Discussion Apple Silicon SoC thread

Eug · Nov 10, 2020

M1
5 nm
Unified memory architecture - LP-DDR4
16 billion transistors

8-core CPU

4 high-performance cores
192 KB instruction cache
128 KB data cache
Shared 12 MB L2 cache

4 high-efficiency cores
128 KB instruction cache
64 KB data cache
Shared 4 MB L2 cache
(Apple claims the 4 high-effiency cores alone perform like a dual-core Intel MacBook Air)

8-core iGPU (but there is a 7-core variant, likely with one inactive core)
128 execution units
Up to 24576 concurrent threads
2.6 Teraflops
82 Gigatexels/s
41 gigapixels/s

16-core neural engine
Secure Enclave
USB 4

Products:
$999 ($899 edu) 13" MacBook Air (fanless) - 18 hour video playback battery life
$699 Mac mini (with fan)
$1299 ($1199 edu) 13" MacBook Pro (with fan) - 20 hour video playback battery life

Memory options 8 GB and 16 GB. No 32 GB option (unless you go Intel).

It should be noted that the M1 chip in these three Macs is the same (aside from GPU core number). Basically, Apple is taking the same approach which these chips as they do the iPhones and iPads. Just one SKU (excluding the X variants), which is the same across all iDevices (aside from maybe slight clock speed differences occasionally).

EDIT:

M1 Pro 8-core CPU (6+2), 14-core GPU
M1 Pro 10-core CPU (8+2), 14-core GPU
M1 Pro 10-core CPU (8+2), 16-core GPU
M1 Max 10-core CPU (8+2), 24-core GPU
M1 Max 10-core CPU (8+2), 32-core GPU

M1 Pro and M1 Max discussion here:

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M1 Ultra discussion here:

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M2 discussion here:

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Second Generation 5 nm
Unified memory architecture - LPDDR5, up to 24 GB and 100 GB/s
20 billion transistors

8-core CPU

4 high-performance cores
192 KB instruction cache
128 KB data cache
Shared 16 MB L2 cache

4 high-efficiency cores
128 KB instruction cache
64 KB data cache
Shared 4 MB L2 cache

10-core iGPU (but there is an 8-core variant)
3.6 Teraflops

16-core neural engine
Secure Enclave
USB 4

Hardware acceleration for 8K h.264, h.264, ProRes

M3 Family discussion here:

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M4 Family discussion here:

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name99 · Oct 11, 2024

mikegg said:
In 3.6 years. That's nuts. M1 was already leading in ST.

I don't expect this pace to continue though. TSMC nodes are getting more expensive and density scaling has slowed drastically.

Density will jump again with BSPDN. And we still have plenty of tricks on hand for increasing IPC.

People have been saying Apple hit peak performance since about the A8. Like most extrapolations based purely on drawing graphs, as opposed to understanding the drivers of change, these predictions have not aged well.

poke01 · Oct 11, 2024

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jdubs03 · Oct 12, 2024

Interesting that ComputerBase keyed in on the Russian M4 leak that MaxTech showed off. Seems to give more credence to it than prior (though I’m not aware if you can fake those results; I don’t think you can like GB).

Either way the chart below is handy. 37% faster ST than the X Elite 84 and the U9 288V. And that’s not even going into the power draw (iPad Pro does about 7-8W; and we know the X84 does around 18W for ST, not sure in the 288V).

mvprod123 · Oct 12, 2024

jdubs03 said:
Interesting that ComputerBase keyed in on the Russian M4 leak that MaxTech showed off. Seems to give more credence to it than prior (though I’m not aware if you can fake those results; I don’t think you can like GB).

Either way the chart below is handy. 37% faster ST than the X Elite 84 and the U9 288V. And that’s not even going into the power draw (iPad Pro does about 7-8W; and we know the X84 does around 18W for ST, not sure in the 288V).

View attachment 109311

It will be surprising if Apple's marketing team ignores and does not point out at the October event that the M4 has the world fastest CPU core.

Eug · Oct 12, 2024

mvprod123 said:
It will be surprising if Apple's marketing team ignores and does not point out at the October event that the M4 has the world fastest CPU core.

I don’t think Apple has ever mentioned Cinebench, have they?

mvprod123 · Oct 12, 2024

Eug said:
I don’t think Apple has ever mentioned Cinebench, have they?

They use several benchmarks. The notes do not specify which ones.

jdubs03 · Oct 12, 2024

@Eug welp I know I said I was going to wait til a 17 or 18PM but I decided to get a 16PM. Reason being there is potential that next years prices could be a decent bit higher due to… circumstances. So I said F it. Now I’ll have this until 2027 when the 19/XX comes out. But also I won’t mind the extra battery capacity and endurance along with the other upgrades. Got the White Titanium.

