Apple's M3 Pro, M3 Max, and M3 Ultra Chips Could Offer Even More CPU and GPU Cores

[aTomek]

GPU is also used for photo, video and 3D editing, not just for games. But yeah, I personally have been waiting for gaming on Mac since ever.

Yeah, but it is kind of overkill for such tasks. For video they have dedicated silicon part in CPU anyway. For 3D editing it is more efficient to use their TPU part (matrix operations). Their GPU is very capable as well to handle games, but it looks like they don't care to subsidise gaming industry to start using it or start supporting Vulkan.

 

[rp2011]

At this point, the M3 Max will be the fastest CPU in the world, at least according to Geekbench.

And then the M3 Ultra will be released being 2X as fast.

The performance of the Ultras do not scale uniformly. Better, but nowhere near 2X performance increase.

 

[aTomek]

M1 and M2 Pro / Max are still stupidly fast.

Apple got the chicken that lays the golden eggs but looks like it can't take advantage of it, they are still focused on the IPhone business. Their Apple Silicon could push x86 architecture completely out of the market within a few years, the problem is Apple is completely deaf to the gaming market / industry.

 

[-BigMac-]

Was anyone expecting them to have LESS cores?

What an unpredictable prediction......

 

[Chancha]

All variations should get 6 E-cores, they all need a battery life bump

But according to this report and the others, the Max may stay at 4 e-cores to reserve space for p-cores.

Which makes a lot of sense, the chip also goes into the Mac Studio, then by extension will affect the core configs on M3 Ultra where all these go into desktops that don’t prioritize effiency utmost.

 

[mytdave]

Hmmm, so it seems to me that core count is the new clock speed race.

 

[Icelus]

The efficiency cores are surprisingly powerful for everyday tasks.

The four efficiency cores provide the same speed as the dual core Intel i3 CPU in the Macbook Air 2020.
Apple claims the efficiency cores use one-tenth the power of the high-performance ones, so macOS probably delays using them as long as possible.

 

[gnomeisland]

This is pretty suspicious: The M3 Pro would have more efficiency cores than the M3 Max?

So far, the Pro is the same design as the Max, just with some bits "cut off". It doesn't seem to make much sense to make a change that will require the Pro to have parts the Max won't have. Then it's two different designs and more work.

Yeah, this would be a departure from the M1/M2 designs but I think it would make a lot of sense. Right now there the differentiation between the Pro and Max is little muddy. *If* this prediction is correct:

1. base M3 is really focused on increased efficiency with 10-20% increase in performance (cumulative between die shrink, faster clock, and new IP) and 30+% in battery/perf-per-watt.
2. Pro is a step up but still balanced for battery life (the only non-portable Pro system is the Mini which is somewhat thermally constrained and may be more so with design refresh)
3. Max begins to pull away from this prioritizing performance for battery life. We should see a bigger performance jump from Pro to Max but corresponding drop in battery life. This is becoming a desktop CPU you *can* run in a portable system.
4. Ultra . . . is still two Max chips fabbed together and strictly a desktop part.

This seems like a maturation of the product line. My M1 Max is still plenty fast enough but 12 performance cores is tempting.

 

[surfzen21]

Looks like the base M3 with have 12GB ram and all ram will be a multiple of 12 if this story is believed.

Apple's M3 chip Mac all versions will start with 12GB - TechGoing

Bloomberg reporter and Apple reporter Mark Gurman shared some information about Apple’s M3 chip last night, and mentioned that the new MacBook Pro models currently participating in the test are equipped with 36GB and 48GB unified chips. memory, “which suggests that there may be some new...

www.techgoing.com

I wonder if the 13" MacBook Air will go up in price $100-$200 considering this and the added cost of the M3.

 

[Boil]

Gurman reaffirmed that the first Macs with the M3 chip should debut in October, while Macs with the M3 Pro and M3 Max chips will not arrive until 2024. Macs with the M3 Ultra chip, such as the next-generation Mac Studio, may not arrive until the end of 2024 at the earliest.

What about the M3 Extreme...?!?

CPU improvement of M3 Max is great but I am really disappointed about the number of GPU cores. That is the weakest part of the silicon Macs, especially compared to pc's with nVidia 4090. I was hoping on a significant increase in the graphics score.

Oh, you've seen GPU scores already, please share...

Gurman is only seeing lower binned M3 SoCs in logs. Their higher non-binned SoCs will have more GPU cores and have not been tested yet.

FTFY...

I would love a larger M3 powered iPad Pro w/ new Magic Keyboard with function row.

I'll have a M3 iPad mini Pro & Apple Pencil 3, please...!

So far, the Pro is the same design as the Max, just with some bits "cut off". It doesn't seem to make much sense to make a change that will require the Pro to have parts the Max won't have. Then it's two different designs and more work.

It has always been two different designs, the Pro SoCs were Max SoCs with bits cut off...

All variations should get 6 E-cores, they all need a battery life bump

The seven assorted AIO/desktop/deskside/rackmount Mac models don't care about battery life...

 

[aTomek]

There will be a 20-30% increase in single core performance just by implementing the 3nm node. Apple could easily achieve 50%-60% improvement if they had implemented ARMv9 ISA (especially SME instructions), but their main goal is to milk cash for as long as they can and not push themselves to the performance wall too early. So they rather stick to 3 year old ARM architecture and milk more cash from customers over 10-20 years period when they can deliver more steady development.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

Not really a surprise

Except to those still sure of an “Extreme”. Even the folks that made up the rumor in the first place have let it die!

