Apple Testing M3 Max Chip With 16-Core CPU and 40-Core GPU

[sw1tcher]

amd + intel in shambles

🤣 AMD is doing just fine. AMD isn't reliant on selling chips for PCs which (as of most recent quarter) makes up less than 20% of their total revenue. They get 25% of revenue from data center, 30% from custom gaming (Xbox, PS5) chips, and about 27% from embedded chips.

When their MI300X A.I. GPU comes out later this year, they'll diversify their revenue even more away from PC chips.

 

[spcopsmac21]

All those sweet YouTubers are salivating at the 2% performance increase for their benchmarks and zero real world performance.

But 2% is 2% (;´༎ຶД༎ຶ`) <----- Fanboys

 

[kp98077]

NOW everyone is going to hold their purchases for sure! 🤣

 

[spcopsmac21]

The likelihood of an M3 iMac looks ever more likely. Design wise I’d like to see them put the Apple logo back on the chin. I’m not asking much.

yea, I agree. I could see the less capable 3nm chips being sent over to the iMac line to be used up.

 

[jz0309]

and tomorrows headline: Apple is testing a M3Pro chip in a MBP (14 & 16), a mini, and an iMac ...
and next week: Apple is testing a M3 Ultra chip ...

as ive said earlier today, Apple has had prototype chips of all of those flavors for a while already, so rather than testing them in iPads, they test them in Macs, what a surprise ...

 

[SkyBell]

Yeah because PC to Mac switchers aren't a thing. Oh wait...

Not nearly enough to make even a dent in either company's operations.

 

[chucker23n1]

I wonder if they can iterate fast enough so that the M5 or M6 Ultra can support >1TB of RAM,

We might see a 50% increase every generation (that already seems optimistic), and a generation every 15 months.

M1 Ultra, early ‘22: up to 128 GiB
M2 Ultra, mid ‘23: 192
M3 Ultra, late ‘24: 288
M4 Ultra, early ‘26: 432
M5 Ultra, mid ‘27: 648
M6 Ultra, late ‘28: 972

It would be nice if they just made standalone GPU cards as well, but that's even more of a niche product.

I think they just really like the simplicity and low latency of unified memory.

 

[ilikewhey]

NOW everyone is going to hold their purchases for sure! 🤣

go return the 15inch mba and m2 14inch now.

 

[mannyvel]

The M release cadence is causing problems in the mac product line. They need to do every-other-year releases.

 

[kp98077]

go return the 15inch mba and m2 14inch now.

hahaha! Still waiting for the 15" to get here from China (supposed to be this week) 14 is still unopened. patience? I am just fine with any m2 frankly..

 

[smulji]

Intel and AMD (particularly the latter) are killing it lately in the CPU space

With respecting to the gaming and datacenter market, sure.

 

[tripsync]

most ppl chasing performance on the pc side are gamers, even with m3 max i doubt apple can topple a 4080 let alone 4090.

gamer here

gamer chase compatibility over performance. compatibility is something that mac has been lacking so people choose pc. compatibility has been lacking since Macs have been notoriously bad at gaming performance. this however is changing with graphics performance and apple's commitment to games (game porting toolkit). this is solved over time.

i'm happy with my 3070ti. market for 4080/4090 is probably smaller than the more mainstream cards.

 

[kp98077]

I guess it appears to be the 16" that will get it first. Thats what I've seen on other sites today. - everyone sell your 15 MBA!

 

[GFLPraxis]

This might explain som eof the more disappointing leaked M3 single thread benchmarks. Not a huge performance increase per core, but a big power draw / heat reduction, sufficient that Apple can stuff more cores in the same space.

It would be great if an M3 pro had the same 16 CPU cores…

I don’t think I would need a 40 core GPU, but a 16 core CPU and a 20 core GPU M3 Pro would be a sweet spot for me.

Let’s hope the next generation of Apple Silicon integrates a bigger and more versatile Neural Engine.

Funny, I feel the opposite. I am struggling to tax the CPU on the 10-core M1 Pro chip, but the GPU is easy to max out. I'd rather see more GPU cores than CPU.

That said, rumor is that there should be a pretty significant GPU improvement per core. The M2 is based on the A15. The A16 was rumored to have a significantly improved GPU, possibly with raytracing, that got dropped due to some engineering struggles. If the A17 and thus the A17-based M3 has that, we might see a nice bump.

 

[tripsync]

The rate at which people switch from pc to apple has steadily declined. With pc manufactures making compelling alternatives at much more affordable pricing and replaceability. All without pricy warranties. Apple makes top tier products. But they are far from the only one doing that.

PCs have always made alternatives so nothing has changed that would warrant a decline.

Numbers involving covid and post covid isn't a solid indicator of PC demand, but comparing 2019 to 2023, there is a clear shift favoring Macs.

 

[gund1234]

If apple is thinking that they can improve sales by increasing CPU/GPU performance then they are wrong.
99% of the people don't need any more CPU/GPU power than what M1 MacBook Air offers.

 

[tripsync]

Not nearly enough to make even a dent in either company's operations.

Windows had 72% marketshare in 2019. Dropped to 52% in May 2023.

Mac 18.72% in 2019, 33% in May 2023.

Pretty sure that's a nice dent.

 

[t0rqx]

They better revert back to some decent cooling/thermal paste unlike the M2.

 

[NT1440]

The rate at which people switch from pc to apple has steadily declined. With pc manufactures making compelling alternatives at much more affordable pricing and replaceability. All without pricy warranties. Apple makes top tier products. But they are far from the only one doing that.

So…they’ve been lying for years in their financial earning calls and documentation when they cite a pretty steady 40%+ first time Mac buyers?

 

[Fraserpatty]

It would be great if an M3 pro had the same 16 CPU cores…

I don’t think I would need a 40 core GPU, but a 16 core CPU and a 20 core GPU M3 Pro would be a sweet spot for me.

Let’s hope the next generation of Apple Silicon integrates a bigger and more versatile Neural Engine.

I’m just hoping that the current neural engine on the M2 iPad Pro will be substantial enough for all the ”Machine Learning” that should be coming down the pike soon.

 

[anakin44011]

If apple is thinking that they can improve sales by increasing CPU/GPU performance then they are wrong.
99% of the people don't need any more CPU/GPU power than what M1 MacBook Air offers.

Yes and no.

As you imply, they are already killing it "inside their wheelhouse" - lightweight laptops with high performance per watt. Frankly, it is difficult to "grow" by selling a new machine to those already thrilled with their existing M1 or M2. And this likely translates all the way to most users of the M1/M2 Max MacBook Pros.

However, unless and until they dominate the higher end, they still have room to grow...if for no other reason, having that killer Mac Pro could provide a nice halo effect (similar to the way many carmakers make flagship vehicles...although they often aren't as profitable, they draw attention to the brand).

Granted, desktops are a shrinking segment of the market. So everything Apple has done make near-perfect business sense. But the fanboy in me would love to see Apple do to the pro workstation market what they've done to the laptop market. Even if it costs them a chunk of money...

We'll see.

 

[Attirex]

M3 = FB moms can post outrage 50x faster

 

[Populus]

I’m just hoping that the current neural engine on the M2 iPad Pro will be substantial enough for all the ”Machine Learning” that should be coming down the pike soon.

That would be the ideal situation, yes, but I’m not sure about that, at least in the long term.

 

[Funny Apple Man]

I think the base M3 is going to have 12GB of RAM.

I'm hoping for 16gb as base ram. Even 12 is fine as long as they don't put 8gb as base ram.

 

[Fraserpatty]

I agree. And yet I don’t want to have to upgrade anytime soon.