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Apple unveils M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max

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Re: Apple unveils M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max

#941

Post by Twisell »

daft_pink wrote: post #882
mdavidn wrote: post #862

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Plus they are nerfing the desktops by only offering the all-in-ones with m2 I'm confused by this statement. The iMacs leapfrogged M2. The new models shipping next month will have regular M3 chips, replacing M1 models.

sorry, it's a typo and it won't let me edit it now. I meant that they only desktop they upgrade to m3 is the iMac and all the other desktops are thousands of dollars with the old processor... so like Mac Studio for $2,000 that I need to buy to power all my monitors now is using an old outdated processor.

You either have a very specific workload that justify replacing $2000+ devices each year with zero waiting margin...

...or you are vastly exaggerating by stating that a 8 month old device is an old outdated processor and that you can't wait 4 more months for the update.

Re: Apple unveils M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max

#942

Post by hajile »

mdasen wrote: post #210

An interesting thing about the M2 Pro and M3 Pro is that they shifted away from being mostly performance cores. The M1 Pro was either 6+2 P+E or 8+2 P+E. The M2 Pro was either 6+4 or 8+4. The new M3 Pro is either 5+6 or 6+6. Apple has been shifting away from performance cores with each generation. M1 Pro: 75-80% P-cores; M2 Pro: 60-67% P-cores; M3 Pro: 45-50% P-cores. This shows up when you look at Geekbench results.…

It seems like Apple is learning from Intel here.

Apple made their E-cores a lot faster the past couple generations. Despite being a tiny fraction of the size, they get nearly 50% of the performance (yay diminishing returns) while using around 10x less power.

If your task only scales to 1-4 cores, you need those cores to be fast, but generally speaking, if you can scale more than that, you can probably scale to a LOT of cores. From this perspective, 6-8 cores allow a couple of those lightly-threaded applications at the same time which is usually all the more you'll be running.

After that, putting 4-6 E-cores+cache in the space of just one P-core+cache means you're still using half the power, but getting a lot more performance in those very scalable applications.

AMD is headed this same direction with Zen 4c and 5c chiplets where you'll have one performance chiplet and multiple efficiency chiplets.

The area and power wins are just too big to ignore.

Re: Apple unveils M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max

#943

Post by lynguist »

bredren wrote: post #519
geerlingguy wrote: post #475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They also used to feel a lot thinner, with the taper at the front edge. I don't like my M2 MacBook Air nearly as much as the M1, in terms of the physical feel and dimensions.

I had four or five gens of MBA over the years and generally agree. The new form factor is just not the same. It is much more like a how I'd envision design on some modern "Macbook" proper. But the Air brand has been so successful, I think they just called it that knowing it would help move units. That said, I use MBA M2 for my main machine and its so powerful and has such a fantastic battery life it is still the best…

I use an MBA M2 15in 24GB as my main and I agree.

I really enjoy the wedge shape of the original MBA that was maintained until the 2020 MBA M1, they feel better to my wrists than the 13 in MBA M2.

The 15in MBA M2 however feels to me like a 2012 15in MBP (I had one of those as well). Except for the relative lack of ports which didn’t bother me too much so far.

Re: Apple unveils M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max

#944

Post by acdha »

camillomiller wrote: post #940
osigurdson wrote: post #939

I have a ~7 year old 27" iMac. It wasn't that expensive at the time and the screen is still way better than a lot of what is on the market today. Now, it is only available in a 24" version. Is time moving backward?

Have you seen in person the new iMac? The performance leap from that is insane. The 4,5K retina screen also fits as much even if not more than your 27-inch

No, a 4.5K display doesn’t fit more than the 5K display on the 27” iMac. The performance boost is nice but the display is still better.

It looks like the market shifts mean they’re assuming people who want bigger displays will buy a separate 5-8K display and connect it to a Mac Mini, which is probably correct. That used to cost more when the third-party market was so limited but that’s improved considerably.

Re: Apple unveils M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max

#945

Post by deagle50 »

Maximizing margins for the M3 Pro which makes up a large majority of MBP sales. The transistor count reduction adds up over thousands of 3nm wafers. They are probably getting twice as many M3 Pro chips per wafer over M2 Pro. Nudging power users to the M3 Max doesn't hurt either.

