Previously, Apple has announced that its one of the newest products, iPad Pro 2020 has a new chip processor series, A12Z Bionic. The technology company also claims that this A12Z Bionic chip enables the device to work twice faster than its predecessor.
But beyond the impressive performance of the new chipset, is it true that the new chip is actually the same as the previous chipset series, A12X with only some additions?
There are some reasons why people just suspect that both chips are just the same. Those chips are very identical one to another mainly in terms of design. It also makes them assume that the chip processor of A12Z tends to have a minor performance.
Furthermore, new speculation also said that the chip processor of A12Z bionic chip is just a new name of the chip processor A12X. When you investigate it, you can find that the speculation comes from the site NotebookCheck.
What Have They Found?
From the report, it was found that A12Z bionic chip is indeed equipped with the core of GPU 8 that has been mentioned before by Apple. On the other hand, the chip A12X has GPU 7 Core. However, there is only one core that is hidden and not activated.
The site then asked for confirmation from another site, TechInsight. TechInsight is known for many experts that work behind. Those experts started to reveal the components inside the microprocessor to know whether chip A12X really has the GPU 8 Core inside or not.
How is the result? Surprisingly, it is true. The processor chip of A12X was confirmed to physically have GPU 8 core and not GPU 7 core like what Apple has mentioned in the specifications of iPad Pro 2018. Additionally, one of the cores in the processor has been inactivated.
More than that, both chips also have designs that are physically not different. Two of them have the same number of CPU and GPU cores. Although they are different, at the time, it is indicated that the new chip, it is A12Z doesn’t apply a new design.
It is also planned that TechInsight will conduct further analysis to determine more surely whether there is any difference between the chip A12X in iPad Pro 2018 and the chip A12Z bionic chip in the new iPad Pro 2020.
Based on the speculation, NotebookCheck also said that Apple keeps its new design of the new chip for the next iPad Pro. The newer iPad Pro’ release date is scheduled to be launched this fall. The rumor also indicates that the new iPad Pro will be equipped with a mini-LED screen as well as it supports the 5G network.
Apple said that one of the changes with the A12Z Bionic processor was the addition of an 8 GPU core.
| Vs | A12X | A12Z |
| CPU | 4x Apple Vortex 4x Apple Tempest | 4x Apple Vortex 4x Apple Tempest |
| GPU | 7-cluster, A12-gen (+ 1 disabled) | 8-cluster, A12-gen |
| Memory Bus | 128-bit LPDDR4X | 128-bit LPDDR4X |
| Manufacturing Process | TSMC 7nm (N7) | TSMC 7nm (N7) |
Specifications of A12Z Bionic Chip From Apple
There are some general specs known from the series of chip A12Z from Apple. Those specifications become the main reasons why this chip actually tends to have better performance even than chip A12X. The chip supports the performance of 64 bytes but at the same time, the size is in the category of semiconductor size. In other words, the performance is slightly better while the design and size are just the same with chip A12X.
The newer chip from Apple also features an integrated graphic card and the number of the transistor which is up to 10 billion. In terms of performance, chip A12Z bionic has applied a new technology namely Big Little Technology. Big Little Technology supports some better performances in the device generally including in terms of the processing speed.
Additionally, chip A12Z also makes available many features. Some of those features may have been found in the previous series of Apple’s chips including chip A12X. Meanwhile, some others are still new. Those features are as follows.
Chip A12Z Bionic has been integrated with LTE and it provides the scaling process of the dynamic frequency. The chip also supports the virtualization of hardware-assisted components and it features components like NX BIT, Trustzone, Aes, and out-of-order operating systems.
Conclusion
It has been proven that Chip A12Z Bionic is different from Chip A12X although both are slightly the same. Meanwhile, some components are indeed the same with some additions in chip A12Z.
Well, it should not be a big deal actually. But it is true also that as customers, all of us must be aware of small things like that. Therefore, we can just be more satisfied with what we have bought.
