Apple Testing Four New M4 Macs Ahead of Fall Launch

[sublunar]

I think the 1TB and 2TB M4 iPad Pro's have a 10 core CPU.

All in all, the M4 no matter what spec you get it in will be a monster. It's already vastly overpowered on the iPad. The M4 is a true turning point and I really wish I had it in my 15" MBA even though the M2 is nice.

The M4 is a game changer.

I was only referring to the lower spec iPad Pro SKUs which would have the binned CPUs, the upper SKUs are of interest as they also have 16Gb RAM but currently Macs don't need you to have 'full fat' CPUs to get 16Gb RAM.

If you could get a binned M4 with 16Gb RAM in a Mac mini that would be a fine budget choice. Obviously, this CPU could go into an iMac instead as a 'binned' choice to keep entry prices for that down.

 

[DaveEcc]

...Across each generation, single core speeds are nearly identical.

Each generation of M chips has increased CPU and GPU counts.

So by brute force, so to speak, performance has increased.

But single core performance didn't remain the same... the gains aren't just from adding cores.

M1: 2300ish
M2: 2550ish (+11% vs. M1)
M3: 3000ish (+30% vs. M1, +17% vs. M2)
M4: 3650ish (+59% vs. M1, +43% vs. M2, +22% vs. M3)

The claims were always that single core gains were just from clock rate boosts. I've never checked that claim, so let's do that math now:

M1: 3.2GHz
M2: 3.5GHz (+9%)
M3: 4.1GHz (+28%, +17%)
M4: 4.4GHz (+38%, +26%, +7%)

Seems it was true, performance increases were from clock rate boosts, at least until M4. Not that there's anything wrong with that. There's a reason we're not all using 1MHz, 4MHz, 12MHz, 33MHz, 66MHz, 100MHz, etc anymore. Generationally, we increase clocks... we have for a while. The M4 includes significant gains on top of the clock rate, and it looks to be the biggest generational jump yet. Sure it means Apple didn't find architectural improvements year over year, but nobody does.

I'm not sure what you're looking for in terms of performance. If you're not impressed by single core, then consider multicore. And consider Intel's best.

The M4 beats the single core speeds of Intel, which Geekbench charts says is topped by the i9-13900KS, at 3140, just above M3. That 13900KS has a multicore score roughly equal to an M2 Ultra and M3 Max. It's therefore not unreasonable to expect the M4 Max and Ultra to take the multicore crown too. We're getting the fastest chips available, and you're somehow not impressed.

Speaking of brute-forcing performance improvements, I have to wonder what score the Intel chips will get with the updated microcode that doesn't slowly fry itself. I mean, it won't make the scores go up.

 

[Chuckeee]

I might have missed commentary over chip configurations earlier in this thread or in other threads, but the M2 CPU in iPad Air seems to be 4+4 configuration (8 CPU cores) with 9 GPU cores.

The M4 in the iPad Pro is 3+6 (9 CPU cores - that's one performance core down) with 10 GPU cores.

Since a 'full fat' M4 is looking like 10 CPU cores with 10 GPU cores (accounting for 3 of the 4 Macs) and the 'binned' one is 8 CPU cores with 8 GPU cores (even worse than the one in the iPad Pro), let's assume that the Mac mini gets the cut down one.

As far as I can tell there, we have 2 options plus one assumption:

Assumption: 2 GPU cores has been disabled or are faulty (we drop from 10 to 8)
1. One of the efficiency cores has been disabled - hence 8 CPU cores = 3P+5E
2. An additional performance core has been disabled - hence 8 CPU cores = 2P+6E

Option 1 would appear to be good for performance
Option 2 would appear to be good for efficiency

Given there's a 'full fat' 10 CPU core option and the 9 CPU core option seems to have 3P+6E I'm going with 10 cores = 4P+6E and 8 cores = 3P+5E.

A 2P+6E configuration would be interesting though as that might make a binned M4 CPU quite close in benchmarks to an A18 CPU, only with a more powerful GPU.

In addition, what if we only had a either 2 or 3 Thunderbolt ports because one of the maximum of 4 controllers is faulty? That's another binning issue that could be addressed in a redesigned Mac mini, Apple delivered a binned CPU into the M3 iMac (cutting 2 GPUs out despite a nice screen being attached). They left the mini alone - but perhaps the mooted redesign may accommodate a binned M4...

