This doesn’t actually come as a surprise, but the A17 Pro chip used in the iPad mini 7 has a reduced GPU core count.
iPad mini 7 has a 5-core GPU While the iPhone 15 Pro had a 6-core GPU – Both Chips are A17 Pro
Apple took the A17 Pro chip from the iPhone 15 Pro, tossed it inside the iPad mini chassis and called it a day.
Or, did it?
If you look at the core count of the A17 Pro used in the iPhone 15 Pro and the iPad mini 7, you’ll realize these chips are actually different. When it comes to technologies used, they’re the same, but if you squint your eyes a little, you’ll realize that the iPad mini 7 has one less GPU core compared to the iPhone 15 Pro – 5 versus 6.
What exactly is going on here?
The iPad mini 7 is using a binned A17 Pro chip which means due to some quality issues, the chip wasn’t performing to its full potential and one of the cores had to be disabled. The chip functions exactly how it should but with one less core.
With one less GPU core, the iPad mini 7 will work just fine and many users won’t even notice the difference in graphics performance at all. In fact, if you are going to use the iPad mini for the most casual tasks ever, you’ll notice zero difference.
The thing that affects performance the most is the CPU core count and you get all 6 with the iPad mini 7, and that’s the most important thing, too. Along with that, you get 8GB of RAM which makes Apple Intelligence possible.
If you’re looking for Apple device examples that use/used binned chips – the base model M1 MacBook Air and the latest Apple TV 4K are very good examples.
