The A17 Pro may be the industry's first 3nm chipset, but various performance leaks and metrics show that it only offers a small performance boost compared to the A16 Bionic. For example, in multi-core tests, the latest chip only achieves at least a single-digit improvement over last year's SoC, while the GPU achieves a 20% improvement.

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Now, the reason for these minor differences is that a new leak suggests that the A17 Pro and A16 Bionic may not be that different and are believed to be improved versions with higher clock speeds and other optimizations, a belief that has to do with the codenames of the chipset's performance and efficiency cores.

The leak showing the codename came from an unlisted Weibo account, but Revegnus posted the image below from his X account showing the similarities between the A17 Pro and A16 Bionic. Each performance and efficiency core of the chipset is separated by a codename. For the A15Bionic, it's the H14C, and for the A16Bionic, it's the H15. However, the most interesting thing is that the code name of A17Pro is "H15Coll".

If Apple's first 3nm chip was completely different, it should be assigned an entirely new codename, such as H16, but that's not the case here. Revegnus said in the post that the A17 Pro may be an improved version of the A16 Bionic, equipped with additional GPU cores, increased clock speeds on the performance cores, and more optimizations.

Images from Weibo show that the A17Pro and A16Bionic cores have the same "H15" codename, with the term "Coll" used for the newer SoC

We also note that, according to a document from Chinese regulators, even though all iPhone 15 models feature larger batteries than their predecessors, they run at the same time as the iPhone 14 series, which shouldn't be the case when you have an efficient 3nm SoC. Apple didn't show any performance charts, and the A17 Pro was ahead of the competition in any category, which means there must be something to hide.

It's possible that this chip is just another interim product and actual improvements could be seen in the A18 Pro or A18 Bionic, whatever Apple decides to name next year's flagship iPhone chip. Anyone who currently owns an iPhone 14 and plans to upgrade to iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max may want to reconsider their purchase decision.