Discussion Apple Silicon SoC thread

[Eug]

M1
5 nm
Unified memory architecture - LP-DDR4
16 billion transistors

8-core CPU

4 high-performance cores
192 KB instruction cache
128 KB data cache
Shared 12 MB L2 cache

4 high-efficiency cores
128 KB instruction cache
64 KB data cache
Shared 4 MB L2 cache
(Apple claims the 4 high-effiency cores alone perform like a dual-core Intel MacBook Air)

8-core iGPU (but there is a 7-core variant, likely with one inactive core)
128 execution units
Up to 24576 concurrent threads
2.6 Teraflops
82 Gigatexels/s
41 gigapixels/s

16-core neural engine
Secure Enclave
USB 4

Products:
$999 ($899 edu) 13" MacBook Air (fanless) - 18 hour video playback battery life
$699 Mac mini (with fan)
$1299 ($1199 edu) 13" MacBook Pro (with fan) - 20 hour video playback battery life

Memory options 8 GB and 16 GB. No 32 GB option (unless you go Intel).

It should be noted that the M1 chip in these three Macs is the same (aside from GPU core number). Basically, Apple is taking the same approach which these chips as they do the iPhones and iPads. Just one SKU (excluding the X variants), which is the same across all iDevices (aside from maybe slight clock speed differences occasionally).

EDIT:



M1 Pro 8-core CPU (6+2), 14-core GPU
M1 Pro 10-core CPU (8+2), 14-core GPU
M1 Pro 10-core CPU (8+2), 16-core GPU
M1 Max 10-core CPU (8+2), 24-core GPU
M1 Max 10-core CPU (8+2), 32-core GPU

M1 Pro and M1 Max discussion here:

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M1 Ultra discussion here:

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M2 discussion here:

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Second Generation 5 nm
Unified memory architecture - LPDDR5, up to 24 GB and 100 GB/s
20 billion transistors

8-core CPU

4 high-performance cores
192 KB instruction cache
128 KB data cache
Shared 16 MB L2 cache

4 high-efficiency cores
128 KB instruction cache
64 KB data cache
Shared 4 MB L2 cache

10-core iGPU (but there is an 8-core variant)
3.6 Teraflops

16-core neural engine
Secure Enclave
USB 4

Hardware acceleration for 8K h.264, h.264, ProRes

M3 Family discussion here:

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M4 Family discussion here:

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[poke01]

Is it true...
Even with the M3PRO, it's surprisingly difficult...

Yep it’s real

https://www.reddit.com/r/macgaming/s/CWlybBwyM3

 

[mvprod123]

View attachment 127293
Base M4 performance in Cyberpunk. No frame gen and RT disabled at 1080p nativ. High textures

I'm curious to wait for the game to be updated to Metal 4 and evaluate the performance. So far, everything is pretty good.

 

[MS_AT]

Does anyone know if we have visual comparisons already between Mac version, Switch2 version and x64 versions?

 

[poke01]

Does anyone know if we have visual comparisons already between Mac version, Switch2 version and x64 versions?

The only reputable source that will do that is probably Notebookcheck that will do Mac and Windows. I doubt they will test M4 models now, maybe when the M5 macbooks release

 

[name99]

Is it true...
Even with the M3PRO, it's surprisingly difficult...

I'm not a gamer but that seems in line with the results I see for PC integrated graphics, which is the comparable tier to M4.
Apparently Intel integrated simply cannot handle, while AMD struggles, at the same sort of performance.

Seems like an interesting question would be how well Apple's upscaling works; if you dropped "real" resolution to something more like 800*600 and used MetalFX to upscale, is the result preferable?

 

[poke01]

Interesting, anyone else notice the same? Going from A17 Pro to A18 Pro?

Or M3 to M4?

More confirmation that N3B was a troubled node

 

[Eug]

View attachment 127336View attachment 127337

Interesting, anyone else notice the same? Going from A17 Pro to A18 Pro?

Or M3 to M4?

More confirmation that N3B was a troubled node

Battery life of iPhone 15 Pro is not the greatest compared to 16 Pro.
(However, the 15 Pro also has a smaller battery.)