Keeping the trend of using slower chips alive, the iPhone 17e ships with a slightly slower version of the A19 that is found in the iPhone 17.
A19 Chip in iPhone 17e Features a 4-Core GPU Compared to 5-Core in the iPhone 17
Everyone saw it coming from a mile away that the iPhone 17e will feature the A19 chip, the same one found in the iPhone 17. But at the same time, it’s not quite the same chip when it comes to performance.
According to Apple, the A19 chip used in the 17e features a 6-core CPU (2 performance and 4 efficiency), 4-core GPU, and a 16-core Neural Engine.
Compared to the A19 used in the iPhone 17, you get the same 6-core CPU, 16-core Neural Engine, but it features a 5-core GPU instead of a 4-core one.
Will that make any difference in performance? Definitely, if you are looking at benchmark numbers only. But in real-life usage, you won’t see any difference at all. And that’s the whole point.
Apple didn’t make a brand-new A19 chip with one less GPU core for the iPhone 17e. This practice is called binning, where an A19 chip may come out of the assembly line defective, and rather than trash it completely, just reuse it with one less GPU core.
In fact, a lot of manufacturers do this, and it’s extremely common practice; otherwise, prices of chips will go up if chips start to go to waste.
If you were planning to get the iPhone 17e, don’t worry about performance one bit. Your everyday tasks such as iMessage, FaceTime, social media etc. will work flawlessly.
