Apple M1 8-Core GPU vs Apple M3 Max 30-Core GPU vs Apple M3 Max 40-Core GPU

Apple M1 8-Core GPU

The Apple M1 GPU is an integrated graphics card offering 8 cores (1 deactivated core in the entry MacBook Air) designed by Apple and integrated in the Apple M1 SoC. According to Apple it is faster and more energy efficient as competing products (like the Tiger Lake Xe GPU). The peak performance of the high end variant is 2.6 teraflops and thanks to the unified memory architecture it should have fast access to the RAM.

The Apple M1 is manufactured in the modern 5nm process at TSMC and should offer an excellent energy efficiency. According to internal tools, the M1 GPU uses under load approximately 10 Watt (11.5 Watt package power including the RAM).

Apple M3 Max 30-Core GPU

The Apple M3 Max 30-Core GPU is a self-designed graphics card in the Apple M3 SoC and offers 30 of the 40 cores that are included in the chip. According to Apple, the GPU uses a new architecture and now offers dynamic caching, mesh shading and ray tracing acceleration.

The graphics card can access up to 96 GB LPDDR5-6400 unified memory via a 512 bit memory bus (max 400 GBit/s). Thanks to dynamic caching, the GPU only reserves as much memory as is required.

Since the SoC is manufactured in the current 3nm (probably N3B) at TSMC.

Apple M3 Max 40-Core GPU

The Apple M3 Max 40-Core GPU is a self-designed graphics card in the Apple M3 SoC and according to Apple with forty cores. According to Apple, the GPU uses a new architecture and now offers dynamic caching, mesh shading and ray tracing acceleration.

The GPU can access up to 128 GB LPDDR5-6400 unified memory via a 512 bit memory bus (max 400 GBit/s). Thanks to dynamic caching, the GPU should only reserve as much memory as is required.

Since the SoC is manufactured in the current 3nm (probably N3B) at TSMC. According to powermetrics, the GPU requires up to 60 watts (chip incl. CPU total 78 watts).