Apple on Tuesday introduced a new technology of the iPad mini, coming three years after the introduction of the iPad mini 6. From the surface, iPad mini 7 appears precisely the identical as its predecessor, however there’s an essential change inside: the A17 Professional chip. Though many have claimed that this is identical chip because the iPhone 15 Professional, plainly the iPad mini 7 is powered by a binned model of the chip.
A17 Professional chip within the iPad mini 7 is a binned model of the iPhone 15 Professional chip
The A17 Professional chip was launched final yr with the iPhone 15 Professional and 15 Professional Max, and till then these have been the one units to have this chip. Within the iPhone, the A17 Professional chip has a 6-core CPU and a 6-core GPU, in addition to 8GB of RAM. Whereas the chip within the iPad probably additionally has 8GB of RAM, Apple’s web site means that it makes use of a binned model of the chip with fewer cores.
Extra particularly, the iPad mini 7’s technical specs say that the A17 Professional chip used within the pill has a 6-core CPU, however a 5-core GPU – one lower than the chip used within the iPhone 15 Professional. This doesn’t precisely come as a shock since Apple has used binned chips in a few of its units earlier than.
For these unfamiliar, chip binning is a high quality management course of in chip manufacturing. Moderately than scrapping chips that haven’t reached the utmost efficiency of all their cores, a few of them are deactivated and the chip can nonetheless be used with fewer cores.
It’s simple to imagine that Apple had a bunch of A17 Professional chips mendacity round and determined to make use of them within the iPad mini 7 because the iPhone 15 Professional and Professional Max have been discontinued in September. Since we’re solely speaking about one much less GPU core, the general efficiency of the chip most likely gained’t be affected for many duties.
Due to the A17 Professional chip with 8GB of RAM, the brand new iPad mini is appropriate with the Apple Intelligence options coming later this month with iPadOS 18.1.
Pre-orders for the iPad mini 7 are actually accessible on Apple’s web site, however you too can discover good offers on different iPad fashions on Amazon.
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