In our iPhone 15 Pro Max vs 14 Pro Max comparison, we can now add the latest benchmark performance score of Apple's 2023 flagship with the new A17 Pro chipset and its breathtaking 19 million transistors.
The Apple A17 Pro is the first 3nm chipset crafted on TSMC's latest N3 node and lithography methods. The chip foundry is promising "up to 70% logic density gain, up to 15% speed improvement at the same power, and up to 30% power reduction at the same speed as compared with N5 technology," or with the 5nm chipsets on last year's Android flagships, for instance.
Apple A17 Pro vs Apple A16 benchmark performance tests
How does the new 3nm Apple A17 Pro in the iPhone 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max fare against the transitional N4P 4nm node that the Apple A16 chipset in their predecessors is built on, though?
After all, the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus also got the A16 processor this year and the A17 "Pro" naming move indicates that Apple intends to keep separating its Pro line of phones by chipset generations, among all the other things like display speeds and camera counts.
Looking at the benchmark scores below, we can see that the iPhone 15 Pro Max is faster than the 14 Pro Max in the single-core performance with about what TSMC promised its 3nm node can achieve. The difference seems to come from the 3nm chipset's ability to be clocked higher than the 4nm one, at 3.77 GHz vs 3.46 GHz peak speeds.
Apple A17 Pro on iPhone 15 Pro Max vs Apple 16 on 14 Pro Max benchmark scores
Barring our first battery life tests, the big difference between the two chipsets are their graphics subsystems. Apple bragged with "the best GPU it has done so far" and there is now even an Assassin's Creed franchise tailored entirely for the mobile experience gifted to the iPhone 15 Pro models by the virtue of their A17 chipset.
According to the Geekbench scores here, the largest gaps in performance between the iPhone 14 Pro and 15 Pro lines are in their ray-tracing and HDR calculation abilities, things that apparently get a significant boost from the move to the new Apple silicon.
We'll save the final verdict for when we run our complete set of benchmarks on the iPhone 15 Pro Max, including our battery endurance benchmark while running heavy 3D games to gauge exactly how much more powerful and efficient would the iPhone 15 Pro Max A17 chipset be compared to its predecessor.
Daniel, a devoted tech writer at PhoneArena since 2010, has been engrossed in mobile technology since the Windows Mobile era. His expertise spans mobile hardware, software, and carrier networks, and he's keenly interested in the future of digital health, car connectivity, and 5G. Beyond his professional pursuits, Daniel finds balance in travel, reading, and exploring new tech innovations, while contemplating the ethical and privacy implications of our digital future.
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