Personally, I don't mind trading 2 P-cores for 2 E-cores but the memory nerf annoys me, and I suspect the cache has been nerfed as well.

Re: Apple unveils M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max

#946

Post by brandall10 »

deagle50 wrote: post #945

Maximizing margins for the M3 Pro which makes up a large majority of MBP sales. The transistor count reduction adds up over thousands of 3nm wafers. They are probably getting twice as many M3 Pro chips per wafer over M2 Pro. Nudging power users to the M3 Max doesn't hurt either. Personally, I don't mind trading 2 P-cores for 2 E-cores but the memory nerf annoys me, and I suspect the cache has been nerfed as well.

I mind it to the point where I cancelled my order (upgrading from an M1 Pro). I'd do the mid-range Max but I imagine the battery life would suffer too much on the 14".

It's been pointed that that marketing for the M3 Pro is the same as it was for the M2 Pro earlier this year - up to 20% faster compute than the M1 Pro. As is the wireless web battery life.

Sure this will be variable based on the workload, but on average, this is a barely there upgrade.

The M4 will likely flip things back due to the yield issue, and there I suspect we'll see compute will improve by 40%+. I also suspect we'll see that upgrade sooner than later (next summer?) as Apple likely wants to get off these chips ASAP.

Re: Apple unveils M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max

#947

Post by neolefty »

happymellon wrote: post #545
mastercheif wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just like the low-spec M3 14" has one fewer Thunderbolt port, it also doesn't officially support Thunderbolt 4 (like M1/M2 before it) I believe this is due to the TB4 spec requiring support for two external displays on a single port. The base spec M series SoCs only support one external display. I’d expect the ports to work identically to a TB4 port in all other aspects.

Is this a change to the spec, or did they skirt around that previously, because I didn't think they supported more than one screen per port on the M1/2?

I'm running an M1 Max with two Thunderbolt docks, and each drives 2 4k displays, runs great, although it's kinda overkill. But it does require the docks; you can't connect directly.

Re: Apple unveils M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max

#948

Post by neolefty »

lynguist wrote: post #928
daft_pink wrote: post #305

I feel very disappointed that the laptops lack decent i/o. They spend all this time talking about how advanced the GPU is, but it's a $1,600 laptop that can only power one external display or a 2,000 laptop that can only power two displays? Plus they are nerfing the desktops by only offering the all-in-ones with m2, so you can walk into a store and want to buy any other desktop now you are paying a huge premium for o…

The single external display driver can drive more than one display at resolutions at 4k or lower. You can daisychain two 4k monitors on a Mac that has only one external display driver when you use the Displaylink adapter (it’s a driver). It somehow internally reuses the same display output for both displays. The USB-C can power one 6k or 2 4k monitors. The HDMI port on M2 Pro and newer can power one 8k.

Thunderbolt docks too — with a single cable they can drive two 4k displays plus provide power to the laptop.

Re: Apple unveils M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max

#949

Post by solardev »

huytersd wrote: post #495
internet2000 wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine the amount of people upgrading from an M2 Mac will be close to 0, while there's a lot of Intel stragglers out there.

I’m an Intel strangler because it’s the only way I can have Mac and Windows on the same machine. Am I the only person that really needs this? Parallels has trash performance.

I miss Boot Camp too. (Only really used it for gaming). But the M2 is so nice that I jumped ship despite knowing I'd no longer have Windows.

For the rare times I need it, I sometimes use a cloud VM (like Shadow.tech if you need a good GPU, otherwise any Windows VM I guess).

Also, for any GPU-intensive apps (not sure if CNC counts), it might be worth giving Game Porting Toolkit (the other GPT) and Whisky (a GUI on top of that) a shot? Might run better than Parallels.

Re: Apple unveils M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max

#950

Post by solardev »

jwr wrote: post #656
huytersd wrote: post #495

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m an Intel strangler because it’s the only way I can have Mac and Windows on the same machine. Am I the only person that really needs this? Parallels has trash performance.

I bought a cheap Windows crapbook just to run the two Windows-only apps that I need (terrible apps for alarm systems and photovoltaic inverters). Apple Silicon laptops are so much better than Intel-based machines, there is really no comparison.

There are PV inverters with Windows desktop apps instead of a mobile or web app? Can I ask which one?

(Just curious; I worked in the industry on the web app side)

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