Apple unleashes M3 series of chips at its Scary Fast special event

Apple today unveiled its M3 series of processors during the 'Scary Fast' special event. The trio of cutting-edge 3 nm processors include the M3, M3 Pro and the M3 Max, poised to replace the current M2 line of chips while promising significant improvements to both performance and efficiency. 

The base M3 features an 8-core CPU along with a 10-core GPU, similar to the M2 in regards to core count. The higher-end M3 Pro and the M3 Max feature up to 12 and 16 CPU cores, respectively, along with up to 18 GPU cores on the M3 Pro and 40 GPU cores on the M3 Max. This is the first time that Apple has differentiated its Pro and Max processors in terms of the number of CPU cores, making the Max version of the chip more generous than ever.

According to Apple's claims, the M3 is about 35% faster than the M1 in CPU related tasks and up to 65% faster for GPU related tasks. When comparing to the M2, the gains are more subdued at 20% faster for both CPU and GPU tasks.

The M3 Pro on the other hand, is up to 20% faster than the M1 Pro in CPU tasks, and up to 40% faster for GPU tasks. While the M3 Max is up to a whopping 80% faster than the M1 Max in CPU tasks, and up to 50% faster for GPU tasks. These gains are impressive, but whether Apple's lofty claims are reflected in real-world tests remain to be seen.

The GPU has received a major upgrade, featuring new technologies such as hardware accelerated ray-tracing, a first for the Mac. Additionally, it also features mesh-shading and what Apple refers to as 'Dynamic Caching', where local memory is dynamically allocated by the hardware in real time. This allows only the specific amount of memory needed to be used for each task, leading to significantly better memory utilisation. 

The Neural engine is also faster on the M3 family, with up to 60% faster performance. Moreover, the media hardware engine has also been updated, which now supports AV1 decoding along with hardware acceleration for H.264, HEVC, ProRes and ProRes RAW.

These powerful, brand-new chips can be found in Apple's updated MacBook Pro lineup.

Buy the Apple MacBook Pro 16 with M2 Pro on Amazon.com