I’m still confounded by the apparent wide range of binned M4 configurations. I was under the impression that one of major advantages of this new N3E process was higher yields and fewer defects. That seems inconsistent with such a wide variety of binned chips used across multiple devices.

It almost seems chips are being purposely gimped to reduce the capabilities of lower priced configurations. Instead of reusing defective chips that still retain a reduced performance capability (AKA binned chips).

 

[subjonas]

Someday I wish folks would lose the extraordinary concern over what is offered at base level and instead just buy what they need.

It’s ultimately just code for “I want/deserve more for less”, which is a very uninteresting statement.

 

[ric22]

It's not entirely fair to compare Apple's RAM upgrade pricing to retail upgrades, as the OEM upgrade prices for Dell/Lenovo/HP have generally been similar.

I'm always surprised when people claim this. I've seen a couple of examples of specific models from Microsoft doing it, but it's far from the norm. In the EU and UK it's not hard to find OEMs that charge 1/4 of what Apple do for the small RAM upgrades, or don't even offer a configuration as low as 8GB.

 

[AND411]

Duh! 😓 When can I get an iMac with 4 TB storage capacity?

First world problem

 

[chucker23n1]

I still believe the M4 Pro will not be coming in this new, smaller mini size but instead stay with the design and I/O of the M2 Pro mini.

They’re not gonna make a special Mac mini with the 2010 chassis.

What they might do is a variant of the 2024 chassis that’s thicker. But I see them abstaining from that as well, because such a device already exists in the Mac Studio.

 

[theluggage]

When the number of Apple's active users falls from the current 1,000,000,000 to a mere 1,000,000... let me know and we can have a discussion.

That's not how it works.
Long before any decline got that far, the Mac as we know it could be gone.

"Apple", "iPhone" and "Mac" are hugely valuable brands, but most of the business world wouldn't give a wet slap what hardware they're stuck on. Someone out of Qualcomm, Microsoft, NVIDIA, Google et. al. would probably love the rights to the A- and M- series processors, if only to take them off the table. There's a nice fat juicy patent portfolio. Apple is unlikely to go bankrupt, but all it would take is a substantial dip in share price - which simply requires something to spook the big shareholders - for someone to move in, take over, run down and asset-strip, while the current executives have fun picking out their new islands.

Enjoy your Asus Macintosh, Amazon iPhone and M4-powered Microsoft Surface (if in doubt, look at the history of the Thinkpad, or what is currently happening to VMWare).

Even if it doesn't get to that, the biggest danger with the Mac is if Apple start to see it as less important than the iPhone and "services" and run it down, or turn it into a cash register for Apple services - and, yes, I'm quite prepared to believe that corporate politics could see a product like the Mac deliberately priced out of the market to justify dropping it.

As people are keen to point out, Apple aren't stupid and probably understand that (say) releasing the M4 exclusively in the iPad Pro is going to Osbourne-effect the Mac, or that not competing more aggressively with the PC market is going to leave the Mac market as a slowly evaporating pond.

Yes, this is all glass-half-empty stuff, but I'd rather be a pleasantly surprised pessimist than a continually disappointed optimist.

 

[DanneP]

No way the base model will come with 16 GB. Maybe 12 GB, but not for free.

 

[citysnaps]

That's not how it works.
Long before any decline got that far, the Mac as we know it could be gone.

"Apple", "iPhone" and "Mac" are hugely valuable brands, but most of the business world wouldn't give a wet slap what hardware they're stuck on. Someone out of Qualcomm, Microsoft, NVIDIA, Google et. al. would probably love the rights to the A- and M- series processors, if only to take them off the table. There's a nice fat juicy patent portfolio. Apple is unlikely to go bankrupt, but all it would take is a substantial dip in share price - which simply requires something to spook the big shareholders - for someone to move in, take over, run down and asset-strip, while the current executives have fun picking out their new islands.

Enjoy your Asus Macintosh, Amazon iPhone and M4-powered Microsoft Surface (if in doubt, look at the history of the Thinkpad, or what is currently happening to VMWare).

Even if it doesn't get to that, the biggest danger with the Mac is if Apple start to see it as less important than the iPhone and "services" and run it down, or turn it into a cash register for Apple services - and, yes, I'm quite prepared to believe that corporate politics could see a product like the Mac deliberately priced out of the market to justify dropping it.

