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:

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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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[smalM]

Ah yes. One display per eye. That's 2 displays.

One panel per eye.
Apple could use a custom display driver which presents both panels as one display to the SoC.

 

[FlameTail]

Apple puts very strong GPUs even in their base M chip. In this benchmark, the Apple M2 is faster than the best Intel/AMD iGPU available (Radeon 780M/Meteor Lake).

Not to mention that the M3 is already out and it's 20% faster than M2. It seems M3 will enjoy a performance advantage over the upcoming Strix Point iGPU (16 CU RDNA3.5).

 

[Glo.]

Not to mention that the M3 is already out and it's 20% faster than M2. It seems M3 will enjoy a performance advantage over the upcoming Strix Point iGPU (16 CU RDNA3.5).

Being devil's advocate and taking a book from Apple fanb... I mean, users, it doesn't matter how fast it is. Its how you use those numbers.

Who cares that M3 iGPU is faster than Strix Point if software that runs on Strix Point is like 1000X the amount of M3 software.

 

[eek2121]

Being devil's advocate and taking a book from Apple fanb... I mean, users, it doesn't matter how fast it is. Its how you use those numbers.

Who cares that M3 iGPU is faster than Strix Point if software that runs on Strix Point is like 1000X the amount of M3 software.

Yeah having a powerful GPU on a Mac means nothing unless you have a productivity workload that supports it. Apple is trying to improve the gaming ecosystem, but they have a long way to go.

They honestly should partner with Valve and the Open source community to get wine working properly on their macOS. They would probably need to open source their x86 emulator for that to happen, and I don’t see that happening.

The GPU on current gen macs is also all over the place from a performance standpoint. Driver likely need improvement. Depending on the workload the GPU runs slower than a 4050 or at speeds approaching a 4080.

I am impressed by what they have been able to do so far, however, and I hope we continue to see more powerful and efficient designs come out of Apple, AMD, and Intel. Someone needs to break NVIDIA’s near monopoly in both gaming and non-gaming workloads.

 

[Glo.]

Yeah having a powerful GPU on a Mac means nothing unless you have a productivity workload that supports it. Apple is trying to improve the gaming ecosystem, but they have a long way to go.

They honestly should partner with Valve and the Open source community to get wine working properly on their macOS. They would probably need to open source their x86 emulator for that to happen, and I don’t see that happening.

The GPU on current gen macs is also all over the place from a performance standpoint. Driver likely need improvement. Depending on the workload the GPU runs slower than a 4050 or at speeds approaching a 4080.

I am impressed by what they have been able to do so far, however, and I hope we continue to see more powerful and efficient designs come out of Apple, AMD, and Intel. Someone needs to break NVIDIA’s near monopoly in both gaming and non-gaming workloads.

Looking at the current relations Apple has with developers - I wouldn't expect miracles.

Apple did a lot to improve things, and later - they squandered their own initiatives.

Lets just say that making business with Apple is... problematic. The Epic lawsuit aftermath only torn apart Apple's reputation, and good will they were showing over past 2 years towards developers.

 

[eek2121]

Looking at the current relations Apple has with developers - I wouldn't expect miracles.

Apple did a lot to improve things, and later - they squandered their own initiatives.

Lets just say that making business with Apple is... problematic. The Epic lawsuit aftermath only torn apart Apple's reputation, and good will they were showing over past 2 years towards developers.

Oh I agree, Apple is incredibly hostile towards developers and other hardware manufacturers.

That is why I don’t invest in writing code for the Mac or iOS devices. The drama I see unfolding regularly as a developer at startups is mind blowing.

They are dumping money into a gaming initiative, however, so I do think things will improve.

The interesting thing to me about the Vision Pro is that it will be the first widely available AR/VR headset that does not focus on gaming at all.

There will be games, but notice how none of Apple’s marketing has been about gaming.

I do plan to eventually get one unless it flops.

 

[Glo.]

They are dumping money into a gaming initiative, however, so I do think things will improve.

The interesting thing to me about the Vision Pro is that it will be the first widely available AR/VR headset that does not focus on gaming at all.

There will be games, but notice how none of Apple’s marketing has been about gaming.

I do plan to eventually get one unless it flops.

I am here to tell you - even if they dump money to incentivise gaming on Mac it will not take off.

"judge them by their actions, not their words".

So Devs look at what Apple does, instead of says, and see that Apple is seeling BS to them.

Who would want to work with company which is forfeiting its own values? Or says one thing, and is doing completely opposite?

 

[eek2121]

I am here to tell you - even if they dump money to incentivise gaming on Mac it will not take off.