Eug · Oct 12, 2024

jdubs03 said:
@Eug welp I know I said I was going to wait til a 17 or 18PM but I decided to get a 16PM. Reason being there is potential that next years prices could be a decent bit higher due to… circumstances.

Do you mean Apple's prices or your local carrier's/vendor's prices?

Cuz I personally don't expect Apple's 17 Pro Max pricing to go up vs. 16 Pro Max here in Canada since the minimum storage is already at 256 GB, and that shouldn't change anytime soon. However, I almost always buy unlocked straight from Apple, and Apple's prices are more consistent than from the carriers. (I buy the phones and keep them a long time, and then they get passed down to the kids.)

Enjoy your new phone!

jdubs03 · Oct 12, 2024

Eug said:
Do you mean Apple's prices or your local carrier's/vendor's prices?

Cuz I personally don't expect Apple's 17 Pro Max pricing to go up vs. 16 Pro Max here in Canada since the minimum storage is already at 256 GB, and that shouldn't change anytime soon. However, I almost always buy unlocked straight from Apple, and Apple's prices are more consistent than from the carriers. (I buy the phones and keep them a long time, and then they get passed down to the kids.)

Enjoy your new phone!

I think Apples' prices but also those prices being passed through to the carriers via economic/political conditions (i.e. trade policy).
I hope I'm wrong on that and those trade issues don't happen in general and I'll have this which is still a solid upgrade from a 14P; but if I'm right it'll have been the right choice.

mvprod123 · Oct 15, 2024

Apple Unveils New iPad Mini With A17 Pro Chip and Apple Intelligence

Apple today announced a significant upgrade to the iPad mini, now featuring an A17 Pro chip and support for the company's new Apple Intelligence...

www.macrumors.com

It's a very strange update. Even though there were rumours that Apple wanted to get rid of the N3B as soon as possible, they are updating the iPad mini to the A17 Pro. By the way, this is the A17 Pro with a 5-core GPU.
Does this mean that new Macs will be presented through press releases?

okoroezenwa · Oct 15, 2024

mvprod123 said:
Apple Unveils New iPad Mini With A17 Pro Chip and Apple Intelligence

Apple today announced a significant upgrade to the iPad mini, now featuring an A17 Pro chip and support for the company's new Apple Intelligence...

www.macrumors.com

It's a very strange update. Even though there were rumours that Apple wanted to get rid of the N3B as soon as possible, they are updating the iPad mini to the A17 Pro. By the way, this is the A17 Pro with a 5-core GPU.
Does this mean that new Macs will be presented through press releases?

Yeah, very weird update. So N3B will stay longer than expected for Apple? Or will the mini get a quick follow up next year or something?

mvprod123 · Oct 15, 2024

okoroezenwa said:
Yeah, very weird update. So N3B will stay longer than expected for Apple? Or will the mini get a quick follow up next year or something?

Somehow I think that Apple TV will also be updated to A17 Pro with a 5-core GPU.

Eug · Oct 15, 2024

mvprod123 said:
Apple Unveils New iPad Mini With A17 Pro Chip and Apple Intelligence

Apple today announced a significant upgrade to the iPad mini, now featuring an A17 Pro chip and support for the company's new Apple Intelligence...

www.macrumors.com

It's a very strange update. Even though there were rumours that Apple wanted to get rid of the N3B as soon as possible, they are updating the iPad mini to the A17 Pro. By the way, this is the A17 Pro with a 5-core GPU.

Binned for GPU cores and I wonder if it will also be binned for clock speed.

BTW, my prediction for the MacBook Air was that they would spec the M4 with minimum 12-16 GB RAM, but would keep an older model around with 8 GB to hit a lower price point. At first I was thinking it might be the old M2 but this makes me wonder if it will be the M3. Mind you, M3 in the MacBook Air isn’t binned.

OTOH, it’s moot for the Mac mini, since there is no M3 Mac mini. The old model they’d keep around for an 8 GB budget price point would be M2.

Does this mean that new Macs will be presented through press releases?

Completely unrelated.

mvprod123 · Oct 15, 2024

Eug said:
Binned for GPU cores and I wonder if it will also be binned for clock speed.

BTW, my prediction for the MacBook Air was that they would spec the M4 with minimum 12-16 GB RAM, but would keep an older model around with 8 GB to hit a lower price point. At first I was thinking it might be the old M2 but this makes me wonder if it will be the M3. Mind you, M3 in the MacBook Air isn’t binned.

OTOH, it’s moot for the Mac mini, since there is no M3 Mac mini. The old model they’d keep around for an 8 GB budget price point would be M2.

