With a few models introduced in late 2020, Apple transitioned from Intel to their own Apple silicon for iMacs, Mac Minis, Macbooks, etc. The chips were first announced in 2020 on June 22 at WWDC 2020.
We saw the M1 series of those chips in action on Macs announced in November of that year. The chips are mainly based on the “ARM” architecture, the base of numerous Apple devices.
Its consumers very well received the transition from Intel to Apple silicon. Apple silicon fixed countless issues faced by Intel Macs, like overheating and poor battery life.
Fast forward to 2023, we are on the third iteration of Apple silicon for their PCs and Laptop devices. In his Power On newsletter, famous tipster Mark Gurman mentioned many key changes to Apple’s M3 series. The key changes consist of CPU and GPU cores, which seem to have increased from the previous M2 series of processors. Gurman also pointed out how many CPU cores are dedicated to performance or efficiency.
M3 Series CPU & GPU Cores:
- M3 Pro: 12 or 14 CPU cores (6 or 8 high-performance and 6 energy-efficient) and 18 or 20 GPU cores
- M3 Max: 16 CPU cores (12 high-performance and 4 energy-efficient) and 32 or 40 GPU cores
- M3 Ultra: 32 CPU cores (24 high-performance and 8 energy-efficient) and 64 or 80 GPU cores
These core changes show us that the performance and efficiency of the M3 series of processors are going to be noticeably better as opposed to the M2 counterparts.
Although, the standard M3 is reported to feature the same CPU and GPU cores as the M2, which is eight CPU cores (four performance and four efficiency) and ten GPU cores.
The base M3 chip is expected to be offered with the 13-inch MacBook Pro, 13 and 15-inch Macbook Air, Mac Mini, iPad, and iPad Pro in the upcoming few months.
Apple is also reportedly testing 36GB and 48GB of RAM configurations for the MacBook Pro models. The MacBook Pro can currently be configured with 16GB, 32GB, 64GB, or 96GB of RAM.
Gurman also announced that the first machines with the standard M3 processor should debut this October. The Macs with M3 Pro and M3 Max are not expected to arrive before 2024. And the Mac studio with M3 Ultra might not come till the end of 2024.