"judge them by their actions, not their words".

So Devs look at what Apple does, instead of says, and see that Apple is seeling BS to them.

Who would want to work with company which is forfeiting its own values? Or says one thing, and is doing completely opposite?

Oh I agree. 100%, but can they get a teeny tiny amount of credit for halfheartedly trying? 🤣

There are some big annnouncements coming. UE5 running on Apple silicon is going to help as well. Somewhat.

 

[Glo.]

Oh I agree. 100%, but can they get a teeny tiny amount of credit for halfheartedly trying? 🤣

There are some big annnouncements coming. UE5 running on Apple silicon is going to help as well. Somewhat.

I know, that some big announcements are coming, including from Apple themselves.

Yes, they can get credit, where is due.

 

[Ajay]

Looking at the current relations Apple has with developers - I wouldn't expect miracles.

*some* of their customers. I'm sure even the big $$$$ software developers would like lower commission rates - still, the App store is a pretty good idea to me. I doubt I'd switch to first party purchases as sideloads if apple is forced to do so. If I had a Mac, that'd be a different story.

 

[Glo.]

*some* of their customers. I'm sure even the big $$$$ software developers would like lower commission rates - still, the App store is a pretty good idea to me. I doubt I'd switch to first party purchases as sideloads if apple is forced to do so. If I had a Mac, that'd be a different story.

Its not really about money. Its about values.

Money is in iOS/iPadOS apps. In Mac it isn't because of installed base and volume of Macs sold. You still have control over financial destiny on Mac. And yet - people are not willing to put their apps on Mac platform, as much as they want them on iOS/iPadOS.

 

[Doug S]

I do plan to eventually get one unless it flops.

I admit to being curious about it, but not $3500 curious. If it turns out to be something I will probably treat it like I did iPhone, where I jumped in with the 3gs. The third generation Vision/Vision Pro would presumably have dropped the price a lot due to economies of scale and the use case beyond "curiosity" or wanting to get in on the ground floor as a developer for it will be known.

 

[poke01]

Being devil's advocate and taking a book from Apple fanb... I mean, users, it doesn't matter how fast it is. Its how you use those numbers.

Who cares that M3 iGPU is faster than Strix Point if software that runs on Strix Point is like 1000X the amount of M3 software.

Remember M2/M3 having a great GPU benefits not only Mac but also the iPhone/iPad and Vision Pro. I suspect all that GPU grunt is for Vision Pro that product line needs beefy GPUs. M4 or M5 will likely be in the next Vision Pro and those need even more power as visionOS expands.

 

[poke01]

Oh I agree, Apple is incredibly hostile towards developers and other hardware manufacturers.

That is why I don’t invest in writing code for the Mac or iOS devices. The drama I see unfolding regularly as a developer at startups is mind blowing.

They are dumping money into a gaming initiative, however, so I do think things will improve.

The interesting thing to me about the Vision Pro is that it will be the first widely available AR/VR headset that does not focus on gaming at all.

There will be games, but notice how none of Apple’s marketing has been about gaming.

I do plan to eventually get one unless it flops.

iOS is a big market. iphones overtook samsung for the first time and are leading in China in terms of sales. No matter the stupid rules Apple may apply, the money is there.

That's also why Fortnite is coming back in EU markets with their own store later this year.

 

[ashFTW]

I admit to being curious about it, but not $3500 curious. If it turns out to be something I will probably treat it like I did iPhone, where I jumped in with the 3gs. The third generation Vision/Vision Pro would presumably have dropped the price a lot due to economies of scale and the use case beyond "curiosity" or wanting to get in on the ground floor as a developer for it will be known.

I ordered one with 512GB. It‘s arriving 2/2 but i won’t be able to try it till mid March after I get back home from vacation. I doubt I’ll upgrade it more frequently than every 3-4 years, going by my current pattern with laptop purchases.

 

[Ajay]

Its not really about money. Its about values.

Wait, what? I must be confused. Since when isn't it 99% about money?

 

[Doug S]

Remember M2/M3 having a great GPU benefits not only Mac but also the iPhone/iPad and Vision Pro. I suspect all that GPU grunt is for Vision Pro that product line needs beefy GPUs. M4 or M5 will likely be in the next Vision Pro and those need even more power as visionOS expands.

If Apple's "spatial computing" is to succeed, it won't be via more GPU grunt than this first version of Vision Pro will have. It will be via cheaper components to cut its cost to the $1000 to $1500 range, possibly with the loss of a few features (i.e. a non "Pro" version of Vision) like using cameras and outer LEDs to put your "eyes" on it for others to see to cut costs.

