Apple M3-Macs only at the turn of the year for new MacBooks and iMacs

[13:08 Mon,15.May 2023 by Rudi Schmidts]

After the separation from Intel, Apple is quite efficient with its own Mx chips in Macs - which is also due to the fact that they can always rely on the latest production technologies from the Taiwanese chip seller TSMC.

Currently SOTA (State of the Art) is the so-called 3nm technology, which enables a further shrinking of the chip structures - which in turn allows more functions with the same chip area.

Now there are first concrete rumors about the "addition" of the upcoming M3 chip generation, which are derived from an allegedly spotted Macbook Pro with M3 processor.

The number of GPU cores is supposed to increase from 14 (M1 Pro) to 16 (M2 Pro) and then to 18 (M3 Pro). The CPU cores will probably remain at 6 performance cores, but the efficiency cores will be increased further (from 2 over 4 to now 6).

The maximum possible RAM expansion is supposed to increase from 32 GB to 36 GB, which seems a bit strange compared to the typical powers of two for decades, but is no longer unusual. Maybe Apple just wants to avoid a direct comparison with PC devices in a simple way.

However, the biggest problem is the availability or yield of the TSMC production. According to rumors, the current 3nm process did not start as smoothly as earlier processes, which is why the yield of working chips at the start of production was not as high as hoped.

However, the usually well-informed source at Bloomberg assumes that Apple has already planned for these teething problems and that we can therefore only expect the first M3 devices at the end of 2023/beginning of 2024.

We personally do not see the differences between Apple&s processor generations as relevant as the memory bandwidth or the memory configuration. However, Apple might decide to increase the base memory configuration from 8 GB to 12 or 16 GB in the next generation. The current surcharge for the non-exchangeable (because soldered) main memory is already extremely high with the current Ram prices on the free market.

We think that Apple is aware of this problem and will therefore offer its M3 generation with 12, 24 and 36 GB levels. Because (a bit) more RAM might already be the best upgrade argument to the next generation for some users.

more infos at bei www.tomshardware.com

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