The world's first 3nm computer chip is here!
Xinxi reported on October 31 that at 8 o'clock this morning, Apple held a special event with the theme of "Scary Fast" online, and launched a personal computer chip using 3nm advanced process technology for the first time - M3, M3 Pro, M3 Max.
The video for this special event was shot on an iPhone and edited on a Mac. In just half an hour of release, Apple intensively released the performance improvement information of three 3nm chips.
Since June 2020, Apple has boldly abandoned Intel's x86 processors, and its Mac computer product line has fully shifted to Apple's self-developed chips based on Arm architecture. This is also the first process node upgrade since Apple Computer launched its self-developed chips.
The first two generations of M1 and M2 series chips both used 5nm process technology, and the release of M3 series chips marks the official entry of Apple's Mac computers into the 3nm era.
3nm uses advanced EUV (extreme ultraviolet lithography) technology to create extremely small transistors, which can hold two million transistors in the cross-section of a single hair. Apple uses these transistors to optimize every component of the new chip.
It can be seen that Apple has accelerated the launch of a new generation of chips. The interval between the release of the M2 and M1 chips is 19 months, while the interval between the release of the M3 and M2 chips is shortened to about 16 months. This is also the first time that the standard version has been launched at the same time as the Pro and Max versions of the chip.
▲Apple M1~M3 series chip configuration comparison. The M3 Ultra with * is rumored information, and the real data is subject to Apple's subsequent official releases. (Core East and West Mapping)
1. Comparison of the core configuration of the three M3 chips, the highest number of transistors is 92 billion
The core configuration of the three new M3 series chips is as follows:
1) M3: 25 billion transistors, 8-core CPU, 10-core GPU. The CPU speed is up to 35% faster than M1 and 20% faster than M2. GPUs are up to 65% faster than M1 and 20% faster than M2. It will be installed in the new 14-inch MacBook Pro.
2) M3 Pro: 37 billion transistors, 12-core CPU, 18-core GPU. CPU speed is up to 20% faster than M1 Pro; GPU speeds are up to 40% faster than M1 Pro and 10% faster than M2 Pro. It will be available in the 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro.
2) M3 Max: 92 billion transistors, 16-core CPU, 40-core GPU. CPU speed is up to 80% faster than M1 Max and 50% faster than M2 Max. GPU speeds are up to 50% faster than M1 Max and 20% faster than M2 Max. Up to 128GB of unified memory can handle Transformer models with billions of parameters. It will be available in the 16-inch MacBook Pro.
Second, GPU performance has soared, and hardware-accelerated ray tracing has been introduced for the first time
The M3 series of GPUs is particularly impressive, with a next-generation GPU architecture and the first dynamic caching function.
In the traditional GPU architecture, the software decides how much local GPU memory to reserve according to the next task at compile time, and the result is that the same amount of memory is reserved for all tasks according to the single task with the highest demand, which will cause insufficient GPU utilization.
In Apple's new generation of GPUs, local memory can be dynamically allocated in the hardware in real time, so each task only takes up the amount of memory it actually needs, which greatly improves the average utilization of the GPU and significantly improves the performance of heavy professional apps and games.
Network shading improves the functionality and efficiency of geometry processing, allowing for more visually complex scenes. For the first time, the new GPU architecture also brings hardware-accelerated ray tracing to the Mac, rendering more realistic lighting and shadows for games, allowing professional 3D rendering software to produce better ray tracing effects faster than ever.
The combination of hardware-accelerated ray tracing and the new GPU architecture enables professional apps to render up to 2.5 times faster than M1 series chips and 1.8 times faster than M2 series chips.
3. The power consumption is much lower than that of a 12-core PC laptop, and the number of AI operations per second exceeds 18 trillion
The CPUs of the M3 series are mainly optimized through optimizations such as improved branch prediction in Performance Cores, wider decoding and execution engines, and deeper execution engines in Energy Efficiency Cores. Its performance cores are up to 30% faster than the M1 series, 15% faster than the M2 series, and up to 50% faster than the M1 series and 30% faster than the M2 series for many common tasks.
