IPad Mini 7 Powered By Binned Version A17 Pro Chip: What's The Difference?

JAKARTA - Apple just announced the latest generation iPad Mini 7 on Tuesday, October 16, 2024, which comes three years after the launch of the iPad Mini 6. Although physically the appearance of the iPad Mini 7 is similar to that of its predecessor, major updates occurred on the inside, namely the use of the A17 Pro chip. However, the iPad Mini 7 uses a binned version of the A17 Pro chip which was first introduced on the iPhone 15 Pro.

The iPhone 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max-powered A17 Pro has 6-core CPUs and 6-core GPUs, with 8GB RAM support. However, Apple revealed that the iPad Mini 7 uses a binned version of the A17 Pro with a 5-core GPU, one core less than the one on the iPhone 15 Pro.

Chip binning itself is a quality control process in chip production, where some cores on chips that do not meet maximum performance are disabled. This allows chips that are still feasible for use, although with a slight reduction in performance.

Despite having one GPU core less, this reduction is not expected to greatly affect the overall performance of the iPad Mini 7 for most daily tasks. With support for 8GB RAM and A17 Pro chip, the iPad Mini 7 is still capable of running artificial intelligence features from Apple that will come with the iPadOS 18.1.

For users, this binned version offers a balance between high performance and efficiency, making the iPad Mini 7 tough even though it has a slight reduction in its GPU.