M3 Chip Generation - Discussion Megathread

[nquinn]

I am not making any excuses. I am trying to understand why a chip with 33% wider execution backend and 50% more branch units only achieves 3-5% higher IPC. Either Apple has royally botched up something inside that CPU, or their IPC is already so high that expecting more substantial gains is unreasonable.

Also, AMD is hardly a good example. Zen4 IPC is on par with Apple A12. Of course it's easier for AMD to get notable IPC improvements. Hell, they got a decent IPC improvement simply from increasing the cache size. They are basically repeating steps Apple did years ago. At some point the bag of tricks is empty.



I am not sure what you are basing all these speculations on. Analysis (however limited) on A17 u-arch is available. We know that this is Apple's first really new microarchitecture in many years, and we know that it's substantially wider than Firestorm and its iterations. It is extremely unlikely that Apple will have another massive micro-architecture update within a year. Maybe some minor tweaks that help extract more IPC from that wide core, sure, that cannot be discounted. But A17 is the basis for the next few years at least.



What's the difference? It's ultimately the same thing. On the fundamental level, a modern super-scalar CPU core is multi-device machine trying to concurrently chop away on a serial program in the most efficient way.

Also not to mention - at what point does it not become worth it? Like is it worth pouring hundreds of millions or billions into R&D just to return +3% more IPC?

I'm running an M1 Max (24 core igpu) right now and don't plan to upgrade for like 7yrs+ if this rate of improvement continues.

 

[Populus]

Two hours remaining for the unveiling of the third generation of Apple Silicon! Or at least, that’s what we’re all expecting xD.

 

[BootLoxes]

Really hope they up the monitor support on the base chips by 1.

 

[Populus]

Two minutes!!!!

 

[BootLoxes]

Looks like its focused on Macbooks

 

[Populus]

Three new M3 chips! Released at the same time!

I missed John Srouji at the presentation of the A17 Pro.

Seems like the GPU is going tho be the star of the show! Apparently it has some nice, interesting features aside from the expected Ray Tracing.

AV1 hardware decoding.

New MacBook Pro, now starting with just an M3… Will it be cheaper?

 

[MayaUser]

Like i said ray tracing allmost double the perf

 

[Homy]

M3, M3 Pro and M3 Max with HW accelerated Mesh shading and Ray tracing!

 

[Kristain]

12 Performance Cores!

 

[TigeRick]

While waiting for M3 family to arrive, there is some discussion about how Apple going to implement the memory bus design. Below is standard config with different memory bus support. Both LPDDR5 and LPDDR5x are sharing similar memory specifications and configurations. Apple so far has only validated 96Gb memory density for M2 family with LPDDR5 support. That's why maximum memory size for MBA is 24GB; but not for MBP with M2 Pro cause Apple wants you to upgrade to M2 Max if you want more memory size.

Memory Density	Memory Size Per Chip x64	128-bit Memory Bus	256-bit Memory Bus	512-bit Memory Bus
	Memory Chips Required	2 pcs	4 pcs	8 pcs
32Gb	4 GB	8 GB	16 GB	32 GB
48Gb	6 GB	12 GB	24 GB	48 GB
64Gb	8 GB	16 GB	32 GB	64 GB
96Gb	12 GB	24 GB	48 GB	96 GB
128Gb	16 GB	32 GB	64 GB	128 GB

128Gb memory density would be next upgrades for M3 family; with M3 Max most likely support up to 128GB. But where is the rumored 12GB fit in? Some users thought Apple would increase the memory bus to accommodate extra 4GB of memory. I don't think so and I believe Apple is currently testing mixture of different memory size with same memory bus. Below is my thought of how Apple going to implement:

Total Memory Size	M3 128-bit (2 Chips)	Size Up	M3 Pro 256-bit (4 Chips)	Size Up	M3 Max 512-bit (8 Chips)	Size Up
12 GB	4 GB + 8 GB OR 6 GB * 2	Base
24 GB	12 GB * 2	+ 12 GB	4GB + 4GB + 8GB + 8GB OR 6 GB * 4	Base
32 GB	16 GB * 2	+ 8 GB
36 GB			8GB + 8GB + 8GB + 12GB	+ 12 GB
48 GB			12 GB * 4	+ 12 GB	4+4+4+4+8+8+8+8 OR 6 GB * 8	Base
64 GB			16 GB * 4	+ 16 GB	8 GB * 8	+ 16 GB
96 GB					12 GB * 8	+ 32 GB
128 GB					16 GB * 8	+ 32 GB

