Discussion Apple Silicon SoC thread

[Eug]

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:

Page 78 - Discussion - Apple Silicon SoC thread

Page 78 - Seeking answers? Join the AnandTech community: where nearly half-a-million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.

forums.anandtech.com

M1 Ultra discussion here:

Page 109 - Discussion - Apple Silicon SoC thread

Page 109 - Seeking answers? Join the AnandTech community: where nearly half-a-million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.

forums.anandtech.com

M2 discussion here:

Page 127 - Discussion - Apple Silicon SoC thread

Page 127 - Seeking answers? Join the AnandTech community: where nearly half-a-million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.

forums.anandtech.com

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:

Page 215 - Discussion - Apple Silicon SoC thread

Page 215 - Seeking answers? Join the AnandTech community: where nearly half-a-million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.

forums.anandtech.com

M4 Family discussion here:

Page 263 - Discussion - Apple Silicon SoC thread

Page 263 - Seeking answers? Join the AnandTech community: where nearly half-a-million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.

forums.anandtech.com

 

[jeanlain]

Its absolutely atrocious

This isn’t a gaming laptop. That screen can sustain 1000 nits and has thousands of dimming zones. When it was introduced, nothing compared to it.

 

[adroc_thurston]

This isn’t a gaming laptop.

Apple would like to think otherwise but I digress.

That screen can sustain 1000 nits and has thousands of dimming zones.

Irrelevant.
There are mLED panels in gaming laptops that are billion zillion times faster than the Apple abortion.

When it was introduced, nothing compared to it.

MSI shipped mLED panels equally as fancy months before Apple did.
Again, it's just a bad panel for anything not 23.976fps video editing.
The screen is horrifically blurry even when scrolling basic webpages.

 

[Glo.]

This isn’t a gaming laptop. That screen can sustain 1000 nits and has thousands of dimming zones. When it was introduced, nothing compared to it.

Dude. Thats not the point. It would be atrocious IF this would be even 60 Hz panel. Its absolutely not acceptable. Not in a computer that cost more than 2000$, at least, brand new.

There is huge difference between MacBook Air screens and MacBook Pro. And maybe MBP has better colours, but motion clarity is day and night for the MBA.

Its without any question, one of the worst panels in terms of motion clarity that are on the market. Its absolutely atrocious.

 

[Tigerick]

There is no way Apple will be putting M3 Pro onto iPad Pro. Sure, MBP14 with M3/M3 Pro (M3 Pro with 5P+6E) comes with 70W USB-C power adapter; they are designed to operate under fan-controlled system. Notebook with fan adds thickness and consume more power than fanless notebook like MBA15 (with M2 atm but most likely upgrade to M3) which only needs 35W power adapter. Why would Apple want to put M3 Pro which add thickness to iPad Pro? Not to mention having worst battery life???

BTW, I have speculated upcoming iPad Pro with OLED to start from $999 for 11-inch & $1,199 for 13-inch OLED; similar to iPhone Pro lineup at Macrumor's iPad forum, feel free to pitch in..

 

[eek2121]

Honestly this seems insane.

iPad Pro is sought to get oled display drastically decreasing weight and thickness. (And increase price by hundreds of dollars)

The basic M chips can draw in excess of 20 W under load which is way over the limits of an iPad or even a passivelly cooled Mac Book.
The M Pro goes over 40W.

While Apple silicon is super power efficient the power draw keeps growing. We are way past the days of 0,5W for full GPU load (on an iPhone 4). Thus having larger SoCs might be irellevant as it is strictly thermally limited. iPad also has much smaller battery than Mac Books.
However I can imagine Apple doing this for bragging rights AND having fans pay 6k$ for fully speced M3Pro 14 oled iPad.

A 10”-13” OLED screen isn’t that expensive. I have seen such panels retail for a couple hundred dollars, which means Apple gets it for even less.

For the SoC, power limits are a thing. You don’t actually think the power limit for the M* chips are the same across all devices, do you? Apple simply sets the power limit to ondcthat the device can handle.

