Key Takeaways
Apple announced three new products at its “Scary Fast” event on October 30, including the refreshed 24-inch iMac with the more capable M3 chip, and the new Space Black MacBook Pro with the M3 Pro and M3 Max chips. The new M3 series of chips are up to 50% faster compared to the M1 chips, and up to 30% faster compared to the M2 series. They offer up to 128GB of unified memory, faster GPU rendering, and more.
The new Apple M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max chips are built on the 3-nanometer technology. They offer 25, 37, and 92 billion transistors, respectively, and the highest-end M3 Max tops out at 16 cores for the CPU, 40 cores for the GPU, and 128GB of unified memory.
The new chips offer hardware-allocated ray tracing and mesh shading, up to 2.5x faster GPU rendering, and a new GPU architecture that enables Dynamic Caching. Apple says “the CPU performance cores and efficiency cores are 30 percent and 50 percent faster than those in M1, respectively, and the Neural Engine is 60 percent faster than the Neural Engine in the M1 family of chips. And, a new media engine now includes support for AV1 decode, providing more efficient and high-quality video experiences from streaming services.”
The standard M3 chip offers 5 billion more transistors than the M2, while the M3 Pro has 3 billion fewer transistors than the M2 Pro chip. The M3 Max has 26 billion more transistors than the M2 Max, which had 67 billion transistors. The M3 Pro also has 4GB more unified memory than the M2 Pro, while the M3 Max has 32GB more unified memory than the M2 Max.
As a result of the new 3nm technology of which the M3 series are based of, will yield much better efficiency and performance compared to the M2 and M1 series of chips. This will enable a smoother gaming experience, and professionals will be able to do more thanks to the advanced processing and graphical power. H.264, HEVC, ProRes, and ProRes Raw will also see a boost in hardware acceleration.
AV1 decoding is now also supported natively on the Mac, providing a more efficient and high-quality video experience from streaming services and apps.
And since AI (Artificial intelligence) is still at large, Apple took a moment to highlight that the new chips can handle ML (Machine Learning) models more efficiently, thanks to the new Neural Engine. Apple quotes that the new Neural Engine is up to 60% faster than the M1 series of chips, making AI/ML workflows “even faster”. Apple says the new engine will make AI tools faster, including the powerful new image processing tools in Adobe Premier and Smart Conform in Final Cut Pro.
When it comes to battery, Apple says that the new M3 family will offer the “longest battery life ever in a Mac”, claiming that the new MacBook Pro laptops will be able to last for up to 22 hours on a single charge.
The 14-inch MacBook Pro has the M3 and M3 Pro chips, a 14.2-inch Liquid Retina XDR display, and up to 36GB of RAM. It’s the perfect compact powerhouse that can enable you to do all demanding tasks, whether that’s video editing, 3D modeling, or gaming on the go.
The 16-inch MacBook Pro has the M3 Pro and M3 Max chips. It’s a great laptop for power users who demand more in a small and compact form factor. The MacBook can last for up to 22 hours on a single charge, and it’s up to any task with the new chips that provide up to 50% faster speeds of the M1 series of devices.
The refreshed 24-inch iMac received a small but mighty upgrade in 2023. It’s now equipped with the powerful new M3 chip, bringing massive performance and efficiency upgrades to the table. It has a bright and accurate display, great sound, and all the accessories you need to get started.
