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

 

[Ajay]

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.

Hmm, he didn't make any subjective comments about it being blurry or smearing. Have you used one in person?

 

[Glo.]

Hmm, he didn't make any subjective comments about it being blurry or smearing. Have you used one in person?

Yes, I have used one in person. Without it I would not be commenting. I used one BEFORE I found out the response times, tho. Which explained what I have seen.

 

[trivik12]

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.

At least phones are being used outside under bright sunlight. Even there we are going overboard. I had no issues using Galaxy Note 4 back in 2014 in bright sun light. I am not certain we need 3000 nits like what we are seeing today. At this point these races are only for marketing reasons. Samsung goes for Megapixel race, companies goes for most number of cameras or some metric to market it. But from usability purpose there is hardly anything dramatic.

Laptops these days even the cheapo windows/chromebook ones are much better than what we used to get 10 years ago. At this point we get only incremental value spending 1000s of $ more. I can understand users of specific application/gamers might want certain features that make them ok to pay more. Otherwise its all a status symbol

 

[Eug]

Hmm... This is probably futile, but I'll provide some contextual information anyway.

Typically content creation oriented professional monitors do not have super high refresh rates.

For example, this is the BenQ SW321C 31.5" 4K monitor that goes for ~US$2000. It's 60 Hz.

SW321C｜32-inch 4K AdobeRGB USB Type-C Photographer Monitor

BenQ SW321C Photographer Monitor supports IPS technology for photo editing and excellent 99% Adobe RGB color space.

www.benq.com

Creative Bloq gives it a 4.5 out of 5 stars in their review, commenting that its $2000 price is comparatively low for this category of monitor.

BenQ SW321C review

The BenQ SW321C is a pro-level monitor without the pro-level price.

www.creativebloq.com

 

[H433x0n]

Nice. If we are to extrapolate, M3 Ultra will be well over 3000 in Cinebench 2024 CPU, probably somewhere around 3100-3300, basically twice as fast as M1 Ultra. With these types of speeds, there isn't really much point in Apple pursuing an Mx Max x 4 / Mx Extreme type chip.

However, there is a big increase in Cinebench 2024 CPU power use.

M2 Max 32 Watts
M3 Max 51 Watts

IOW, there is no significant gain in performance per Watt.

There is some improvement in perf/watt but not much. Keep in mind M2 Max is on N5P, so once again the perf/watt of N3B looks roughly equivalent of N4P.

 

[Doug S]

At least phones are being used outside under bright sunlight. Even there we are going overboard.

Agreed. I have a 14 Pro Max and I'll mount it on my handlebar when I go for bike rides. Even under the brightest sun I can easily read the time/distance/mph and other info it shows. OK, it might be a little washed out if I was looking at pictures or video but things are way better than 10 years ago when the only way to use a phone outdoors at noon in summer was to turn your back to the sun so the screen was in your own shade.

The nits race for OLED TVs is even more bizarre to me. Do people have TVs next to their outdoor swimming pool or something?

 

[igor_kavinski]

The nits race for OLED TVs is even more bizarre to me. Do people have TVs next to their outdoor swimming pool or something?

Higher nits equal better highlights for a more impactful HDR experience. Check rtings reviews of OLEDs. They rarely go above 600 nits for full screen brightness.

 

[varase]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1719150026419490965

Its interesting the M3 pro and base version of M3 Max regressed in core counts. Only Apple can call it a Yuge upgrade Cant wait for independent benchmarks comparing it to M2 series.

Apple's released three tiers of M class chips, and they rejiggered the line to make a bigger difference between the Pro and Max (which makes sense).

Always bothered me that the Pro and Max shared identical CPU power and only differed on the GPU/Video toolbox sides.

 

[varase]

Yeah this is something I have wondered about Ryzen and Intel and now Apple.

So not every cut down version of a chip was cut down because it was defective?

Which then leads to a dilemma- why not simply make a smaller chip and big chip, instead of making big chips and disabling a ton of stuff to make low tier versions.

Actually I heard that N3B yields were not great - so I don't think Apple's cutting down good chips to make binned configurations.

 

[varase]

Oryon has a ipc advantage compared to M3.. if fabbed on N3 oryon will do 4.7ghz because they can hit 4.3ghz on N4p

I think it's a fools errand to live on someone else's promises or fantasies.

Best to wait for testable silicon to arrive and proceed from that point.

 

[jeanlain]

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".

I'm not "defending this". This screen would be better with a lower response time.
I'm responding to the comment that this screen is "atrocious" and that Apple should never charge this amount of money for because of this screen. That's different.

