Apple Announces M3 Chips & Next-Gen MacBook Pro
(2023-11-2, Cupertino, CA, Special to the U.S. Times) As part of its “Scary Fast” October event earlier this week, Apple unveiled the next generation of Apple Silicon with the upgraded M3 chip lineup. Alongside a more powerful refresh of their 24-inch iMac computer (which has been utilizing the original M1 chip since 2021, skipping the M2), Apple also showcased its newest iterations of the MacBook Pro, which promises a significant upgrade, especially for intel-based Mac users, alongside a reduced entry price.
The M3 Chip
The M3 chip family, touted by Apple as the first consumer chips built by 3-nanometer process technology, features a next-generation GPU that pushes graphical capabilities with enhancements such as hardware-accelerated raytracing and mesh shading, as well as enhanced CPU performance and efficiency cores that outpace the original M1 chip family by 30% and 50%. Alongside other features, such as an improved neural and media engine, enhancing Apple’s machine learning and media decoding abilities, the M3 chips also utilize a new memory architecture that vastly increases bandwidth and power efficiency, with support for up to 128GB of additional RAM on higher-end machines.
For Mac users seeking further increased performance for graphically demanding tasks and workflows, the M3 Pro and M3 Max chips deliver that higher threshold of hardware, boasting higher-core CPUs and GPUs.
In total, the M3 chips feature:
- Next generation GPU
- Dynamic Caching, hardware-accelerated ray tracing, and mesh shading
- Faster CPU performance and efficiency cores
- 60% faster Neural Engine
- New media engine supports AV1 decoding for video playback
- Unified memory architecture
- Support for up to 128GB of memory
- M3 Pro utilizes an 18-core GPU and 12-core CPU
- M3 Max utilizes a 40-core GPU and 16-core CPU
14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro
Apple also announced its latest lineup of MacBook Pro computers that take advantage of the hardware capabilities offered by the new M3 chips. All models feature an improved Liquid Retina XDR display, 22-hour battery life, and performance that eclipses the most powerful Intel-based Mac computer thanks to the M3 chip.
The M3 MacBook Pro computers now come in an all-new Space Black finish, a premium look that reduces fingerprints and smudging. In addition, its case is made of 100% recycled aluminum and other eco-friendly materials as part of Apple’s ongoing mission to become a carbon-neutral manufacturer by 2030.
The M3 MacBook Pro starts at a reduced $1599 for the 14-inch model, compared to the previous entry price of $1999, and will be available in stores worldwide on November 7th.