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Apple's M3 Chip: Everything We Know
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The MacBook Pro M3 Max laptops will be getting very close to the configuration of my M1 Mac Studio Ultra !
That will be perfect.
However saying that the M3 Ultra will be insane although I wont be getting one unless they do something about raytracing and get the GPU up to around a 4080 level [not expecting 4090].
That will be perfect.
However saying that the M3 Ultra will be insane although I wont be getting one unless they do something about raytracing and get the GPU up to around a 4080 level [not expecting 4090].
I have to disagree with you guys, I think 8GB is becoming too constraint especially on Apple Silicon where the RAM is shared with the entire SoC. The times I’ve tried an M2 MacBook Air, it was pretty easy to get into the yellow memory compression zone. And pushing it a bit more it started swapping like crazy.
I honestly think Apple should upgrade the base memory to 12GB.
Less waiting. Better battery life via machine race to sleep.
If you have to wait for anything ever, CPU speed could be faster.
So the claim is that, with M3 (unlike the case with M1/M2*), the Max will have significantly more CPU cores than the Pro.
*The M1/M2 Max and Pro have identical CPU core counts (12 for both on the M2's, 10 for both on the M1's )—though certain SKU's in the Pro line were/are available with a couple of those cores disabled: 8 cores on the low-end 14" M1 Pro MBP, and 10 cores on the M2 Pro Mini.
Note: There's a typo in the MR article (see left panel). It's presenting Gurman's as saying the M3 Max won't be in the 14" MBP. But that not what Gurman wrote (see right panel, from Gurman's Bloomberg article):
*The M1/M2 Max and Pro have identical CPU core counts (12 for both on the M2's, 10 for both on the M1's )—though certain SKU's in the Pro line were/are available with a couple of those cores disabled: 8 cores on the low-end 14" M1 Pro MBP, and 10 cores on the M2 Pro Mini.
Note: There's a typo in the MR article (see left panel). It's presenting Gurman's as saying the M3 Max won't be in the 14" MBP. But that not what Gurman wrote (see right panel, from Gurman's Bloomberg article):
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Well, you could probably make a guess at when M5 Macs will be released (late 2025–early 2026?), and compare that to TSMC's process roadmap, to guess that M5 might be on N2....
"2nm Technology Making Solid Progress – Development of TSMC’s 2nm technology employing nanosheet transistors is making solid progress in both yield and device performance, and is on track for production in 2025. It will provide up to 15% speed improvement over N3E at the same power, and up to 30% power reduction at the same speed, and greater than 1.15X chip density."
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It definitely isn’t a “pro” Mac and never really has been. Always been so limited for sure. It’s like why not just call it the MacBook? When Apple had it as a MacBook they added the “pro” moniker to it to sell more. It never had the internals of a real professional Mac. It still doesn’t. The only thing I can see to compel people to buy it would be the TouchBar? Maybe someone likes that? The fan? No notch! That would be the one reason I can actually make out that really makes sense.
We can speculate, it isn't rocket science:
- better performance per watt via more efficient/more dense process
- more cpu cores
- more gpu cores
- You can bet it will probably either have RT cores or ASICs that can do the job of RT cores as well as other stuff
- more memory bandwidth via faster memory/maybe more channels
Specifics - I doubt apple even know how that will pan out yet; they'll have designs in the pipe but how well they tape out on a future manufacturing process (could be TSMC, could be intel at that point, who knows) will determine the specifics.
The previous intel 13" ones have definitely had better performance than the equivalent air via higher wattage CPUs cooled by larger cooling systems.
Internals aren't the only thing that a Pro might want - not every "professional" needs higher CPU/GPU power - nicer screen, nicer speakers are worthy upgrades.
That said the 13" Pro right now is a bit of a relic. It either needs a redesign, or more likely to be dropped from the lineup. The M2 Air quite comfortably fills that gap now and I don't think there's room for a machine between that and the 14" Pro.
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As an example, I'm an IT professional who spends 8-10+ hours per day in front of my MacBook Pro. I very occasionally need the CPU power, very occasionally need the GPU power (almost never for work) but the display and speakers are extremely nice to have on a machine I spend so much of my waking hours with and use to make a living.
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I think Cellular is unlikely to happen before Apple's own cellular modem is ready. From another rumor, the iPhone SE 4 is expected to debut the re-release of Apple's cellular modem in 2025. I think Apple has to pay Qualcomm some percentage of each iPhone sold, and I'm not familiar with the details for putting Qualcomm modems in laptops, but if it's the same as with iPhones, Apple probably doesn't want to give away a percentage of its laptop sales to Qualcomm too.
The M3 iMac has to come out this year. It’s waaay overdue.
I was going to buy a Mac Studio with M2 Max but will wait.
My 10 year old 27" i7 iMac with 1T SSD and 32GB of RAM is no longer supported by anyone! Runs great though, like a Ferrari on a spring day in Milan...
If I buy I'd need to get a new Cinema 4D, RENT the CS collection, and deal with other outdated apps. And also buy a new display so I could see what I'm doing.
