Apple has announced new iMac’s, a very fast MacBook Pros and a first of its kind M3 processor that delivers a 30% improvement in processing power.
Also announced were new colours and a ‘Space Black’ colour for their top-end Mac that is seriously a top-end colour that Apple, is hoping will lift demand for their Mac PC’s which have slumped in demand this year by 40%.
The new chip lineup relies on advanced 3-nanometer manufacturing technology, which other PC manufacturers are set to release next year.
Aimed at video producers, medical organisations looking to crunch large amounts of data the entry level model has eight main cores — the processing engines on a chip — in addition to 10 cores for graphics.
The new top M3 processor has been labelled “Scary Fast”.
The M3 family of chips features a next-generation GPU that represents the biggest leap forward in graphics architecture ever for Apple silicon claims Apple.
The new CPU is faster and more efficient, and introduces a new technology called Dynamic Caching, while bringing new rendering features like hardware-accelerated ray tracing and mesh shading to Mac for the first time.
Rendering speeds are now up to 2.5x faster than on the M1 family of chips.1 The CPU performance cores, and efficiency cores are 30 per cent and 50 per cent faster than those in M1, respectively, and the Neural Engine is 60 per cent faster than the Neural Engine in the M1 family of chips.
And a new media engine now includes support for AV1 decode, providing more efficient and high-quality video experiences from streaming services Apple engineers claimed during their morning event in the USA.
“Apple silicon has completely redefined the Mac experience. Every aspect of its architecture is designed for performance and power efficiency,” said Johny Srouji, Apple’s senior vice president of Hardware Technologies.
“With 3-nanometer technology, a next-generation GPU architecture, a higher-performance CPU, faster Neural Engine, and support for even more unified memory, M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max are the most advanced chips ever built for a personal computer.”
All-New GPU Features Dynamic Caching, Mesh Shading, and Hardware-Accelerated Ray Tracing.
But one area that will get a big improvement is battery life in MacBook Pro laptops. The M3 chip uses half the power to perform the same tasks at the same time as the original M1 chip, Apple said.
Apple said the battery life of the 14-inch version of the MacBook Pro will be up to 22 hours if the laptop has the regular M3 chip, and up to 18 hours if it has the faster M3 Pro or M3 Max chips.
Meanwhile, the 16-inch version of the MacBook Pro will have a battery life of up to 22 hours and will only come with the M3 Pro or M3 Max chip.
Only models with the M3 Pro or M3 Max chips will have the Space Black colour option, Apple said.
The iMac, which starts at A$2,199, is only available with the M3 chip. The 14-inch MacBook Pro, however, is available with M3, M3 Pro or M3 Max processors, while the 16-inch has M3 Pro and M3 Max options. The chips, as their names imply, get increasingly more powerful and support greater amounts of memory.
Apple is dropping the 13-inch MacBook Pro, this has been replaced with a 14-inch MacBook Pro with base M3 chip.
The 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pro with M3 Pro or Max processors will be available in Apple’s new ‘Space Black”.
The new iMac is available in seven new colours.
David Richards contributed to this story.