 

[darngooddesign]

You’d hope there would be an increase in performance, otherwise why would you upgrade?

I bet all of these will have a noticeably improvment over the M1 series.

 

[darngooddesign]

Pair that with your semi-crippled SSDs in all the baseline configurations

You're playing fast and loose with the word "All".

No baseline M-Pro, M-Max, and M-Ultra have slower SSDs; only the baseline M2s have this issue.

 

[Apple Fan 2008]

So you're saying that the M3 will be better than the M2?!

 

[Populus]

Will there be a single core speed increase of the M3 over the M2?

My guess is that yes, there will be. Because the node shrink and the more efficient design will allow for a bump on the CPU and GPU clock speed.

My guess is that this iteration will rely on that to improve performance, and by M4 or M5 we’ll finally have a whole new architecture that takes even more advantage of the power of the SoC.

That’s one of the reasons that could refrain me from getting an M3 Mac mini. The other one would be waiting one or two more years hoping that Apple releases a 12” MacBook, but that seems further and further each year…

 

[rushmere]

STOP THE PRESS!

Another incredible Mark Gurman exclusive: "Apple is probably going to release some new stuff at some point in the future, and it will be better than the last stuff they released".

I can't wait for his next newsletter.

 

[iBluetooth]

This is pretty suspicious: The M3 Pro would have more efficiency cores than the M3 Max?

So far, the Pro is the same design as the Max, just with some bits "cut off". It doesn't seem to make much sense to make a change that will require the Pro to have parts the Max won't have. Then it's two different designs and more work.

It's called binning, it allows them to test the CPU's and sort them into two bins, one that has all efficiency cores working and another where they can disable two and still utilise them. But they are both the same design. This allows them to keep down cost when there are low yields in the production, most manufacturers do this.

 

[Chancha]

Except to those still sure of an “Extreme”. Even the folks that made up the rumor in the first place have let it die!

Well Apple itself threw in the towel with that M2 Ultra Mac Pro release, so any sort of Extreme variant not happening soon is quite a given.

 

[MayaUser]

STOP THE PRESS!

Another incredible Mark Gurman exclusive: "Apple is probably going to release some new stuff at some point in the future, and it will be better than the last stuff they released".

I can't wait for his next newsletter.

only that Mark is going to specifics then saying "Apple will release some new stuff".....So developers and pro users to know what to expect and what to buy in the near future...for some of us this is very useful informations

 

[DEMinSoCAL]

Apple got the chicken that lays the golden eggs but looks like it can't take advantage of it, they are still focused on the IPhone business. Their Apple Silicon could push x86 architecture completely out of the market within a few years, the problem is Apple is completely deaf to the gaming market / industry.

What does Apple have that can compete with nVidia 4070/4080/4090 GPU?

 

[MayaUser]

What does Apple have that can compete with nVidia 4070/4080/4090 GPU?

with 4070 in some tasks Apple has the Ultra...but for 4080/4090 Apple has to have better scaling, a lot less lost and better gpu core and thats what we will be getting with M3 family, at least all of us are hoping, along side hw ray tracing

 

[DEMinSoCAL]

with 4070 in some tasks Apple has the Ultra...but for 4080/4090 Apple has to have better scaling, a lot less lost and better gpu core and thats what we will be getting with M3 family, at least all of us are hoping, along side hw ray tracing

The problem is, what does a M-series Ultra sell for? Not anywhere in the price range of a Windows gaming desktop or notebook.

 

[krspkbl]

You'll never believe it guys but the M4 will be better than the M3.

I'm just waiting on an M3 15" Air.... even if it doesn't come out until next summer.

 

[deconstruct60]

It's called binning, it allows them to test the CPU's and sort them into two bins, one that has all efficiency cores working and another where they can disable two and still utilise them. But they are both the same design. This allows them to keep down cost when there are low yields in the production, most manufacturers do this.

The Pro and Max are NOT binned .

From Apple's press release

Apple unveils M2 Pro and M2 Max: next-generation chips for next-level workflows

Supercharging MacBook Pro and Mac mini, M2 Pro and M2 Max feature a more powerful CPU and GPU, up to 96GB of unified memory, and power efficiency.

www.apple.com

M2 Pro

M2 Pro

The physical dies are different sizes !!!

Back in the M1 generation :

Apple Announces M1 Pro & M1 Max: Giant New Arm SoCs with All-Out Performance

www.anandtech.com

The M1 Max is about 200mm^2 bigger die. That bigger die area is larger than the whole M1 die !!



There have also been some other posts that the Pro is physically cut from a Max die. There are different widths there above and there is NO die cut line in the middle of the Max. Those reports are just smoke.

Apple did to some very heavy design reuse where they take the layout design of the Max and just make some very narrow adjustments to the design to get a Pro. They design the chip once and they run it through a process to make it smaller without having to do tons of extra work.


If Gurman is right, and there is a chopped down E cluster ( 4 -> 2 ) that doesn't appear at all in the Max , then Apple has taken on the overhead of designing two different dies. There are rumblings about a ginormous iPad Pro (13-14") with a M3 Pro. That might be enoug 'extra unit volume' to help pay for a bigger fork between the Pro/Max. They will drop to something like 70% shared intersection layout from 95+% . It wouldn't be a huge increase in differences.


'Binning' is illustrated by the M2 Pro having 20 GPU cores and only 16 or 19 being active in the delivered SoCS. Same die ( have to be binning the same physical die) and turn on a variable number of cores.