Apple announces new M3 chips and M3 MacBook Pro laptop

On October 30, 2023, Apple held a special event called “Scary Fast” to unveil its next generation of Mac products and chips. The event was focused on performance, and Apple delivered with the announcement of the M3 chip family, the 24-inch iMac with M3 chip, and the MacBook Pro with M3 chip.

The M3 chip family is Apple’s most powerful yet, with up to a 2x performance boost over the previous generation, according to Apple. In addition to the new hardware, Apple also announced a number of new features and improvements to macOS, its operating system for Macs. These include a new design, new productivity tools, and new gaming features.

Here’s a complete breakdown of the new chips and laptops announced at the Apple “Scary Fast” event.

Apple M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max

Apple announced three new M-series chips: the M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max. These chips are built on the industry-leading 3-nanometer technology, which allows them to deliver significant performance and efficiency improvements over the previous generation.

Features

All three chips also feature a new next-generation GPU architecture that includes Dynamic Caching, mesh shading, and hardware-accelerated ray tracing. In addition to the performance improvements, the M3 chip family also includes several new features, such as:

• Next-generation GPU architecture: The M3 chip family features a next-generation GPU architecture that includes Dynamic Caching, mesh shading, and hardware-accelerated ray tracing. These features enable the GPU to deliver faster performance and more realistic graphics.
• Advanced Neural Engine: The M3 chip family features an advanced Neural Engine that is up to 50% faster than the Neural Engine in the M1 chip family. This enables the chips to handle AI tasks faster and more efficiently.
• Support for more unified memory: The M3 chip family supports up to 128GB of unified memory, which enables users to run even the most demanding applications smoothly.

Dynamic Caching

Dynamic Caching is a new feature in the M3 chip family that allows the GPU to allocate local memory in hardware in real time. This means that only the exact amount of memory that is needed for each task is used, which dramatically increases the average utilization of the GPU. This significantly increases performance for the most demanding pro apps and games.

Mesh Shading

Mesh shading is a new rendering feature in the M3 chip family that brings greater capability and efficiency to geometry processing, enabling more visually complex scenes. It works by dynamically subdividing meshes into smaller pieces, which allows the GPU to process them more efficiently. This can lead to significant performance improvements in applications such as 3D rendering and game development.

Ray Tracing

Although Apple is a couple of years late to the party, it’s finally here. Apple Mac can now use ray tracing in games and applications. Ray tracing models the physical properties of light as it interacts with a scene. This enables games to render more accurate shadows and reflections, creating more realistic environments. Pro 3D rendering apps can also produce stunning ray-traced visuals faster than ever.

Performance

Here is a highlight of the relative performance of M3 chips with previous generation M1 and M2:

• Apple claims that the M3 chip is up to 35% faster than the M1 chip in CPU performance and up to 65% faster in GPU performance.
• The M3 Pro chip is up to 40% faster than the M1 Pro chip in CPU performance and up to 50% faster in GPU performance.
• The M3 Max chip is up to 80% faster than the M1 Max chip in CPU performance and up to 100% faster in GPU performance.

Related: Everything announced at Apple 2023 Wanderlust event

New MacBook Pro with M3 chips

Apple also announced new MacBook Pro and MacBook Air models with M3 chips. Both models offer significant performance improvements over the previous generation, as well as a number of new features.

MacBook Pro with M3 chip

There are several variants of the MacBook Pro in 14 inches and 16 inches – with M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max sporting different specifications.

The new MacBook Pro with M3 chip is up to 40% faster than the previous generation in CPU performance and up to 50% faster in GPU performance. It also features a new next-generation GPU architecture with Dynamic Caching, mesh shading, and hardware-accelerated ray tracing.

In addition to the performance improvements, the new MacBook Pro also features a number of new features, such as:

• A new display with Liquid Retina XDR technology, which delivers brighter, more vibrant colours and deeper blacks.
• A new MagSafe charging port for a secure and easy connection.
• A new keyboard with improved key travel and response.
• A new webcam with 1080p resolution and Center Stage technology, which keeps you centred in the frame during video calls.

Qualcomm has recently announced their latest Windows-on-Arm laptop processor Snapdragon X Elite along with the launch flagship mobile processor Snapdragon 8 Gen 3.

MacBook Pro M2 vs MacBook Pro M3

The MacBook Pro M3 lineup is a significant upgrade over the M2 lineup, offering faster performance, more powerful GPUs, and longer battery life.

Price and design

The base 14-inch MacBook Pro M3 now starts at $1,599, which is $400 less than the base 14-inch MacBook Pro M2. The M3 Pro and M3 Max models are still expensive, but they offer significantly better performance than their M2 predecessors.

In terms of design, the M3 MacBook Pros are very similar to the M2 MacBook Pros. They have the same Liquid Retina XDR displays, the same port selection, and the same overall look and feel.

Performance

The M3 chips are built on a 3-nanometer process, which makes them more efficient and powerful than the M2 chips. Apple claims that the M3 Pro offers 10% faster GPU performance and 40% faster CPU performance than the M2 Pro. The M3 Max offers 80% faster GPU performance than the M1 Max, and it can support up to 128GB of unified memory.

GPUs and CPUs

The M3 Max chips offer more GPU and CPU cores than the M3 Pro chips. The M3 Max features a 16-core CPU and up to a 40-core GPU, while the M3 Pro features a 12-core CPU and up to a 36-core GPU. M3 Max also supports a unified memory of up to 128GB!

Other improvements

The M3 chips also feature a number of other improvements over the M2 chips, including:

• Dynamic Caching tech, which could boost the performance of demanding games and apps by optimizing how much memory the device uses while undergoing tasks.
• Hardware-accelerated ray tracing and mesh shading allows developers to easily improve shadows and reflections as well as complex scenes in games and graphics-intensive apps.

Pricing and Availability

Note: With M3 Max, there are more custom variants with up to 8TB SSD storage and 128GB unified memory. All the MacBook Pro variants will be available to pre-order now and will be available from November 7.