Apple Announces The M3 / M3 Pro / M3 Max

Apple tonight announced the M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max as what they are promoting as the "most advanced chips" for a personal computer and leverage the TSMC 3nm process.

Over the still-fresh Apple M2, the M3 rolls out a next-generation GPU architecture, a faster CPU, improved Neural Engine, and support for greater unified memory.

Apple describes the next-gen GPU architecture of the M3 as having "the biggest leap forward in graphics architecture ever for Apple silicon."

Meanwhile the CPU performance cores are said to be 30% faster than in the M1 (yes, the M1 for reference, not the M2) while the efficiency cores are said to be 50% faster (again against the the M1 as a baseline). The new media engine with the Apple M3 also adds AV1 video decode support.

Apple promotes the M3 in tonight's press release as:

"The next-generation CPU in M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max features architectural improvements to the performance and efficiency cores. The performance cores are up to 30 percent faster than those in the M1 family, so tasks like compiling and testing millions of lines of code in Xcode are even faster, and musicians can use hundreds of audio tracks, plug-ins, and virtual instruments in Logic Pro. The efficiency cores are up to 50 percent faster than the efficiency cores in M1, so everyday tasks are faster than ever, while allowing the system to maximize battery life. Together, these cores create a CPU that delivers the same multithreaded performance as M1 using as little as half the power, and up to 35 percent more performance at peak power."

The unified memory architecture of the Apple M3 allows up to 128GB of memory. The M3 features 8 CPUs and a 10 core GPU, the M3 Pro has 12 core CPU and 18 core GPU, and the M3 Max has a 16 core CPU and up to 40 core GPU.

The Apple M3 series will initially be found in new MacBook Pro and iMac systems.

Of course, for most Phoronix readers you are interested in making use of Apple Silicon on Linux... For which the Asahi Linux project continues striving in that effort to provide support for Apple Silcion platforms. Asahi Linux as a distribution continues working out well on Apple M1 and M2 hardware while now M3 will be their next major quest. In terms of upstream Linux support for Apple Silicon though there still is a lot particularly around the M2 still to be upstreamed. So with Apple M3, it will still likely be some ways out before finding nice upstream support for the newest Apple hardware on Linux -- especially with the next-gen Apple graphics architecture where for Apple M1/M2 the OpenGL and (much earlier in its state) Vulkan support for Mesa code. So frankly those buying a laptop for Linux use in the near-term will still be better off with an Intel or AMD based solution. In any event it will be interesting to see how the Apple M3 enablement under Linux proceeds and you will be able to find out news on its progress via Phoronix.