In terms of energy efficiency, the M3 CPU can achieve the same multi-threaded CPU performance as the M1 with only 1/2 of the power consumption. The GPU also consumes almost half the power while delivering the same performance as the M1. Compared with the latest 12-core PC laptop chips, it only consumes 1/4 of the power when providing the same CPU performance; When compared to GPUs, the M3 consumes only 1/5 of the power consumption of a 12-core PC laptop to achieve the same performance.
The enhanced 16-core Neural Engine is also faster and more efficient, with more than 18 trillion operations per second, 60% faster than the M1 series and 15% faster than the M2 series. The faster the AI computation, the more it helps to keep the data on the device side to protect privacy.
The M3 series also features an advanced media processing engine that hardware accelerates popular video codecs and now supports AV1 for greater energy efficiency when playing streaming video.
Fourth, it is 11 times faster than Intel models, and the speed of running Photoshop has increased greatly
The new MacBook Pro with M3 series chips delivers up to 22 hours of video playback and up to 15 hours of wireless browsing. It is up to 11 times faster than the fastest Intel chip, the MacBook Pro.
Thanks to its energy efficiency, users can handle most types of work without hearing the fan running, and the battery life can be extended by up to 11 hours.
The 14-inch MacBook Pro with the M3 chip delivers up to 60 percent faster image filters and effects performance than the 13-inch M1 model and 40 percent faster than the 13-inch M2 model. Tasks such as creating detailed 3D models with SketchUp and unfolding large-scale medical images on XDR screens with SurgicalAR to view and interact with detailed details are all faster.
Apple has also launched the 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros with the M3 Pro chip. The 16-inch MacBook Pro is up to 40 percent faster than the 16-inch M1 Pro and 20 percent faster than the 16-inch M2 Pro, so it's faster and smoother to stitch and edit huge panoramic photos in Photoshop, process large and complex data models in MATLAB, and compile and test millions of lines of code in Xcode.
There is also the MacBook Pro with M3 Max, which is suitable for performance-hungry AI developers, 3D artists, and video editors, and delivers up to 2.5 times the scene rendering performance of the 16-inch M1 Max model and twice the performance of the 16-inch M2 Max model in Cinema 4D.
The M3 Max model supports up to 128GB of unified memory. Apple's first model to have such a high capacity of memory was the Mac Studio with the M1 Ultra chip, and now, 18 months later, the MacBook Pro is also ushering in this memory configuration.
The larger, unified memory allows creators to easily work on multiple large, complex projects involving a wide range of professional apps and plug-ins, such as instantly retrieving an entire orchestral music library from memory.
The M3 Pro model can be connected to 2 external high-resolution monitors, and the M3 Max model can be connected to 4 external high-resolution displays. Both models also add a new space black colorway.
The 24-inch iMac has also ushered in the first upgrade, equipped with the M3 chip, which is up to twice the speed of the M1 chip version of the iMac, 2.5 times that of the 27-inch iMac Intel mainstream model, and 4 times that of the 21.5-inch iMac Intel high-spec model.
iPhone, iMac and other Apple devices can be tightly integrated, such as sending messages and receiving calls with your iMac, and files scanned with your iPhone can be immediately viewed on your iMac.
The starting price of the new 14-inch MacBook Pro equipped with the M3 series is 12,999 yuan, and the starting price of the 16-inch model is 19,999 yuan. The new iMac equipped with M3 starts at 10,999 yuan. The new products will be available to order at 9 a.m. on Nov. 1 and will be available on Nov. 7.
Conclusion: Apple brings the Arm architecture to stimulate innovation in the computer chip track
Apple's success in switching to self-developed computer chips since 2020 has proved the value of the Arm architecture in the computer market, and has also stimulated competition and innovation in the PC chip track.
Qualcomm is also actively developing Arm-based computer chips that adapt to the Windows operating system, and provide computing power to run tens of billions of parameter models locally. According to foreign media reports, Nvidia plans to enter the personal computer chip market as early as 2025.