Completely unrelated.

There is a possibility that the iPhone SE4 will also have the same A17 Pro version.

Eug · Oct 15, 2024

Eug said:
BTW, my prediction for the MacBook Air was that they would spec the M4 with minimum 12-16 GB RAM, but would keep an older model around with 8 GB to hit a lower price point. At first I was thinking it might be the old M2 but this makes me wonder if it will be the M3. Mind you, M3 in the MacBook Air isn’t binned.

OTOH, it’s moot for the Mac mini, since there is no M3 Mac mini. The old model they’d keep around for an 8 GB budget price point would be M2.

Hmmm... M3 has ray tracing, but M2 does not. I wonder if that would factor in the decision for keeping M2 (N5P) or M3 (N3B) in a budget MacBook Air. Mind you, it wouldn't affect the Mac mini since there is no M3 Mac mini anyway.

BTW A17 Pro (N3B) used in the new iPad mini also has ray tracing.

Anyhow, I'm waiting for iPad 11 to replace my kid's iPad Air 2 with A8X (20 nm). I wonder what SoC and how much memory it will get.

Doug S · Oct 15, 2024

okoroezenwa said:
Yeah, very weird update. So N3B will stay longer than expected for Apple? Or will the mini get a quick follow up next year or something?

When Apple introduced the iPhone 16 line they immediately discontinued sales of the iPhone 15 Pro/Max. It takes several months for a wafer to be manufactured by TSMC, plus some additional time for dicing/testing/packaging. They aren't going to risk a shortage of A17Ps that would mean ending sales of iPhone 15 Pro/Max before iPhone 16 came out, so they will need to make millions more than they end up needing just in case.

In the past they used the same SoCs for all iPhones of a given generation (or iPhone 14 base using iPhone 13's SoC) so they've never had a situation like this where ending sales of the Pro line to replace it with the new Pro line meant there were iPhones in which those SoCs could go.

They can probably model their sales of an updated iPad Mini well enough that they would know approximately how long that stock of A17Ps will last, so they can have a replacement readied.There is no specific timeframe when people expect new models of the Mini (it is always talked about as something Apple may discontinue) so they can replace it whenever - when they run out of A17Ps they immediately switch over to making Minis with whatever comes next and then it is just like today. Without notice or rumor, a new iPad Mini.

I wouldn't be shocked to see a new Apple TV soon using A17Ps as well, though maybe they'll hold off and it'll get excess stock of A18Ps next fall.

name99 · Oct 15, 2024

Eug · Oct 15, 2024

Doug S said:
When Apple introduced the iPhone 16 line they immediately discontinued sales of the iPhone 15 Pro/Max. It takes several months for a wafer to be manufactured by TSMC, plus some additional time for dicing/testing/packaging. They aren't going to risk a shortage of A17Ps that would mean ending sales of iPhone 15 Pro/Max before iPhone 16 came out, so they will need to make millions more than they end up needing just in case.

In the past they used the same SoCs for all iPhones of a given generation (or iPhone 14 base using iPhone 13's SoC) so they've never had a situation like this where ending sales of the Pro line to replace it with the new Pro line meant there were iPhones in which those SoCs could go.

They can probably model their sales of an updated iPad Mini well enough that they would know approximately how long that stock of A17Ps will last, so they can have a replacement readied.There is no specific timeframe when people expect new models of the Mini (it is always talked about as something Apple may discontinue) so they can replace it whenever - when they run out of A17Ps they immediately switch over to making Minis with whatever comes next and then it is just like today. Without notice or rumor, a new iPad Mini.

I wouldn't be shocked to see a new Apple TV soon using A17Ps as well, though maybe they'll hold off and it'll get excess stock of A18Ps next fall.

Just an anecdote: I just got the battery replaced (2024) on my Watch Series 5 (2019), except that Apple doesn't replace batteries. It replaces the entire Watch. I checked the serial number and apparently it's not even a refurb, but a brand new Watch. It uses Apple's S5 SiP, which was discontinued in 2022.

It makes me wonder just how many of these brand new Watch Series 5 units they have in storage specifically for this purpose, considering the Watch 5 was discontinued 4 years ago, and its SiP was discontinued 2 years ago. (Watch 5 was discontinued in 2020, but Watch SE 1st generation which used the same SiP, was discontinued in 2022.)

poke01 · Oct 15, 2024

There should be a press release next week for the first round of M4 Macs.

Eug · Oct 15, 2024

poke01 said:
There should be a press release next week for the first round of M4 Macs.

Or maybe we will get an event announcement.

