Apple continues to challenge Intel this fall with a third generation of its internally designed processors. Called M3, M3 Pro and M3 Max, the new chips can be found today under the hood of new MacBook Pro laptops – and behind the screen of a new iMac -, significantly more muscular than their predecessors.
The M3 processors are the third batch in three years in a family of chips called Apple Silicon. It started with the M1 processor, launched in November 2020. Apple Silicon is a system on a chip (system on a chip) which includes in particular the central processor and the video processor, which are found in one form or another on board all Apple products.
Make way for the iMac M3
Important detail: Apple Silicon processors are based on an ARM architecture, which is different from that of PCs with Intel processors (called x86). Given the average life cycle of five to eight years of Apple’s personal computers, the four new devices released this fall should replace a good number of Intel-based Macs, the latest model of which, an iMac, has been sold in June.
Unsurprisingly, the iMac is being updated this fall with an M3 processor. This all-in-one computer is the best-selling in its category. It retains the ultra-slim dimensions and choice of seven case colors of its M1 processor predecessor. However, it is approximately twice as fast. Above all, Apple points out, it is 2.5 times more efficient than a 27-inch screen iMac with an Intel processor, and up to four times more powerful than a 21-inch iMac with an Intel processor.
Household in the Apple catalog
The launch of three new MacBook Pros allows Apple to clean up its catalog a little. The entry-level model takes the form of a MacBook Pro M3 with 8 GB of RAM and 512 GB of internal storage, equipped with a 14-inch diagonal screen. It costs $2,099, which is $500 less than the 14-inch MacBook Pro with M2 Pro chip, launched last year.
The 13-inch MacBook Pro is disappearing. Apple hopes to redirect consumers who don’t need cutting-edge performance to its more affordable MacBook Air.
A 14-inch MacBook Pro with M3 Pro processor is also on the program. The other option is a 16-inch MacBook Pro, which can be powered by an M3 Pro or M3 Max processor, the latter variant being the most powerful of the lot. In all three cases, Apple promises 22 hours of battery life at full power, and a performance that can be up to 11 times better than that of a MacBook Pro with a comparable Intel chip.
Performance gain
Compared to the M2 chips, launched last year, the M3 chips offer a remarkable performance gain. The two main reasons given are the reduced size of the new circuits, which goes from 5 to 3 nanometers, and optimized use of the cache memory of the graphics processors, which ensures a power gain ranging from 25% to 50% at consumption of equal energy.
These improvements allow Apple to introduce hardware processes dedicated to light processing that were previously absent from its Macs, such as ray tracing (raytracing) and mesh shading (mesh shading). The latter returns to the graphics processors a greater part of the visual work normally carried out by the central processor, such as the real-time generation of reflections or shading on 3D objects presented on the screen.
This translates in particular to better rendering of 3D virtual environments, such as those found in high-level video games.
This market from which Macs have historically been virtually absent is definitely the new frontier that Apple hopes to cross with its M3 processors. A challenge, given that the IT market is currently slowed down by inflation and a certain loss of steam among consumers.