Yeah, I'll hold out until this rumor becomes an inevitable reality. I'm patient. ☮️
My 10 year old 27" i7 iMac with 1T SSD and 32GB of RAM is no longer supported by anyone! Runs great though, like a Ferrari on a spring day in Milan...
If I buy I'd need to get a new Cinema 4D, RENT the CS collection, and deal with other outdated apps. And also buy a new display so I could see what I'm doing.
Yeah, I'll hold out until this rumor becomes an inevitable reality. I'm patient. ☮️
If that's what you think, get ready for Formula One or NHRA top fuel....
I guess Apple Marketing feels they can generate more revenue with a 14" Pro upsell and they are leaning on a lot of market analysis for those kinds of decisions.
You're incredibly correct. A new system would be so much faster.
edit: a vintage Ferrari, that is.
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Yea, especially given that the Mac Mini can.
Personally, I'd love to see them add magsafe and another USB-C port (improving the IO substantially and making it a worthwhile upsell over the Air), and adding support for dual external monitors and things of that sort also. It would go a long way to making it a more viable "pro" machine, and I don't think it would take away the appeal of the 14" machines either.
If they maintain a 13" Pro, I think the big thing they need to give it is more ports:
- an HDMI port
- an SD slot
- magsafe
The trouble with adding another type-C port is that I'm not sure the CPU has enough thunderbolt to drive them all with thunderbolt without stepping to M1-Pro which then encroaches on the 14" Pro (and associated production cost) and at that point there's not sufficient product differentiation to justify the already niche model.
I think they'll just drop the 13" Pro entirely to be honest. The 14" Pro is only a hair bigger; as someone who stepped from 15" Pro to 13" Pro to 13" Air to 14" pro...
I get this is an enthusiast site but some some of these comments are wild. People in here defending the trillion dollar company and saying 8GB of Ram in 2023 is more than enough. 😂. This is why Apple doesn’t innovate anymore. They’ve gotten so lazy they named their chipsets after Gillette Razors.
Lol.
People have been downplaying the benefit of more RAM here for years. Decades, even.
This article is nearly bad enough to go on AppleInsider. :-(
It's sort-of wrong to say that density improves efficiency and performance. Rather, increased density is another result of smaller feature sizes, just as efficiency and performance are. Correlation as opposed to causation.
Finally, since you're not TSMC's marketing department, consider calling the processes by their actual names (N5, N3), rather than parroting the marketing lies - there is nothing in 3N that is 3nm. I too used to just say "5nm", "3nm", etc. but I was being lazy.
There is no such thing as a "yield rate" for a process. There's a defect rate for a process, which results in a yield rate for specific chip designs being manufactured. That's because yield is a direct function of defect rate and chip area. Thus on any given process, yields for small chips will be much better than for large chips. That is likely to be a major gating factor on how soon we see M3 Pro, Max, and Ultra chips.
You *really* should stop using that phrase "what we know". Yes, I know it's popular, but it's also a *lie*. In most cases when you say that what you should be saying is "what we think will happen".
This completely misses the point. We are likely to see *extremely* notable performance improvements even on the baseline M3: IPC gains of 20-30% even with no clock speed increase. If they do drive up clocks, then that much faster- though I expect that they won't, at least in the laptops. Just about everything in the M3 incorporates two generations of design work, not one, due to the "last-minute" changes in the M2 (and A16).
This mixes things up and also gets basic numbers wrong. TSMC claims "up to 30%" better power efficiency (not 35%), which you only get if you keep clocks the same. Boost clocks and the efficiency gain disappears.
It's sort-of wrong to say that density improves efficiency and performance. Rather, increased density is another result of smaller feature sizes, just as efficiency and performance are. Correlation as opposed to causation.
Finally, since you're not TSMC's marketing department, consider calling the processes by their actual names (N5, N3), rather than parroting the marketing lies - there is nothing in 3N that is 3nm. I too used to just say "5nm", "3nm", etc. but I was being lazy.
Strictly speaking, nobody's making 3nm chips. But even allowing marketing speak, no end users have 3nm-class chips yet. When Apple's A17/M3 chips ship, TSMC will be the ONLY company shipping product reaching end users. Not "one of the only".
There is no such thing as a "yield rate" for a process. There's a defect rate for a process, which results in a yield rate for specific chip designs being manufactured. That's because yield is a direct function of defect rate and chip area. Thus on any given process, yields for small chips will be much better than for large chips. That is likely to be a major gating factor on how soon we see M3 Pro, Max, and Ultra chips.
You left out iMacs and Minis. And Mac Studio uses Ultra or Max.
14-inch MBP also uses Max.
Tim Cook: Not sure if we put more than 8GB in the base Mac. Hmmm.
Intern: Well, there are a few folks on MacRumors that say 8GB is enough.
Tim Cook: AH! Thanks for reminding me that all of our decisions derive from what random posts on MacRumors want. And, not ALL of them, just a very few particular ones that are the sole reason why we don’t innovate anymore!
Intern: Well, there are a few folks on MacRumors that say 8GB is enough.
Tim Cook: AH! Thanks for reminding me that all of our decisions derive from what random posts on MacRumors want. And, not ALL of them, just a very few particular ones that are the sole reason why we don’t innovate anymore!