Background information

A closer look at Apple’s M3 chips

2/11/2023

The new Mac chips are graded differently to their predecessors and some cost more. This is likely down to production issues.

At the beginning of the week, Apple launched new Mac chips. The M3 series is striking in several aspects. It’s right at the limit of what is currently technically feasible. This has positive and negative effects – and redefines the meaning of Normal, Pro and Max.

News + Trends
New MacBook Pro, new iMac: Apple unveils devices with M3 chips
by Samuel Buchmann

The most significant innovation of the M3 series is that its chips are the first to have been manufactured using the 3-nanometre process. This means smaller individual transistors, which enables denser chips. However, production is a big challenge. More on that shortly.

Smaller transistors make the cores of M3, M3 Pro and M3 Max faster without requiring more energy. According to Apple, there’s a CPU performance increase of 15 per cent for the performance cores and 30 per cent for the efficiency cores. In addition, Apple has kitted out the graphics processor with some new tricks: dynamic caching, mesh shading and ray tracing.

With dynamic caching, the M3 chips only allocate as much memory to the graphics processor as individual tasks actually need. This is in contrast to the traditional process, where the memory reserved for each task is as much as the most intensive one requires. According to Apple, dynamic caching leads to higher graphics performance in applications that require a lot of VRAM. Mesh shading is important in games and 3D rendering. It calculates polygons radically faster than the old vertex shading, which increases graphics performance. Ray tracing is also particularly relevant to gaming, allowing realistic light and shadow effects.

Apple’s graphic on dynamic caching – the technical details of exactly how it works are unknown.

The number of cores and the size and bandwidth of the unified memory have also changed depending on the chip version. Read on for an overview below, including a comparison to the M2 series.

Issues with 3-nanometre manufacturing

Like most major manufacturers, Apple has its chips manufactured by TSMC. The Taiwanese company has been able to further reduce the size of its transistors over the last few years. Intel – the second next-largest chip manufacturer – has been struggling with this so far.

This is a wafer. Individual chips are cut from here.
Source: TSMC

But not everything is going to plan at TSMC either. M3 chips are based on the first 3-nanometre manufacturing process, called N3B. Apparently, there are efficiency problems when it comes to production: the yield is smaller than expected. This means that many chips have defects, meaning that they either fail or only partially pass quality control.

To ensure that all of these chips aren’t completely lost, chip manufacturers sell so-called binned versions. Where Apple’s concerned, these are chips where most of the cores are completely fine, but a few aren’t. The defective cores are deactivated and Apple sells the chips as cheaper versions. In the M3 series, this means:

M3 with 8 GPU cores instead of 10
M3 Pro with 11 CPU cores instead of 12 and 14 GPU cores instead of 18
M3 Max with 14 CPU cores instead of 16 and 30 GPU cores instead of 40

This increase in production efficiency is nothing new. There were binned chips in the M1 and M2 series. But this year, part of the CPU on the weaker M3 Max will also be deactivated and the bandwidth of the unified memory lowered. The latter also applies to the M3 Pro. Apple has also replaced two performance cores in the middle chip with the less problematic efficiency cores.

The result: high-end chips are becoming more expensive

Apple has reportedly bought up TSMC’s entire N3B production capacity. Nevertheless, the factories are said to be running at their limits. The high-end M3 Max with its full 16 CPU cores and 40 GPU cores is particularly problematic. To counteract this, Apple is increasing the prices of the Max and lowering them on the Pro. This shifts the focus of demand towards the more readily available chips.

The graphic below shows the prices of the M3 series compared to the M2 series. They each apply to the 14-inch MacBook Pro with 1 TB SSD and the basic RAM of the chips. The prices in US dollars are particularly relevant to illustrate Apple’s pricing policy. Exchange rates apply to other currencies. The second and third slides show the prices in Swiss francs and euros.

The price jump from 14 to 16 inches is now 300 dollars in the USA. It was still 200 dollars with the M2 chips. This could also be a measure to balance demand and production, increasing the incentive to buy small laptops, where the Max chip is probably a less popular option. In Switzerland, the surcharge for the larger screen remains almost the same: 230 francs instead of the previous 220. In Germany, it’s 250 euros rather than 230.

What does all this actually mean?

The changes in chip design mean that a rethink is required. M3, M3 Pro and M3 Max are graded differently to their predecessors. Only benchmarks will provide certainty. However, we can speculate based on the specifications:

The M3 is faster than the M2: the number of cores is the same, but they’re faster. This is expected to result in around a 20 per cent increase in performance.
The M3 Pro is barely faster than the M2 Pro: The new chip swaps two performance cores for efficiency cores and has one less GPU core, but the individual cores are faster. As with all M3 chips, the M3 Pro also has new GPU technologies such as dynamic caching. Overall, only slightly better performance is likely. Maybe longer battery life.
The M3 Max is much faster than the M2 Max: Apple has brought out the big guns with its largest chip. The expensive version has four performance cores and two more GPU cores than its predecessor. Combined with the higher performance of the individual cores, there are big leaps forward for both the CPU and GPU. 50 and 20 per cent respectively, according to Apple.

The new chips mean that Apple is diversifying its range. The gap between the M3 at the bottom and the M3 Max at the top is increasing. In the middle, the M3 Pro drops lower, closer to the M3.

Apple’s bento box graphic for the new chips. The number of transistors shows the new gradation.
Source: Apple Keynote screenshot

The M3 series is also a hidden price increase. Typically, new generation devices cost the same as the old ones, but have more performance. This time, the M3 Max is more advanced, but is also more expensive than the M2 Max. The M3 Pro remains about the same price as the M2 Pro, but probably won’t be any faster.

Which chip is right for you?

Does this make the new MacBook Pros a bad update? No. They just divide the target groups more clearly. If you’re considering a purchase and definitely want to order now, I’d rate them as follows:

M3: Enough for anyone who mainly uses Office applications and, with more than 8 GB of RAM, it’s fine for occasional image editing and the like.
M3 Pro: The happy medium between performance, energy efficiency and price. It can handle almost anything and lasts forever. The perfect all-rounder. You should only go a level higher if you use programs like Blender or edit videos with complex effects.
M3 Max: If your workflow benefits from maximum performance reserves or you want to seriously future-proof yourself. Be aware, however, that the battery life is likely to be significantly worse than the M3 Pro. The differences will be greater than with the M2 series, including when it comes to the price.