On May 7, 2024, Pacific time, Apple officially announced the latest generation of M-series processors, the M4, and announced that it will be loaded into the new generation of iPad Pro.
It's worth noting that this is about six months after Apple released its first MacBook Pro with M3, and only about two months after the MacBook Air with M3 hit the shelves.
(Source: Apple's official website)
According to reports, as a system-on-chip, M4 has a number of 28 billion transistors and is made by TSMC's second-generation 3nm process[1].
In terms of CPU, the chip has 10 cores, four for single-threaded performance and responsiveness, and six for multi-threaded performance and energy efficiency.
The new kernels have updated branch prediction capabilities that allow the former core to use a higher bandwidth decoding and execution engine, and the latter to use a deeper execution engine. Also, both cores come with a new version of the machine learning accelerator.
In response, Apple claims that the M4 has up to 1.5 times faster CPU performance than the M2 chip.
In terms of GPUs, the chip has a new 10-core GPU that dynamically allocates local memory in the hardware in real-time thanks to Apple's dynamic caching feature, which greatly improves the performance of professional and gaming applications.
In addition, based on "hardware-accelerated ray tracing technology and mesh shading capabilities", the GPU also has super rendering capabilities.
Specifically, the former can drive game graphics and various graphics applications to produce more realistic shadows and reflections, while the latter improves geometry processing and efficiency, enabling more complex visual scenes.
It is understood that it is because of these technical updates on the CPU and GPU that the M4 can have excellent performance per watt. Not only does it deliver the same performance as M2 at half the power, but at a quarter the power it consumes, it gives iPad Pro the same performance as the PC chips that have recently been found in thin and light laptops.
Like many other products in the tech space today, Apple is taking the implementation of AI technology in M4 very seriously. Based on this, the chip integrates a new neural engine dedicated to accelerating AI-related workloads.
According to reports, the neural engine has 38 TOPS (Tera Operations Per Second, trillion operations per second) computing power, which is 60 times faster than the first neural engine launched by the A11 Bionic (a chip independently developed by Apple in 2017).
In fact, this computing power is far ahead of Intel's Meteor Lake architecture processors. However, there is still some room for upside in terms of computing power if compared to the 45 trillion operations per second promised by Qualcomm in the Snapdragon X Elite and Plus series products.
However, since the M3's neural engine only has the capacity of 18 trillion operations per second, it also means that Apple has made significant strides in hardware.
The combination of the M4's GPU, Neural Engine, new machine learning accelerators, unified memory, and other hardware has driven the chip to achieve excellent performance on AI.
In addition, the chip is equipped with the latest media engine, which not only supports the most popular video codecs on the market (such as H.264, HEVC, and ProRes), but also brings the hardware acceleration of AV1 to the iPad, providing users with a more efficient and smooth streaming experience.
As mentioned at the beginning, the M4 has got an app on the new iPad Pro.
In response, Johny Srouji, the company's senior vice president of hardware technology, said in a press release published on Apple's official website: "The new iPad Pro with M4 is a great example of how breakthrough products can be achieved by building best-in-class custom chips. ”
In other words, the M4's ultra-high performance and premium graphics engine allow the new iPad Pro to have an ultra-thin and light design with an advanced Ultra Retina XDR display.
The latter covers a variety of display advantages such as high precision, high color accuracy, and high brightness uniformity, and is likely to reach the "ceiling" level of tablet display today and for some time to come.
(Source: Apple's official website)
At the same time, the improvements to the CPU, GPU, Neural Engine, and more mentioned above will also help users play with AI-related applications on the iPad Pro.
For example, users can separate subjects and backgrounds from 4K videos in Final Cut Pro, a professional video editing software, with a single click. iPad Pro can also automatically create a score in real time in StaffPad, a notation software, after recognizing the sound of playing the piano.
In addition, iPad Pro is efficient for a wide range of inference workloads while minimizing memory and responsiveness to applications, as well as the impact on battery life.
It's worth mentioning that the M4's energy-saving performance meets Apple's high standards for energy efficiency, in addition to providing an all-day battery life for the iPad Pro.
In fact, compared to the iteration time of previous generations of M-series processors, the launch of the M4 is undoubtedly rapid.
However, due to the limited technical details, it is difficult to understand the reasons behind this rapid iteration. Only further testing of the hardware will determine the specific differences between the M3 and M4 chips.
Resources:
1.https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2024/05/apple-introduces-m4-chip/
https://arstechnica.com/apple/2024/05/apple-announces-m4-with-more-cpu-cores-and-ai-focus-just-months-after-m3/
https://www.theverge.com/2024/5/7/24148451/apple-m4-chip-ai-ipad-macbook
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/technology/tech-news/apple-launches-new-m4-chip-all-the-details/articleshow/109925792.cms
https://www.techpowerup.com/322195/apple-introduces-the-m4-chip
https://www.tomsguide.com/tablets/ipads/apple-unveils-m4-chip-for-ipad-pro-heres-what-it-can-do
Operation/Typesetting: He Chenlong