Apple A17 Bionic's performance uplift may be lower than initially anticipated

Tentative performance numbers for next year's flagship mobile APs- the Apple A17 Bionic and Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3- have been floating around the internet for the past few weeks. Unsurprisingly, the former was slated to defeat the latter, primarily due to it being manufactured on TSMC's cutting-edge 3 nm process. In comparison, the latter was rumoured to stick to a 5 nm derivative (N4P). However, @tech_reve, the leaker who revealed the A17 Bionic's Geekbench score, now modifies their initial claim.

The leaker states Apple's shiny new SoC might offer a lower 20% performance increase than initially anticipated because TSMC's N3B node isn't progressing as planned. The chipmaker has lowered yield and performance targets due to ongoing issues with FinFET. Another leaker RGCloudS chimed in, stating FinFET isn't suited for transistors below 4 nm, which may have forced TSMC to make the said changes.

That said, the A17 Bionic should still offer a satisfactory performance uplift over its predecessor due to Apple's excellence in the chip design space. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 3's estimated performance numbers are in the "too good to be true" territory. They cannot be achieved without a significant node shift and a radically new CPU core design. Furthermore, 2024 also marks the supposed return of Samsung's nine-core Exynos 2400, which should, in theory, give at least Qualcomm and MediaTek a run for their money.

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