EDIT: I read a great article that examines the power limit for the same chips across Apple devices, if I find it I will link it here. Apple definitely sets different power and/or thermal limits on a per device-class basis.

Standard 60 Hz display should have a response time of 16.67 ms G2G.

Typical response time of, lets say Gigabyte G24F monitor, with 165 Hz had 4.1 ms, which is actually good enough to deliver 240 Hz, but the panel itself has 165 Hz refresh rate, and is considered one of the best budget gaming monitors.

So, what do you think is the G2G response time of Super Hiper Retina XDR Mobile god of displays, to deliver 120 Hz?

21 ms on 14 inch, 22 ms on 16 inch MacBook Pro. Thats good enough response time for 45 Hz display, but the display has 120 Hz refresh rate.

Its absolutely atrocious. Its not good enough for 60 Hz refresh rate, which results in absolutely terrible smearing everywhere, even on the OS level.

From 3:20.

I have not noticed any smearing on my Macbook, though I have only used it for productivity, so if games show this I would not know.

One thing to consider is that Apple is doing a ton of stuff under the hood, some was mentioned by others, but also things like (proper) scaling, which itself can add latency.

 

[FlameTail]

LMNO

 

[poke01]

There are mLED panels in gaming laptops that are billion zillion times faster than the Apple abortion.

Not as bright.

Apple would like to think otherwise but I digress.

Irrelevant.
There are mLED panels in gaming laptops that are billion zillion times faster than the Apple abortion.

MSI shipped mLED panels equally as fancy months before Apple did.
Again, it's just a bad panel for anything not 23.976fps video editing.
The screen is horrifically blurry even when scrolling basic webpages.

MSI sure did but ii does not have high HDR brightness..
The XDR display goes up to 1600 nits none of the gaming laptops do.There's trsdeoffs you make.

Best mini-LED laptops in 2024

It's hard to beat the mini-LED displays in these killer laptops.

www.xda-developers.com

 

[FlameTail]

XD.

 

[adroc_thurston]

Not as bright.

Not particularly relevant numbers game.
Latency on the other hand.

MSI sure did but ii does not have high HDR brightness..
The XDR display goes up to 1600 nits none of the gaming laptops do.There's trsdeoffs you make.

There are newer panels than that.

 

[poke01]

There are newer panels than that

There 0 miniLED laptops that match in HDR brightness the MBPs and the display does achieve 1600 nits of peak HDR.

I know there are Proart monitors from Asus that have excellent 4K miniLED 1600HDR specs but none in a laptop.

 

[Eug]

I don’t know why people on tech forums always compare gaming screens against content creation oriented screens. They are a different kettle of fish.

There 0 miniLED laptops that match in HDR brightness the MBPs and the display does achieve 1600 nits of peak HDR.

I know there are Proart monitors from Asus that have excellent 4K miniLED 1600HDR specs but none in a laptop.

I bought two mid-end ProArt monitors and hated them both. The colour rendering was nice so I believe Asus when they say they properly calibrate them at the factory, but both of them had intolerable backlight bleed in some spots so it seems their QA is sub-par. They were also both fugly design-wise.

In the end I bought a Huawei MateView. Zero backlight bleed but poor colour calibration out of the box, despite their similar claim of proper factory colour calibration. However, that was easily fixed with a SpyderX Pro calibrator.

 

[trivik12]

Not as bright.

MSI sure did but ii does not have high HDR brightness..
The XDR display goes up to 1600 nits none of the gaming laptops do.There's trsdeoffs you make.

Best mini-LED laptops in 2024

It's hard to beat the mini-LED displays in these killer laptops.

www.xda-developers.com

Why do we need 1600 nits on a laptop which we use indoors and inches away from yourself !!!! Seems a good way to blind yourself.

 

[Glo.]

Looking at process node improvements on smaller nodes, either M4 is first chiplet/tile based design, or M5 series will be.

There is no way that Apple can push monolithic designs and maintain perf improvements.

