so hard. You get perhaps 15% from going to N3. You get the rest by redesigning the core to run at faster clocks (which the M1 and M2 almost certainly can't), along with moderate IPC improvements. *IF* the number is real - which it may not be - then they might be getting anywhere from 5-20% from IPC gains, and then the rest would come from boosting clocks to around 4.5GHz, give or take, depending on the IPC gains.

The multicore score is weird - you wouldn't expect scaling to be so bad - but if you imagine an engineer getting an early A17 back from TSMC and wondering "how far can I push this if I give it some cooling?" then that might make a lot of sense. The cooling might be good enough to run one core at 4.5GHz, but not enough to let all the cores run at top speed. Also, the A17 uncore is presumably not designed for that speed and may be showing severe deficiencies when pushed that far. One would expect an M3Ultramegawhizzbang to have a far more suitable uncore, so hopefully this is not an indication of how multicore will scale on the M3. Again, if the numbers are even real.
 
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Confused-User

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BTW, I should note that the "moderate" IPC improvements expected in the A17 are not really all that moderate. We're looking at roughly two years of development work instead of the typical one year (because it's the original A16 design, with another year of refinement). And beyond the typical single-digit gains you'd expect for each year, Apple is expected to use the additional area made available by N3 to widen their cores even more. So for my calculations above, I was figuring a 15% IPC improvement, which is not at all a stretch.

They could deliberately chose to forgo some such IPC gains in a tradeoff, instead making their core capable of running at higher clocks, which would be an unexpected choice for them (because power) but not entirely unreasonable for a dual-purpose core (phone + desktop). If so, then they might only see single-digit gains. If they got 7% (remember, this is still two years of development, so that's 3-4%/year) from IPC, they could still hit that 60% improvement by pushing clocks to 4.8-4.9GHz - still quite reasonable for a desktop Mac Pro.
 
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Confused-User

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Oct 14, 2014
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FWIW, my money is on these numbers being fake. My point was only that we could actually see that sort of score from M3s. I'm fairly certain we won't be seeing them from the A17... though I'd love to be wrong.
 
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robertosh

robertosh

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Even if that is real, there is no need for Apple to unlock such power from the chip. 25% would be a very good upgrade and you have 35% in the pocket to have less heat and better battery life.
 
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apparatchik

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Mar 6, 2008
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snak-atak said:
But if they’re real, AAPL value will correspondingly jump by 60% overnight as well!
Click to expand...

Apple is already sizing its performance lead in desktop and mobile devices, even if the chips where 250% faster, the market has already taken into account Apple's lead in cpu design in terms of estimated Mac and iPhone / iPad sales and increased marketshare, they might sell even more and accelerate grow, but not by 60% just because of having the fastest systems, which they already do.
 
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