New Apple M3 family unveiled: Industry’s first 3nm chips

Powering the next generation of Apple computers will be the cutting-edge Apple M3 family of chips. This includes the base Apple M3, M3 Pro, and the M3 Max, all built on a 3-nanometer process node.

The new series of Apple silicon made its debut on October 30, 2023.

Let’s dive into the specifics of each chip in the M3 family:

Apple M3

With 25 billion transistors, 10-core GPU, and an 8-core CPU, M3 delivers outstanding graphics and CPU performance. It supports up to 24GB of unified memory.

Apple M3 Pro

Boasting 37 billion transistors, an 18-core GPU, and a 12-core CPU, M3 Pro offers extremely fast performance for graphics-intensive tasks. It supports up to 36GB of unified memory.

Apple M3 Max

Pushing the limits with 92 billion transistors, a 40-core GPU, and a 16-core CPU, M3 Max takes pro performance to the next level. It supports up to 128GB of unified memory, allowing AI developers to work with even larger transformer models.

Apple M3 Max Unified Memory architecture

Additionally, with two ProRes engines, M3 Max ensures smooth and efficient video post-production work on high-resolution content.

It is designed for professionals who demand top performance in a MacBook Pro, all while maintaining industry-leading battery life.

More about the Apple M3 family

According to Apple, the next-generation CPU in the M3 family boasts architectural improvements to the performance and efficiency cores.

The CPU performance cores saw a boost of 30 percent, while the efficiency cores improved to 50 percent as compared to the M1. Additionally, the Neural Engine in the M3 family is 60 percent faster than the Neural Engine found in the M1 chips.

Each member of the M3 family features unified memory that delivers high bandwidth, low latency, and unmatched power efficiency. The M3 Max supports up to a whopping 128GB of unified memory.

The M3 family of chips revolutionizes Apple silicon with its optimized memory usage for each task using Dynamic Caching.

This allows the M3 GPUs to achieve equivalent performance to the M1 while consuming nearly half the power and delivering up to 65 percent more performance at their peak. Additionally, hardware-accelerated ray tracing comes to the Mac for the first time with M3.

The power-efficient performance of the M3 family not only meets Apple’s high standards for energy efficiency but also enables the new MacBook Pro and iMac to achieve the longest battery life ever in a Mac, lasting up to an impressive 22 hours.

Apple says this remarkable achievement reduces the need for frequent charging and contributes to a significant decrease in energy consumption over the lifetime of the device.