Apple's M3 Pro, M3 Max, and M3 Ultra Chips Could Offer Even More CPU and GPU Cores
Apple's upcoming M3 Pro, M3 Max, and M3 Ultra chips could feature more CPU and GPU cores, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reports.
In his latest "Power On" newsletter, Gurman set out the key changes to the CPU and GPU core numbers of the M3 Pro, M3 Max, and M3 Ultra chips, including how many of the CPU cores are dedicated to performance or efficiency:
|
M2 |
M3 |
| Pro |
10 or 12 CPU cores (6 or 8 high-performance and 4 energy-efficient)
16 or 19 GPU cores |
12 or 14 CPU cores (6 or 8 high-performance and 6 energy-efficient)
18 or 20 GPU cores |
| Max |
12 CPU cores (8 high-performance and 4 energy-efficient)
30 or 38 core GPU cores |
16 CPU cores (12 high-performance and 4 energy-efficient)
32 or 40 GPU cores |
| Ultra |
24 CPU cores (16 high-performance and 8 energy-efficient)
60 or 76 GPU cores |
32 CPU cores (24 high-performance and 8 energy-efficient)
64 or 80 GPU cores |
The standard M3 chip will apparently feature the same CPU and GPU core configuration as the M2 chip, with eight CPU cores (four performance and four efficiency) and ten GPU cores. This chip is expected to be offered in the 13-inch MacBook Pro, 13- and 15-inch MacBook Air, Mac mini, iMac, and iPad Pro.
Apple is also apparently testing MacBook Pro models with 36GB and 48GB of memory, suggesting that new memory options may be available in the future. Currently, the high-end MacBook Pro models can be configured with 16GB, 32GB, 64GB, and 96GB of memory.
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.
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Top Rated Comments
New chip has more cores, who would have thought it.
/edit - I really should stop hating on Gurman, it's just that he makes it so easy
Rumors are that the A17 will have 6 GPU cores. That would cascade to 12 GPU cores for M3, 24 for M3 Pro, 48 for M3 Max, and 96 for M3 Ultra.
https://www.macrumors.com/2023/08/09/apple-a17-chip-6-core-gpu/
If Gurman's report is true, and this A17 6 GPU rumor is true, then at least one of the following is true:
* M3 is not based on A17
* Apple is decoupling core scaling between A series and M series
* N3B has very poor yields so Apple is limiting GPU cores on M3 series
* A17 has 5 GPU cores, instead of the rumored 6
* Gurman is only seeing lower-binned M3 SoCs in logs. Their higher-binned SoCs will have more GPU cores and have not been tested yet.