For something that only draws up to 6 Watt while gaming that seems kind of impressive, no?
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New Apple TV Reportedly Equipped With Binned A15 Chip With 5-Core CPU
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Ha Ha. I was thinking more of "The Six Million Dollar Man". Both superstars thou.
The cpu is probably Binned due to heat. I'd rather have a fan in the ATV with an extra core.
tell that to Call of Duty iOS. They are making far more than .99 cents for the game by $100,000,000s
Yeah, they are wrong about the GPU part…
From:
Apple tvOS Developer Site
“The A15 Bionic chip in Apple TV 4K includes a 5-core CPU with 2 performance and 3 efficiency cores and a 5-core GPU”
From:
Apple tvOS Developer Site
“The A15 Bionic chip in Apple TV 4K includes a 5-core CPU with 2 performance and 3 efficiency cores and a 5-core GPU”
Tell that to Activision and Call of Duty iOS. If they had the chance to port to Apple TV they would 100% do so. And that game is pulling in $100,000,000s. A far cry from .99 cents.
That seems a silly, or at least sub-optimal, analysis.
What's wrong with getting value out of chips that would otherwise have to be trashed? Especially since most of the rest of this thread is moaning that the devices are "too powerful".
From what I've always understood, it doesn't have a positive or negative connotation. For instance, Intel would bin their top performing CPUs (least defects/issues in testing and overvolting) and sell those as the extreme overclockable editions. In this case, TSMC is binning chips that have defective cores. All it means is they're putting them into separate labeled bins from the normal, mainstream CPUs so they can repurpose them.
I would!
I don't get to play games all that often, so it's not worth it to me to shell out to replace my aging but faithful Xbox 360. If Apple could land two or three AAA games per year on tvOS, I would absolutely spend $60 for one or two each year. That's all I have time to play, and it would let me scratch my AAA game itch without having to spend money on a new console.
I realize I'm an outlier, but... 🤷♂️
Apple already has top tiered games on IOS they could port to Apple TV , Activision’s “Call of Duty” and people are spending far more than $60 to play it.
Please don't disparage differently abled chips like that. /s
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A good overview of the gaming capabilities of the latest ATV 4K. Very first example is Titan Quest and that game runs at 60 fps in full 4K on the A15.
It doesn’t even matter at this point. The selection of games is absolutely pathetic. Gershin Impact? Nope. Alien Isolation? Nope. Hell, I can’t even download the GTA trilogy that could run on a nearly ten year old iPhone. 128 GB of storage for what? Jet Pack Joyride and Crossy Road? The Apple TV is having a serious case of iPad OS blues. Great power paired with crippling software. It’s still my choice for a steaming box, but it will never be used as a gaming device unless they allow us to download every single game on the App Store.
I would pay more than $0.99 for a decent game within reason. And would much rather pay one time than this freemium garbage
Binned means that it was a defect in manufacturing and didn't meet the QA process. Intel does the same thing with their processors.
However the article was wrong, its XBox One and PS4 not 5, and even then, I doubt the Apple TV 4K can run GOW:R which the PS4 can.
However the article was wrong, its XBox One and PS4 not 5, and even then, I doubt the Apple TV 4K can run GOW:R which the PS4 can.
PS4 and Xbox One couldn't run games in 4K. Current 4K ATV can...so there's no doubt that it would be able run any game that appeared on those platforms. Example: Nintendo Switch was able to run Witcher 3 with 4GB of RAM.
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While I agree, nobody is going to spend $60 for an ATV game, I’d like to see support for cloud-based gaming. I have GamePass and PSN Premium. Would be cool to use ATV as a stream box.
I don't see this as any big deal. There is no need for the device to go 100 mph or do 100 things at once.
I think it’s incredibly laughable that they say this Apple TV in any way shape or form compares or competes with the PS5. That’s hilarious. That’s like comparing a chrome books to a Mac Pro.
The third-generation Apple TV 4K released earlier this month is equipped with a binned version of the A15 Bionic chip with one CPU core disabled, according to the website FlatpanelsHD, citing information from the TV Info app for tvOS.
The review claims the A15 Bionic has a five-core CPU in the new Apple TV, whereas the chip has a six-core CPU in iPhone 13 and iPhone 14 models.
Despite having a binned CPU and a fanless design, the website found the new Apple TV to be roughly 40% faster and throttle less than the previous Apple TV 4K with the A12 Bionic chip. The review said the new Apple TV is much faster than previous-generation consoles like the Xbox One, but the PS5 still pulls ahead in multi-core benchmark testing.
While not confirmed, the report also suspects that the Apple TV uses a version of the A15 Bionic with a four-core GPU, compared to a five-core GPU in iPhone 13 Pro models. Apple's streaming box still lags behind popular consoles in graphics performance, but the review said it is "starting to get to a point where Xbox One and PS4 games should, in theory, be playable on Apple TV without too many compromises."
Apple says GPU performance is up to 30% faster on the new Apple TV compared to the previous generation, but there are no GPU benchmark apps for tvOS.
The review pointed out that the Apple TV only offers a limited number of games that take full advantage of the A15 Bionic's capabilities, so the device remains far from a "console killer," but the performance boosts could set the stage for a bigger gaming push.
Article Link: New Apple TV Reportedly Equipped With Binned A15 Chip With 5-Core CPU
What, dare I ask without getting flamed for my ignorance, is a "binned" CPU?
[edit: looks like people jumped into the comments to explain -- but editors, if you are getting multiple people asking about a technical term in the comments, you probably should've taken a minute to define it in the story]
Silicon wafers have multiple imperfections in them. When creating chips from these wafers inevitably some of the chips will have a defect in one of their parts.
Instead of throwing away the entire chip, companies bin them: they test and see that only 1 of the CPU cores has a defect, for instance. They disable that core. And voila! you have a perfectly working 5-CPU core chip instead of a 6-core one. They then put it in the new Apple TV and say it has a slightly lower powered version of the chip. For cheaper.