If you just said that this screen had poor response time, I wouldn't have replied. But your comment implied that it was a shitty screen overall and that users were dumb to use it. While the reality is that this screen is best in class in several other metrics and that motion blur is not a problem for most people.
I personally have zero issue with blur while scrolling. I don't stare at an image during scrolling, I don't read text during scrolling and even if I did, the blur is minimal and doesn't impact readability.
If motion blur was such an issue for everyone, the so called "soap opera effect" wouldn't be an problem and every filmmaker would be using high shutter speed (like in the first scene of Saving Private Ryan), or they would all be shooting at 48 fps, and fullscreen motion blur would not be a setting in video games.
The truth is, motion blur is not an issue for most people.

Again, not saying that this screen wouldn't be better with a lower response time, just that most people don't care and value other metrics like color fidelity, contrast, resolution and brightness.

 

[jeanlain]

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

Well in that case you probably wouldn't have 1600 nits peak brightness and 2500 independent dimming zones. Tradeoffs are a thing.

 

[varase]

Considering the differences in power use, nipping at the heels of a 14900K is hardly a thing to be ashamed of.

It is kind of funny how Apple not managing to be on top (or not delivering quite as much of an uplift as previously) is viewed as a failure when they've been in the business of making desktop and notebook chips for how long exactly?

The scary part will be if (or maybe even just when) their team does hit one out of the park again. Do we go from talking about when other ARM manufacturers will catch up to Apple to when the x86 manufacturers will catch up to Apple?

It's easy to forget that Apple isn't a CPU manufacturer/vendor and doesn't really care about spec wars.

The Apple Silicon team produces silicon for the Apple product roadmap and to satisfy the needs of future Apple products.

The fact that Apple has occasionally pulled far enough ahead to spank Intel and AMD - at their reduced energy envelope - is more side-effect than goal.

When you combine the CPU speed with their video toolkit you get video editing/rendering/transcoding which makes their machines pretty much ideal for that task, especially when you consider they can do it on a center table in Starbucks or at 30,000 feet.

 

[adroc_thurston]

Well in that case you probably wouldn't have 1600 nits peak brightness and 2500 independent dimming zones. Tradeoffs are a thing.

Yeah Apple will leverage OLEDs to fix the garbage panel issue later on.

 

[Eug]

Just an indicator that Apple has been stockpiling these M3 MacBook Pros for a while: Some customers have been receiving their new M3 MacBook Pros with an unreleased version of macOS Ventura, despite the fact that the newer macOS Sonoma came out way back in September.

Normally that would be a good thing since some workflows would be better served by the more mature Ventura, which we now know can run on these new machines, but that doesn't really apply here because that older macOS version is not actually available for download.

Apple's released three tiers of M class chips, and they rejiggered the line to make a bigger difference between the Pro and Max (which makes sense).

Always bothered me that the Pro and Max shared identical CPU power and only differed on the GPU/Video toolbox sides.

Yup. I said the same thing about the CPU core count and the CPU performance of M1 Pro and M2 Pro vs the corresponding Maxes. It was weird from a marketecture point of view.

 

[okoroezenwa]

Yup. I said the same thing about the CPU core count and the CPU performance of M1 Pro and M2 Pro vs the corresponding Maxes. It was weird from a marketecture point of view.

Yeah, the Max kind of needed this CPU boost. Shame they felt the need to bring down the Pro to uplift the Max though (can't really see how the Max still wouldn't have been notable with 12 cores vs 8 cores of a proper Pro).

 

[varase]

Yeah Apple will leverage OLEDs to fix the garbage panel issue later on.

Don't know if I'd call it a garbage panel - it still achieves greater brightness, better color accuracy, and doesn't color shift over time (as OLED's blue pixels start to burn out or dim).

It's really a beautiful looking panel and a good compromise until micro-LED shows up.

 

[Doug S]

Higher nits equal better highlights for a more impactful HDR experience. Check rtings reviews of OLEDs. They rarely go above 600 nits for full screen brightness.

Yeah I'm skeptical about the desire for a "more impactful HDR experience" beyond where current/recent OLEDs are. If you are watching in room with normal lighting it is difficult to see details on dark scenes with HDR enabled. If you are watching in a darkened room you can see those dark scenes fine, but there's a limit in how bright you want it to be before you almost have to close your dark adjusted eyes due to the brightness.

It is like high dynamic range for sound. Sounds great in theory but in practice you have to either strain to hear quiet dialog or you get your ears blown out by explosions. So you're probably better off compressing that dynamic range to where you can hear the quiet scenes and explosions don't set off your car alarm even if it is a bit less like the cinema experience.

