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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[poke01]

packaging

 

[mvprod123]

https://browser.geekbench.com/v6/compute/2893034 OpenCL

it's around a 20% increase over M3. Not bad.

 

[Eug]

View attachment 108803
packaging

M3 14" MacBook Pro - 2 x Thunderbolt 3 / USB 4 ports
M4 14" MacBook Pro - 3 x Thunderbolt 4 / USB 4 ports

 

[poke01]

M3 14" MacBook Pro - 2 x Thunderbolt 3 / USB 4 ports
M4 14" MacBook Pro - 3 x Thunderbolt 4 / USB 4 ports

it basically confirms 2 external monitor support. Cause you need to support 2 monitors to get that that TB4 spec

 

[mvprod123]

it basically confirms 2 external monitor support. Cause you need to support 2 monitors to get that that TB4 spec

I wonder if Apple will go further and introduce TB5 in the M4 Max?

 

[Doug S]

This is a myth. Every market is "shrinking". People don't upgrade desktops as frequently. IMO, the M4 Max wouldn't make a good desktop chip. The RAM is soldered, the GPU non-upgradeable, I/O not much for a premium desktop and hobbled PCIe connectivity. It's a laptop SoC down to its bones.

Apple knows what a desktop is they used to make em. 2019 Mac Pro with upgradeable CPU, SSD, RAM, GPU and the 2008-2020 iMac/iMac Pro with upgradeable CPU, SSD, RAM and external GPU support for some models. The current Mac Pro and Mac Studios are only desktops because they are not battery powered and headless.

Well, Apple controls the GPU drivers. AMD did provide drivers in the Intel era. But Apple is hyper focused on Metal and its own GPUs.

That's got nothing to do with ARM. The claim YOU made was "why are we talking about ARM, its for laptops".

There's nothing stopping Apple from making a Mac Pro that removes the soldered on memory and uses LPCAMM instead - and I think there's a non zero chance they will do this with LPDDR6, at least on some models. Or a Mac Pro that has DIMM slots in addition to the soldered on memory (if they added DDR5 controllers to the Max die) other than the fact they don't want to. That's a business decision, not due to anything inherent in the ARM architecture that makes it unsuitable for desktops as you seem to be implying.

 

[mikegg]

it basically confirms 2 external monitor support. Cause you need to support 2 monitors to get that that TB4 spec

https://twitter.com/x/status/1804270885651779702

Still only 1 Display controller.