I wonder what this means, overall, in terms of performance for the M3 Pro.
Because it's hard to tell from the data we have.
What we know:
- The video says p-cores are 15% faster compared to M2.
- …and the e-cores 30% faster.
- Memory bandwidth is down 25%. (Presumably, this is already factored into the above figures. I'm also presupposing that clock changes, if any, are already factored in.)
- The M3 Pro has 6 p- and 6 e-cores, whereas the M2 Pro had 8/4.
So, it has 25% fewer p-cores, but each of them is 15% faster. And it has 33% more e-cores, and each is 30% faster.
My guess is this is a less than 10% performance improvement for most tasks, but a significant battery life improvement.
This also suggests — and Srouji’s artwork showing the three SoCs seems to confirm — that the M3 Pro, unlike the M1 Pro and M2 Pro, is no longer a chopped version of the Max. The non-suffix SoC was always a separate layout, but now the Pro is also separate from the Max. Interesting.
But overall, it sure reads like: the Pro’s performance barely changes at all; if you want that, you now have to upgrade all the way to the Max. And the Max, conversely, will have worse battery life due to fewer e-cores.