Now if you have actually have a full Dolby 7.1 or better setup that's been tuned for the space what I said above is not a problem, but most people are watching with 2, 3 or at most 5 speakers with the sites chosen by how it fits the room's decor rather than exactly where Dolby's audio room design tool tells you to place them.

 

[adroc_thurston]

Don't know if I'd call it a garbage panel

It's not really usable for anything not 24fps content.

until micro-LED shows up.

That's like 15 years away, optimistically.

 

[varase]

Yeah, the Max kind of needed this CPU boost. Shame they felt the need to bring down the Pro to uplift the Max though (can't really see how the Max still wouldn't have been notable with 12 cores vs 8 cores of a proper Pro).

I'm not really sure they brought down the Pro - we'll have to see benchmarks for that.

At improved M3 levels the 6+6 of the M3 might be faster than the 8+4 configuration with greater efficiency - after all the M3 Max's 12+4 configuration comes just a hair short of the M2 Ultra.

Apple's been making great strides on the e-core's performance and efficiency, and having 6 e-cores might give you better performance and might mean that most of the time you'd be running on nothing but e-cores contributing to longer battery life.

 

[Eug]

I'm not really sure they brought down the Pro - we'll have to see benchmarks for that.

At improved M3 levels the 6+6 of the M3 might be faster than the 8+4 configuration with greater efficiency - after all the Max's 12+4 configuration comes just a hair short of the M2 Ultra.

Apple's been making great strides on the e-core's performance and efficiency, and having 4 e-cores might give you better performance and might mean that most of the time you'd be running on nothing but e-cores contributing to longer battery life.

From the benches Apple was listing the M3 Pro is at least as fast as M2 Pro, but not hugely faster. I think that is fine. In contrast, M3 Max gets a big boost.

Yeah I'm skeptical about the desire for a "more impactful HDR experience" beyond where current/recent OLEDs are. If you are watching in room with normal lighting it is difficult to see details on dark scenes with HDR enabled. If you are watching in a darkened room you can see those dark scenes fine, but there's a limit in how bright you want it to be before you almost have to close your dark adjusted eyes due to the brightness.

It is like high dynamic range for sound. Sounds great in theory but in practice you have to either strain to hear quiet dialog or you get your ears blown out by explosions. So you're probably better off compressing that dynamic range to where you can hear the quiet scenes and explosions don't set off your car alarm even if it is a bit less like the cinema experience.

That's not how it works.

For example, Sony generally masters its movies to 1000 nits. You can have a scene that is 80 nits overall, but which may have an 800 nits highlight representing less than 2% of the screen. Other companies master to 4000 nits.

Take a look at this image for example. It's a night scene with some lights. The scene is quite dark overall and definitely wouldn't blow out your eyes. Yet there are some bright spots in it. Just don't stare unblinking at the bright spots for extended periods and you'll be fine.



What does this mean with an OLED that maxes out around 700 nits? There are a couple of ways to approach this. One is like what Sony did with their OLED TVs. Everything above 700 nits or whatever is just cut-off, so 700 nits and 1000 nits are displayed exactly the same with no detail. What LG did is compressed and mapped it so that 1000 nits would be 700 nits, and 700 nits would be say 575 nits or whatever. This maintains bright contrast detail, but makes everything darker. Sony's solution would be to have solid bright white clouds with no detail. LG's solution would be to have clouds that show the detail but which are less bright.

So, if you're a video editor, ideally you should have a screen that can extend past 1000 nits, and the higher the better, as long as it can go low too with the blacks. The holy grail would be an OLED panel that can go to 0 nit black and exceed 1000 nits bright, with great colour accuracy and no off-axis colour or brightness shift, and without burn-in.

P.S. I have high dynamic range on for my home stereo system, and my ears don't get blown out with properly mastered material. However, I am using Audyssey sound measurements on my receiver to calibrate the sound. This didn't work well when I had a projector because the projector's fan noise would be loud enough to obscure quiet dialogue, but with a fanless OLED TV, this is no longer an issue.

 

[varase]

It's not really usable for anything not 24fps content.

Whatcha do - use your computer in a darkroom?

 

[adroc_thurston]

Whatcha do - use your computer in a darkroom?

Scroll websites and watch 60FPS yt videos where nu-MBP panel turns into gore.

 

[Mopetar]

Unless you're pretentious enough to do it at a coffee shop somewhere, I don't know if you need a MBP for that kind of workload.

 

[varase]

Unless you're pretentious enough to do it at a coffee shop somewhere, I don't know if you need a MBP for that kind of workload.

I see you also left out the at 30,000 feet part.

Lots of people on deadlines who have real lives want to edit on the go while enjoying a latte or flying on a plane.

Being able to work where you want when you want is a big reason that laptops have become the best selling personal computers.