Apple hastily buries the M3 chip to turn to the M4 processor. Indeed, the future Mac Studio and Mac Pro will directly embrace the new iteration of SoC.
Against all expectations, the Apple brand seems to have quickly turned the page on the M3 processor range for its Macs. Mark Gurman, renowned journalist from Bloomberg, reports in its latest “Power On” newsletter, that no Mac Studio and Mac Pro are expected before mid-2025. This delay therefore means that Apple will completely skip the M3 processor for these machines as well as for the Mac mini.
Why was Apple in such a hurry to announce the M4 chip, and when can we expect the arrival of Macs equipped with this new processor?
M4 processor: Apple’s true spearhead?
Last week, the Cupertino company lifted the veil around the future iPad Pro (2024). In addition to switching to OLED, it embeds the brand new M4 chip designed by Apple, thus bypassing the M3 chip introduced less than a year ago. If this M4 processor promises to be ever more powerful, in addition to already being ready for artificial intelligence, it may seem surprising to see Apple abandon its previous generation chips so quickly.
Journalist Mark Gurman recently confirmed in his newsletter that the Mac Studio and Mac Pro will not be released until the second half of next year. Consequently, the latter will be directly equipped with the new M4 chip recently introduced by Apple.
Based on second-generation 3-nanometer engraving, the M4 processor has 10 CPU cores, including four performance cores and six high energy efficiency cores. It therefore offers CPU performance up to 50% faster than the M2 chip.
On the GPU side, we also find the presence of 10 cores as well as the inauguration of hardware-accelerated ray tracing on iPad. Its Neural Engine has 16 cores and can perform up to 38 trillion operations per second, 60 times more than Apple’s first Neural Engine. Finally, the M4 can deliver performance four times higher than the M2 while consuming much less energy.
A more efficient chip and (already) much less energy consuming
Based on this premise, we understand a little better why Apple would abandon the M3 Macs to focus on the M4 chip. In addition to delivering better energy efficiency (Apple assures that it consumes half as much energy as the M2 chip), it seems better prepared for future innovations, particularly in terms of artificial intelligence.
From what we know, the company led by Tim Cook plans to release a new iMac, a new Mac mini and new MacBook Pro variants next fall. The MacBook Air M4 (13 and 15 inches) is expected for spring 2025 and the Mac Studio is expected for mid-2025. Finally, the release of the future Mac Pro would be set for the end of next year.
As a reminder, the Californian giant will meet us on June 10, for WWDC24, to discover the brand’s latest technological advances. The Bitten Apple is undoubtedly expected at the turn since it should make numerous announcements there. Yes, Apple should finally offer us a detailed overview of the AI-based features it has designed for the different devices that make up its ecosystem.
Source : BGR
A fan of series, cinema and new technologies, it was my penchant for video games that got the better of me. Getting lost between Libertalia, the seas of Sea of Thieves and Kaer Morhen, such is the life I decided to lead between writing two articles.
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