Apple today unveiled the M4 Pro chip, with key specifications including up to a 14-core CPU, up to a 20-core GPU, a 16-core Neural Engine, and support for up to 64GB of RAM. For the 14-core CPU, there are 10 performance cores and four efficiency cores.
The previous-generation M3 Pro chip has up to a 12-core CPU and up to an 18-core GPU.
Apple says the M4 Pro chip features "the world's fastest CPU core" with "lightning-fast single-threaded performance." It also advertises the M4 Pro chip's graphics performance as being up to twice as fast as the standard M4 chip.
Apple has not provided any direct comparisons between the M4 Pro and M3 Pro chips, so we will have to wait for benchmark results for that. However, in its Mac mini video announcement, Apple says the M4 Pro chip's multi-core CPU performance is up to 1.6x faster than the M2 Pro chip and up to 1.9x faster than the M1 Pro chip.
Other specifications for the M4 Pro chip include Thunderbolt 5 support with up to 120 Gb/s data transfer speeds, and an increased 273GB/s of memory bandwidth. That is a 75% increase in memory bandwidth compared to the M3 Pro chip.
The first Mac equipped with the M4 Pro chip is the new Mac mini, also announced today. Apple is also expected to introduce updated 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models with M4, M4 Pro, and M4 Max chip options later this week.
