News

iPhone X Rumored to Include Six-Core 'A11 Fusion' Processor

Rumors are flying in ahead of Tuesday's Apple press event.

September 11, 2017 10:10 AM

Ahead of Tuesday's Apple iPhone Keynote Presentation, more information continues to surface about the rumored iPhone X. The latest batch points to a six-core 'A11 Fusion' processor, which will allow for more intensive processing.

Steve Troughton-Smith (via Apple Insider pointed to the six-core processor in a Sunday morning tweet, which will improve on the four-core processor currently in the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus. The six cores will bring it closer to the iPad Pro, which currently features three high performance "Hurricane" cores and three high efficiency "Zephyr" cores. The iPhone X is expected to carry two high performance cores and four high efficiency cores.

The iPhone X is expected to be revealed on Tuesday morning alongside the iPhone 8, though it is unclear whether the new processor will be included in both models or just the iPhone X.

Shacknews talked about what we expect from tomorrow's event on this week's Shackcast.

Be sure to check out why Apple Has One Chance to Make a First Impression at Steve Jobs Theater.

The Apple iPhone Keynote Presentation begins on September 12 at 1PM ET.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?

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Shacknews

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September 11, 2017 10:10 AM

Ozzie Mejia posted a new article, iPhone X Rumored to Include Six-Core 'A11 Fusion' Processor
- rodneystubbs
  
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  September 11, 2017 2:44 PM
  
  Be able to browse reddit at lightning speeds
  - FirstPersonCooter
    
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    September 11, 2017 2:47 PM
    
    And see side by side cat gifs
- bolneze
  
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  September 11, 2017 3:13 PM
  
  They're not going to really name it X are they
  - Schnapple
    
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    September 11, 2017 4:19 PM
    
    Tenth anniversary.
    
    And macOS is no longer OS X so there’s less chance for confusion.
    
    Anyone remember how in the run up to the original launch they said the iPhone was running “Full Mac OS X”? And then after launch they always referred to it as “iPhone OS” until the iOS name came about.
- pillzer
  
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  September 11, 2017 6:03 PM
  
  Really what the use case for a six core cpu on a phone? A better GPU is a given, but a CPU? It's not like you want to run GTA5 on this in the first place.
  - derelict515
    
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    September 11, 2017 6:06 PM
    
    I assume AR/VR still need plenty of CPU power
    - pillzer
      
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      September 11, 2017 6:26 PM
      
      Not specifically.. More GPU. Unless we are using the camera for inside-out head tracking. Then yes. Computer vision is very CPU hungry.
      - derelict515
        
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        September 11, 2017 6:46 PM
        
        right but I mean things like Oculus still have pretty hefty CPU requirements even though the GPU does more of the heavy lifting.
      - jcupitt
        
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        September 12, 2017 1:37 AM
        
        Yes, the iphone AR thing does tracking with the camera and can find and lock on flat surfaces. Though it supposedly works OK on a 6s, so it's not that intensive.
  - [deleted] 472173279
    
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    September 11, 2017 6:33 PM
    
    [deleted]
  - Rahzar
    
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    September 11, 2017 6:45 PM
    
    The 7 has a blazing fast CPU and portrait mode on the 7plus pegs it pretty good. The potential with AR and computational photography is pretty amazing.
    
    Plus, It seems like Apple just tells the SOC team to go all out every year and never slow down. They are so far ahead of everyone else they just keep running so they never loose that lead.
  - Serpico74
    
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    September 11, 2017 6:46 PM
    
    Machine learning, offset work done in the cloud by things like Google services to the device itself
    - derelict515
      
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      September 11, 2017 6:47 PM
      
      you'd still rather do ML on the GPU or even specialized ML hardware that people are starting to ship
      - jcupitt
        
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        September 12, 2017 1:38 AM
        
        The new iphone GPU is supposedly better for computation, I read somewhere.
  - DinK
    
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    September 11, 2017 6:56 PM
    
    There isn't really a use case for the six cores, because they're apparently divided into two groups where one group is high performance cores and one group is efficient cores.
    
    So any one thing will tend to run on just one set of them, I think.
    
    Earlier I read that there would be two efficient cores and four performance cores, which made sense, but since then I've read that it's two performance cores and four efficient ones.
- gmoney
  
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  September 11, 2017 7:44 PM
  
  Mobile websites will still load slow as shit so what does it matter.
  - Rahzar
    
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    September 11, 2017 7:58 PM
    
    Get an ad blocker installed.
- [deleted] 330156526
  
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  September 11, 2017 8:12 PM
  
  [deleted]
  - Rahzar
    
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    September 11, 2017 8:16 PM
    
    This CPU will be in all 3 new models FYI. Also, I don’t see $1000 as crazy for my most used computing device. As long as they make it worth while.
- baconisgod
  
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  September 11, 2017 10:09 PM
  
  would be sweet if it had Threadripper.