Mind you, I'll probably be waiting until 2025 anyway, since first up for purchase for us is a MacBook Air, as it's a 2017 dual-core Core i5. I think I will hold onto my M1 Mac mini for now.

poke01 · Oct 15, 2024

Eug said:
Or maybe we will get an event announcement.

Mind you, I'll probably be waiting until 2025 anyway, since first up for purchase for us is a MacBook Air, as it's a 2017 dual-core Core i5. I think I will hold onto my M1 Mac mini for now.

It’s just me guessing based on Gurman rumoured release date if Nov 1.

The Hardcard · Oct 15, 2024

poke01 said:
It’s just me guessing based on Gurman rumoured release date if Nov 1.

I believe it will be an event because of Apple Intelligence. The x.1 releases with the availability of the first features are launching as well and will need to be rehyped.

What the Youtubers and tech pundits don’t recognize is that the main reason for the delay is not the software, it is the Private Cloud Compute. This involves bringing online the datacenter network of hundreds of thousands of M2 Ultrras. The AI models were working at WWDC and the M4 was here in May. We’re not waiting on hardware or software, the wait is for cloud infrastructure.

i’m going to go so far as to speculate that a big part of the M4 Macbook Pro leak is because they have been ready for an extended time. They were probably sitting somewhere long enough for someone to come up with a plan to get them quickly to a “safe” location.

Another reason for an event is that M4 will likely represent another step in the realignment of the M family. Step 1 was the M3 Pro becoming its own design instead of a Max with half the GPU chopped off. Now, if rumors hold true, the Pro and Max are coming back together under the same design again, Brava. The most likely path I can imagine is that M4 Max is 2 M4 Pros fused together.

Lastly, an event will allow Apple to respond to laptop competitors. Everyone is saying they have long battery life, with 2 architectures claiming to match or beat Macbooks. I don’t remember if it was Gurman or someone else who claimed Apple was excited about M4 efficiency. But I expect this launch to come with a clap back to Qualcomm and Intel.

Doug S · Oct 15, 2024

Eug said:
Just an anecdote: I just got the battery replaced (2024) on my Watch Series 5 (2019), except that Apple doesn't replace batteries. It replaces the entire Watch. I checked the serial number and apparently it's not even a refurb, but a brand new Watch. It uses Apple's S5 SiP, which was discontinued in 2022.

It makes me wonder just how many of these brand new Watch Series 5 units they have in storage specifically for this purpose, considering the Watch 5 was discontinued 4 years ago, and its SiP was discontinued 2 years ago. (Watch 5 was discontinued in 2020, but Watch SE 1st generation which used the same SiP, was discontinued in 2022.)

Well what to do with the stock of Watch 5s when they pull it from the price list... They can't simply wait until they are all gone and then its done, because they have to keep some around for AppleCare+ replacement. They will have some idea how many that is based on how many people with that model have AppleCare+, but if they have extra they have two options as I see it. 1) sell the leftovers at a big discount to a reseller like Amazon - potentially hurting the sales of newer ones or 2) dispose of them some other way that won't hurt sales. I imagine customers who get a new product when they get a battery replaced are probably pleasantly surprised, so versus doing #1 and potentially hurting sales of newer products #2 probably creates more customer loyalty.

Doug S · Oct 15, 2024

The Hardcard said:
Now, if rumors hold true, the Pro and Max are coming back together under the same design again, Brava. The most likely path I can imagine is that M4 Max is 2 M4 Pros fused together.

Unless that Ultra type fusion is a lot cheaper than I imagine, that doesn't seem too likely. It would make more sense to do the die "chop" like they did with M1.

If the Max is two Pros fused together then I guess the patents showing four dies together will be a little underwhelming when it is used for an Ultra, and not an "Extreme" level offering like many of us imagined.

The Hardcard · Oct 16, 2024

Doug S said:
Unless that Ultra type fusion is a lot cheaper than I imagine, that doesn't seem too likely. It would make more sense to do the die "chop" like they did with M1.

If the Max is two Pros fused together then I guess the patents showing four dies together will be a little underwhelming when it is used for an Ultra, and not an "Extreme" level offering like many of us imagined.

I thought about chop, but the separate design for the M3 Pro makes me think otherwise. I don’t see how they could include CPU resources in the chop and I also don’t see how the Pro and Max go back to having the same CPU. 12 P cores is way too many for the Pro, yet how could they give the Max any less?

I think those four dies were going to be Max dies but that plan hit several walls. M1 Ultra had a lot of GPU resource limitations that meant many workloads didn’t scale well. M2 Ultra fixed many scaling issues, but not all.

I’ve suspected that some of the challenges came from the giant size of the interconnect across the Max dies. Interconnecting Pro dies would be more manageable from die size to core count.

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