 

[adroc_thurston]

There is no way that Apple can push monolithic designs and maintain perf improvements.

Tiled designs are win-more stuff so idk what you're expecting.

 

[poke01]

Why do we need 1600 nits on a laptop which we use indoors and inches away from yourself !!!! Seems a good way to blind yourself.

Our phones go beyond 2000 nits.

Granted the 1600 nits is not the entire screen but peak HDR. The SDR is 600 which is normal in every high end laptop.

 

[jeanlain]

Dude. Thats not the point. It would be atrocious IF this would be even 60 Hz panel. Its absolutely not acceptable. Not in a computer that cost more than 2000$, at least, brand new.

The response time of this screen is totally acceptable in every application that is not a fast-paced game. This is a very high-quality screen overall.

 

[jeanlain]

Apple would like to think otherwise but I digress.

No they don't. Show me where Apple has presented the MacBook Pro as a gaming laptop. That it can run games (like any computer) doesn't make it a gaming laptop.

Irrelevant.
There are mLED panels in gaming laptops that are billion zillion times faster than the Apple abortion.

Now that is relevant since MacBook Pros aren't gaming laptops.

Again, it's just a bad panel for anything not 23.976fps video editing.
The screen is horrifically blurry even when scrolling basic webpages.

Most users would disagree.

 

[adroc_thurston]

No they don't.

Yes they do they really wanna be a unified(tm) gaming platform now.

Show me where Apple has presented the MacBook Pro as a gaming laptop

Every time they demo Tomb Raider or w/ever.

Now that is relevant since MacBook Pros aren't gaming laptops.

You gotta have your eyes checked.

Most users would disagree.

They also gotta check their eyes.
It's the blurriest screen I've seen in 10 years.

 

[jeanlain]

Why do we need 1600 nits on a laptop which we use indoors

... not necessarily. Some may use it outdoors (film sets in particular).

 

[jeanlain]

Every time they demo Tomb Raider or w/ever.

Ridiculous.
So because Apple demoes Tomb Raider during a presentation, they should put gaming screens in their content-creation laptops?
You're funny.

 

[jeanlain]

They also gotta check their eyes.
It's the blurriest screen I've seen in 10 years.

Not everyone is a gamer you now. Some users value color accuracy, contrast, and peak brightness more than response time.
But you certainly know better than content creators who use these machines.

 

[Doug S]

Not everyone is a gamer you now. Some users value color accuracy, contrast, and peak brightness more than response time.
But you certainly know better than content creators who use these machines.

Some people just come here to bitch about Apple and claim they are terrible in everything and Intel or AMD is god.

 

[Glo.]

The response time of this screen is totally acceptable in every application that is not a fast-paced game. This is a very high-quality screen overall.

I think you'll be very surprised with what Apple is doing behind the scenes on gaming front, then.

 

[adroc_thurston]

So because Apple demoes Tomb Raider during a presentation, they should put gaming screens in their content-creation laptops?

I'm just asking for something that can play 60fps videos or scroll webpages without horrific motion blur.

Not everyone is a gamer you now. Some users value color accuracy, contrast, and peak brightness more than response time.

It makes my eyes bleed.
It's literally 2013-tier panel (arguably worse) in terms of motion blur.
iPad Pro's have the same issue which is why they'll be moving them (and then MBPs) to OLED.

I think you'll be very surprised with what Apple is doing behind the scenes on gaming front, then.

It's just yapping.

 

[Glo.]

Not everyone is a gamer you now. Some users value color accuracy, contrast, and peak brightness more than response time.
But you certainly know better than content creators who use these machines.

Computer costs at least 2000$, and has atrocious response times, yet there are people who are able to defend this, as "most people do not care about it".

Gues bloody what.

Most people do not buy computer for 2000$, and those who do - should care about highest quality, and expect that from Apple. This display in terms of response times is absolute crap.

And it is beyond me, that people actually CAN defend this. Because its totally not acceptable for 2000-2500 dollar computers to have this slow response times.