• Apple will most likely increase the base memory size from 8GB to 12GB for M3; 16GB to 24GB for M3 Pro and 32GB to 48GB for M3 Max.
• As for 32GB memory support of M3, Apple might not validate it cause the increment is less than 12GB. That's why I also suspect M3 only support LPDDR5 as the rumored specs are similar with M2. M3 SoC is available for 12GB and 24GB memory config only. Now anyone wants to guess how much Apple going to charge for extra 12GB memory upgrades?
• M3 Pro most likely support 24GB and 36GB memory size. If you want more memory support, then M3 Max with 48GB is your only choice, very Apple way
• We should know whether I am correct when Apple announces first Max with M3 in two month times 😅

Above are my speculation of RAM configuration, let's see results

 

[Populus]

New color for the MacBook Pro!

MKBHD is gonna like this.

It is funny they point it doesn’t get fingerprints lol

 

[MayaUser]

New color for the MacBook Pro!

MKBHD is gonna like this.

It is funny they point it doesn’t get fingerprints lol

They said they reduce the fingerprints

 

[diamond.g]

Wait are they making it so that the M3Pro and Max are 16" only?

 

[MayaUser]

Wait are they making it so that the M3Pro and Max are 16" only?

14” too
But the 14” has to have something very low config to that starting price

 

[Populus]

They said they reduce the fingerprints

Yeah. I heard that while typing my previous message, but I wasn’t paying enough attention, so I thought “how the hell have they linked the new color with a reduced carbon fingerprint?”

EDIT: Done. 30 minutes of event. New MacBook Pros, and new iMac, with the M3 SoC family.
I’m curious to see if the M3 starts at 8GB or 12GB or RAM

 

[MayaUser]

Wait are they making it so that the M3Pro and Max are 16" only?

Yep the 14” now supports even the M3

 

[neinjohn]

That M3 14” is the master of upsell. I don‘t need the Pro chip but I would love the screen and audio output and now they just made it 400$ cheaper.

It‘s a nice upgrade for anybody with a M1 Air or Pro 13”.

 

[Johnny Steps]

So what happens if you bought a MacBook Pro earlier this month and this happens a few days outside of the return window? Are you basically screwed lol? Asking for a friend…

 

[TigeRick]

Damn, it's still 8GB but with 512GB SSD

Something odds about memory bandwidth of M3 Pro: 150GB/s and 18GB of RAM, hmm. Apple is reducing memory bus from 256-bit to 192-bit, Damn Apple

 

[Boil]

M3, M3 Pro and M3 Max with on-chip GPU memory with HW accelerated Mesh shading and Ray tracing!

No on-chip GPU memory (the UMA RAM is on-package), just Dynamic Caching of the UMA RAM in regards to GPU usage of said UMA RAM...?

 

[leman]

No on-chip GPU memory, just Dynamic Caching of the UMA RAM in regards to GPU usage of said UMA RAM...

There has always been on-chip memory (core private memory and caches). Dynamic Caching refers to the use of on-core memory by the shaders. It has nothing to do with UMA.

 

[diamond.g]

No on-chip GPU memory (the UMA RAM is on-package), just Dynamic Caching of the UMA RAM in regards to GPU usage of said UMA RAM...?

I am curious to know how it improves GPU utilization.

 

[leman]

So what happens if you bought a MacBook Pro earlier this month and this happens a few days outside of the return window? Are you basically screwed lol? Asking for a friend…

You ask nicely and they let you exchange it.

 

[Confused-User]

Argh. No mention of clocks at all in their tech specs page. Waiting for the other shoe to drop.

In the meantime, a few interesting notes. The M3 non-Pro 14" has only two TB ports, as you'd expect. And, more surprisingly, the M3 Max cut-down part loses a memory channel!

RAM and SSD prices have declined, if not as much as I'd like- SSD now starts at 512GB, so that lower prices a bit. RAM pricing is slightly improved. 128GB max configuration is a bit disappointing but expected. No mention of bus speed.

 

[Populus]

You ask nicely and they let you exchange it.

Indeed. I was once in that situation and they were gentle, they allowed me to return the device some days after the 14 day period expired. Good luck @Johnny Steps!