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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gdansk · Tuesday at 11:14 AM

M4 Pro is back to 256-bit interface?
I didn't know that.

Listed as "273GB/s memory bandwidth".

Glo. · Tuesday at 11:17 AM

gdansk said:
M4 Pro is back to 256-bit interface?
I didn't know that.

Listed as "273GB/s memory bandwidth".

8533 MHz LPDDR5X.

poke01 · Tuesday at 11:18 AM

WTF????
This is like amazing value

poke01 · Tuesday at 11:18 AM

No one f****** has TB5 yet on a mini PC

The Hardcard · Tuesday at 11:19 AM

Based on math, 273 GB/s bandwidth equals 256-bit bus with LPDDR5x-8500 for M4 Pro.

EDIT: So M4 Max is likely have almost 550 GB/s. A big boost to token generation in LLMs.

Eug · Tuesday at 11:20 AM

mvprod123 · Tuesday at 11:20 AM

M4 Pro
10 P-cores + 4 E-cores

gdansk · Tuesday at 11:21 AM

mvprod123 said:
M4 Pro
10 P-cores + 4 E-cores
View attachment 110495 View attachment 110496

They reversed course on the Pro. More P cores. More bandwidth. Great.
I was trying to delay until a tandem OLED MBP but I don't know if I can make it...

okoroezenwa · Tuesday at 11:24 AM

I did not expect 10 performance cores, that a pleasant surprise. I wonder if the Max will stay with 12 or go up.

FlameTail · Tuesday at 11:24 AM

10P cores in M4 Pro?

Wasn't expecting that.

Now the obvious question is how did they implement this as clusters. Is it 5P+5P, or 4P+6P ? Surely, it's not a single cluster of 10P....

Eug · Tuesday at 11:31 AM

I think I will get one. Tempted for M4 Pro.

mvprod123 · Tuesday at 11:34 AM

mvprod123 · Tuesday at 11:36 AM

Apple has saved M4 family die shots for tomorrow.

mvprod123 · Tuesday at 11:41 AM

Apple has implemented Bandwidth Boost in Thunderbolt 5.

FlameTail · Tuesday at 11:42 AM

Prediction: Apple M4 Pro will exceed 1800 points in Cinebench 2024 Multi Core.

Yes, that makes it even faster than M3 Max (1700 points).

And that brings me to the next one:

Prediction 2: Apple M4 Max will exceed 2500 points in Cinebench 2024 Multi Core.

If true, it would mean M4 Max will be faster in multicore than AMD/Intel's top PC CPUs: Ryzen 9950X and Core Ultra 9 285K.

mvprod123 · Tuesday at 11:52 AM

lol

https://twitter.com/x/status/1851287208235237381

mvprod123 · Tuesday at 11:55 AM

FlameTail said:
Prediction: Apple M4 Pro will exceed 1800 points in Cinebench 2024 Multi Core.

Yes, that makes it even faster than M3 Max (1700 points).

And that brings me to the next one:

Prediction 2: Apple M4 Max will exceed 2500 points in Cinebench 2024 Multi Core.

If true, it would mean M4 Max will be faster in multicore than AMD/Intel's top PC CPUs: Ryzen 9950X and Core Ultra 9 285K.

It will be funny if the M4 Max gets the same number of cores as the M4 Pro, but with double GPU cores lol.

Eug · Tuesday at 12:11 PM

BTW, apparently the power switch is located on the bottom. Hmmm...

GC2:CS · Tuesday at 12:17 PM

What about the cooling ?

While M3 Pro was not viewed as a big upgrade it actually matched M2 Pro prety much evenly but at significally lower power.

M3 Max on the other hand has to decrease power quite a bit when running in the 14” Mac book at a heavy multicore load.

This goes against the full perf on battery in any situation they marketed with M1 generation.

With M4 higher power core AND lets say 14 ? 16?! of them in the Max this might become an issue… 80-100W on CPU at full load ?

I personally think they might stay at 12P as Pro is catching up to max this time and Ultra will have its own die. However with N3E better yields there might be still a lot of area for new things. 115 BT ?

Regarding the GPU Notebook Check saw GFX pulling ~14W and sustaining >10 for over a minute on the 16 Pro. I checked that a low power mode cuts the peak GPU perf in half (used to be about a third before).

40 cores thus equals to around 100W. Used to be 40 on the M1 Max.

I uderstand the benefits on scaling up on power if you manage to keep ramping clocks and efficiency in check.

But where is the practical limit when they will say. Ok next gen M has same/lower power across the board. (Because our prototypes started blowing up, but we will not tell you that).

mvprod123 · Tuesday at 12:17 PM

I wonder if Apple uses pcie 5.0 in its new high-end chips?

The Hardcard · Tuesday at 12:18 PM

mvprod123 said:
It will be funny if the M4 Max gets the same number of cores as the M4 Pro, but with double GPU cores lol.

Disappointing, somewhat. Weirdly to me, the M4 Pro core layout makes both the chop, fusion, and separate die possibilities all feasible.

A chop with 10 performance cores would allow for about the same performance as M3 Max, just as M3 Pro was slightly faster than M2 Pro.

Yet 20 + 8 is more reasonable for a potential fuse. Of course the option of a separate die is always there as the cleanest upgrade path to the 12 + 4 Max.

I am not seeing anything that gives away the most likely design choice for M4 Max. Which remains frustrating to me. Nearly an additional day of forced wait.

The memory bandwidth is the most critical spec to me and the aggressive M4 Pro has upgrade to 273 GB/s gives me hope for the Max…

FlameTail · Tuesday at 12:18 PM

So do M4 and M4 Pro have identical display support capabilities?

gdansk · Tuesday at 12:29 PM

Eug said:
View attachment 110510

BTW, apparently the power switch is located on the bottom. Hmmm...

WiFi 6E and the power button being on the bottom are a few odd choices.
Guess you can't have everything!

jdubs03 · Tuesday at 12:30 PM

I saw there is a 12-core CPU for the base M4 Pro. So assuming that’s 8P+4E.

Disappointing that it’s only WiFI 6E but 10 gigabit Ethernet I suppose is the trade off there.

mvprod123 · Tuesday at 12:32 PM

The Hardcard said:
Disappointing, somewhat. Weirdly to me, the M4 Pro core layout makes both the chop, fusion, and separate die possibilities all feasible.

A chop with 10 performance cores would allow for about the same performance as M3 Max, just as M3 Pro was slightly faster than M2 Pro.

Yet 20 + 8 is more reasonable for a potential fuse. Of course the option of a separate die is always there as the cleanest upgrade path to the 12 + 4 Max.

I am not seeing anything that gives away the most likely design choice for M4 Max. Which remains frustrating to me. Nearly an additional day of forced wait.

The memory bandwidth is the most critical spec to me and the aggressive M4 Pro has upgrade to 273 GB/s gives me hope for the Max…

I don't believe in the 20+8 configuration for the M4 Max. Despite the power efficiency of Apple's silicon, such a chip will have too high a TDP for a laptop chassis, especially for a 14-inch model. And the die size will be too large. I'm already curious to see the die shots of the M4 Pro/Max dies. Apple is silent about the number of transistors. Apparently, this information with die shots will be announced tomorrow.

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