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Apple M3 Pro Chip Has 25% Less Memory Bandwidth Than M1/M2 Pro

macrumors.com

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Re: Apple M3 Pro Chip Has 25% Less Memory Bandwidth Than M1/M2 Pro

#5

Post by alwillis »

deeth_starr_v wrote: post #3

A sly comment I saw elsewhere was this gives them a nice bump they can use when the M4 is released and they go back to 4x4 Edit: my personal feeling is this is just a cost savings they are doing like they did with the base SSDs

From someone who was briefed by Apple [1], this is Apple segmenting these processors. The M1 Pro and the M2 Pro were closer to their respective Max variants.

With the M3 series, the M3 Pro is more of a mainstream processor vs. being closer to the M3 Max.

[1]: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/upgrade/id918152703?i=...

Re: Apple M3 Pro Chip Has 25% Less Memory Bandwidth Than M1/M2 Pro

#6

Post by alberth »

deeth_starr_v wrote: post #3

A sly comment I saw elsewhere was this gives them a nice bump they can use when the M4 is released and they go back to 4x4 Edit: my personal feeling is this is just a cost savings they are doing like they did with the base SSDs

Probably not because they will compare the M4 to the M2 (because M3 owners are less likely to upgrade).

Re: Apple M3 Pro Chip Has 25% Less Memory Bandwidth Than M1/M2 Pro

#7

Post by alberth »

alwillis wrote: post #5
deeth_starr_v wrote: post #3

A sly comment I saw elsewhere was this gives them a nice bump they can use when the M4 is released and they go back to 4x4 Edit: my personal feeling is this is just a cost savings they are doing like they did with the base SSDs

From someone who was briefed by Apple [1], this is Apple segmenting these processors. The M1 Pro and the M2 Pro were closer to their respective Max variants. With the M3 series, the M3 Pro is more of a mainstream processor vs. being closer to the M3 Max. [1]: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/upgrade/id918152703?i=...

What’s strange about this strategy is it’s less cost effective because Apple is now designing a completely different Pro & Max chiplet, as opposed to just scaling up the base chiplet as done in the M1 & M2.

This is a lot of extra complexity they are inflicting on themselves if accurate.

Re: Apple M3 Pro Chip Has 25% Less Memory Bandwidth Than M1/M2 Pro

#8

Post by chii »

alberth wrote: post #7
alwillis wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From someone who was briefed by Apple [1], this is Apple segmenting these processors. The M1 Pro and the M2 Pro were closer to their respective Max variants. With the M3 series, the M3 Pro is more of a mainstream processor vs. being closer to the M3 Max. [1]: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/upgrade/id918152703?i=...

What’s strange about this strategy is it’s less cost effective because Apple is now designing a completely different Pro & Max chiplet, as opposed to just scaling up the base chiplet as done in the M1 & M2. This is a lot of extra complexity they are inflicting on themselves if accurate.

> extra complexity

if this extra complexity is mitigated by hiring a larger, separate team (rather than strain existing engineers), then they might win overall because of the customer segmentation.

Re: Apple M3 Pro Chip Has 25% Less Memory Bandwidth Than M1/M2 Pro

#9

Post by zamadatix »

fomine3 wrote: post #4

It's not good change for AI workload that requires memory capacity and bandwidth (rather than cache). Generative AI boom (on local machine) was started just about a year ago, so maybe it was too late to take effect for chip design.

If you're serious about doing generative ai locally the Max makes more sense anyways. Significantly higher capacities, more total compute. For typical generative use cases the Pro is still decently faster memory than a traditional system but decently slower memory than a good GPU I.e. not really much different than before.
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