That cost cutting will have to do with not only cutting costs on extraneous stuff like that, but economies of scale on those two high dpi displays. I'd love to see a teardown to see what they estimated to cost, but I'll bet if Apple was banking on selling 5 or 10 million in a future version a few years down the road instead of 500K as is supposedly expected for Vision Pro in 2024 that price goes way down.

One thing I wonder is whether it would be possible for those displays to computationally compensate for optical aberrations - that is, to correct for your eyes so there is no need for lens inserts. That's the one thing I would find annoying, because I generally wear contacts but when I hit my early 50s a few years ago I started to notice difficulty with close vision while wearing contacts. I tend to mostly wear one contact now so I have both distance vision and close vision, but I switch which eye I wear it in to give my eyes a break - and if I'm going to be at home all day sometimes just wear glasses when I need distance vision (basically only for watching TV) I'd have to commit to some sort of contact lens wearing plan if I was going to get a Vision Pro. Sure would be nice if it could manage to compensate for that, and I could have a few profiles for contact in left eye only, contact in right eye only, or no contacts lol

I don't know enough about optics to judge how feasible that is, though I imagine they'd need even higher resolution displays than they have now so maybe they will need more GPU grunt.

 

[FlameTail]

https://x.com/Olrak29_/status/1751049995284058455?s=20

This is why both Intel and AMD should copy Apple’s M naming scheme

With the M3/Pro/Max there is no distinction between the nerfed configs and the full ones 😂

 

[SteinFG]

https://x.com/Olrak29_/status/1751049995284058455?s=20

I personally think it's fine to omit details if one or two cores on a 10-core cpu/gpu have been disabled. You wouldn't notice it without benchmarking or spinning up VMs. For example, amd made 7 different CPUs out of one chip, but all those processors whould have one common name if it was made by apple.

 

[poke01]

but all those processors whould have one common name if it was made by apple.

I think the way Apple does tiers is fine. M3/Pro/Max/Ultra and they do list out the cores separately.


The way AMD/Intel market their laptop SoCs is really confusing for non-techies. Especially Intel.

 

[FlameTail]

I think the way Apple does tiers is fine. M3/Pro/Max/Ultra and they do list out the cores separately.


The way AMD/Intel market their laptop SoCs is really confusing for non-techies.

You should see the latest comments on Qualcomm thread

Especially Intel.

Eh. Looks at Ryzen 7520u

 

[Mopetar]

I am here to tell you - even if they dump money to incentivise gaming on Mac it will not take off.

"judge them by their actions, not their words".

So Devs look at what Apple does, instead of says, and see that Apple is seeling BS to them.

Perhaps on iOS, but if you want to sell your game for Mac you can just use Steam. Of course you're just paying Valve instead of Apple.

The Mac is a completely different beast. Most developers have stayed away because the install base was low and historically the GPUs in Macs were midrange at best, and that was for the people who had a Mac that cost as much as a top end gaming rig.

Now the biggest hurdle is having to port the game to run on Mac hardware because they came up with their own graphics API instead of supporting Vulkan. For some games it's probably worth the trouble, particularly if they're built on an engine that makes it easy for the developers. Others might do it just because they can justify the cost with added sales.

I've had no trouble running a lot of newer games on my M1 MBP. Both Warhammer: Total War III and BG3 have ports, and that's a majority of what I've been playing recently. I can even run stuff like Morrowind because the OpenMW project has a Mac port of the engine.

Now that Apple is giving their users better hardware, they might play more games on it. The drivers will likely mature over time as well. I suspect that game availability will continue to grow as well.

 

[Glo.]

Apple burning bridges with the developers Vision Pro really needs

Apple’s “malicious compliance” with Europe’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) is burning bridges with the very people the company needs to...

9to5mac.com

This is what I meant what is happening with devs. And its not only limited to Vision Pro.

Apple alienated the people who are making Apple platforms viable.

 

[FlameTail]

I've had no trouble running a lot of newer games on my M1 MBP. Both Warhammer: Total War III and BG3 have ports, and that's a majority of what I've been playing recently. I can even run stuff like Morrowind because the OpenMW project has a Mac port of the engine.

Interesting. How is the battery life when gaming?

 

[Nothingness]

I've had no trouble running a lot of newer games on my M1 MBP. Both Warhammer: Total War III and BG3 have ports, and that's a majority of what I've been playing recently. I can even run stuff like Morrowind because the OpenMW project has a Mac port of the engine.

What MBP model do you have? I mean how many CPU and GPU cores?