Apple releases first batch of 3nm chips for personal computers: M3, M3 Pro and M3 Max

On the evening of October 30, 2023, Pacific Time, Apple unveiled the M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max chips at its autumn product launch themed “Scary Fast.” Apple heralded these as the industry’s premier 3nm chips for personal computers, encapsulating more transistors within a diminutive chip footprint, thus delivering concurrent enhancements in speed and energy efficiency.

The newly minted M3 series boasts the most significant leap in GPU architecture in Apple’s chip chronicle. It introduces a pioneering technology dubbed “Dynamic Cache” and ushers in hardware-accelerated ray tracing and mesh shading rendering capabilities, making their inaugural appearance on the Mac. This results in rendering speeds that, in comparison to the M1 series, peak at a staggering 2.5 times. On the CPU front, the performance and efficiency cores respectively outpace their M1 counterparts by 30% and 50%. The neural network engine surpasses the M1 by 60%, and with the introduction of an augmented neural network engine, speed enhancements reach a zenith of 60%. Concurrently, the M3’s unified memory architecture supports up to 128GB.

The M3, with its intricate mosaic of 250 billion transistors, surpasses the M2 by a staggering 50 billion. Its CPU is replete with 4 performance cores and 4 efficiency cores, accompanied by a GPU that boasts up to 10 cores and can harness up to 24GB of unified memory. Compared to the M1, there’s a 65% uptick in GPU prowess, along with a CPU performance surge of up to 35%.

The M3 Pro houses a prodigious 370 billion transistors. Its CPU configuration consists of 6 performance cores and 6 efficiency cores, while the GPU comprises 18 cores, supporting up to 36GB of unified memory. Vis-à-vis the M1 Pro, the CPU’s single-thread performance has been elevated by 30%, and the GPU performance by a notable 40%.

The M3 Max is embedded with an astronomical 920 billion transistors, a significant leap from the M2 Max’s 670 billion. The unified memory capacity has also been augmented from 96GB to 128GB. It’s furnished with 12 performance cores and 4 efficiency cores for the CPU, and a GPU fortified with up to 40 cores. In juxtaposition with the M1 Max, the CPU performance escalates by as much as 80%, while the GPU speeds are augmented by up to 50%.

Apple opined that the M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max chips epitomize the monumental strides Apple has taken in the Mac chip domain since the inaugural launch of the M1 series.