Apple M3 Ultra - Monolithic design points to an M3 Extreme with UltraFusion

[12:17 Wed,3.April 2024 by Rudi Schmidts]

At March 2022, Apple used the Mac Studio to show the astonished experts a processor production detail that had never been seen before. By joining two M2 Max dies almost directly together via UltraFusion, a superchip was created that functions as if it were made from a monolithic cast. With this trick, this M2 Ultra practically doubled all the performance values of an M2 Max and represented the top model of all available Macs in the Mac Studio with impressive performance and relatively moderate power consumption.

And it has been able to defend this top position in Apple&s product portfolio to this day, which already seemed somewhat strange when the significantly more expensive Mac Pro was released. This is because this computer was actually expected to double its performance even further - but still "only" appeared with a single M2 Ultra in the maximum configuration.

In the meantime, the next processor generation has already been presented with the M3, M3 Pro and M3 Max, but a top model alá M3 Ultra is still pending. Heise now believes that technical reasons are responsible for this, which also point to an "M3 Extreme".

Current die images of the M3 Max no longer show the "UltraFusion" interconnect on either side. Without this, however, two M3 Max dies cannot be connected to form an Ultra chip. The YouTube channel Max Tech, among others, has now concluded from this that the upcoming M3 Ultra will now also be made from a single die, i.e. monolithically. This could well be possible due to a more up-to-date production process (TSMC node N3E) and with further optimizations.

Only this new M3 Ultra chip could therefore receive an UltraFusion interconnect in order to form a doubled M3 Extreme chip in combination with a second M3 Ultra.

This Extreme variant has also been rumored at

for some time now and could help to differentiate the Mac Pro from the Studio models in the future. In other words: The Extreme variant would be reserved for the Mac Pro and the M3 Ultra would remain the flagship processor in the Mac Studio models.

However, it is not impossible that such a "double M3 Max" will also be found in a Studio model. After all, the Mac Pro series is usually only sold in small numbers due to its generally high price - which is unlikely to justify the development costs for a dedicated processor.

For video and AI applications, such an M3 Extreme would be more than interesting if it could really double the performance data of an M2 Ultra. This could then offer a memory throughput of 1600 GB/s and over 50 FP32 TFlops of computing power.

more infos at bei www.heise.de

deutsche Version dieser Seite: Verdoppelte Leistung durch zwei M3 Ultra Chips per UltraFusion?