As people are keen to point out, Apple aren't stupid and probably understand that (say) releasing the M4 exclusively in the iPad Pro is going to Osbourne-effect the Mac, or that not competing more aggressively with the PC market is going to leave the Mac market as a slowly evaporating pond.

Yes, this is all glass-half-empty stuff, but I'd rather be a pleasantly surprised pessimist than a continually disappointed optimist.

"That's not how it works.
Long before any decline got that far, the Mac as we know it could be gone."


Holy smokes! The sky could be falling, the sky could be falling!

Run for the hills, the fallen sky could be followed by world-wide earthquakes resulting in 500 foot high tsunamis! Civilization as we know it is doomed!

 

[hoodlum90]

No way the base model will come with 16 GB. Maybe 12 GB, but not for free.

I didn’t think they would jump to 16GB either, but look at how the base 8-core M3 Air can be configured today. If you want more than the base memory then you have to jump to the 10-core Air. Since the 8-core M4 comes with 16GB, that tells me that this will be the base memory.

I do wonder what this means for the M4 MacBook Pro base memory and pricing in general. I am also curious to see if the Neural Engine cores will vary with the Pro and Max, similar to how the GPU cores vary. As an Adobe Lightroom user that now uses the Neural Engine instead of the GPU for Denoise, I no longer see the need for a Max unless the Neural Engine has more cores.

 

[theluggage]

What you are claiming in not an Apple phenomenon- Osborne Effect

...I think the point is, whoever gets the naming privilege, that it didn't work out well for Adam Osborne.
Except I don't think Apple are stupid enough to do invoke it accidentally, and are quite intentionally trying to promote the iPad - as a cash register for the App store and Apple Services - over the Mac.

It almost seems chips are being purposely gimped to reduce the capabilities of lower priced configurations. Instead of reusing defective chips that still retain a reduced performance capability (AKA binned chips).

We'll never know unless someone leaks or does a hugely expensive investigation. It does seem awfully fortuitous that the right number of dies are just the right kind of faulty to meet the demand for cheaper 'binned' chips, so I suspect that it is a mixture of genuinely part-faulty chips and deliberately restricted (and/or just not tested to full spec) chips. Artificial scarcity of this kind would harldy be a first for the tech industry.

Pretty sure that when Intel extensively 'binned' chips by clock speed it was mainly just not testing & guaranteeing some batches at the higher speed - one of the reasons for the popularity of "overclocking" in the PC world. Not sure how that extends to specific cores working/not working. However, back in the 90s, for a while I was rocking a dual processor Intel Celeron system, despite the Celeron not officially supporting multi-processor configurations.

I'm always surprised when people claim this. I've seen a couple of examples of specific models from Microsoft doing it, but it's far from the norm. In the EU and UK it's not hard to find OEMs that charge 1/4 of what Apple do for the small RAM upgrades, or don't even offer a configuration as low as 8GB.

The PC market is huge, and the websites of HPDelnovo and their ilk labyrinthine and constantly changing... it's easy to find examples that support whatever you want to prove. However one has to assume that someone actually looking for (say) a 32GB/1TB 13" Windows ultrabook will shop around for the best deal, whereas the choice of sources for an upgraded MacBook Air or Pro are far more limited, with the best deals often limited to base specs. Apple did make a minor improvement with the M3 models when the finally started offering 16GB as one of the 3 standard configurations.

What they might do is a variant of the 2024 chassis that’s thicker. But I see them abstaining from that as well, because such a device already exists in the Mac Studio.

I don't think the future of the Mac Studio and the "Pro" Mac Mini variant is quite clear from what we currently know.

The M4 is looking like it could replace both the M2 and M2 Pro at least in desktops, with hints that it has the I/O capabilities of the Pro. Meanwhile, the M3 Pro was a step down (relative to the rest of the M3 range) in performance and a higher proportion of efficiency cores, really making it optimised for ultraportable use. Unlike the M2 Pro it was a specifically-designed die and not a cut-down Max.

The M3 Max is, relatively speaking, a beast - a M3 Max Studio would probably have decimated sales of the Ultra.

The M3 Ultra is missing in action and we really don't know if/when there is going to be a M4 equivalent, and don't know how the idea of re-using the same die design for Pro, Max and Ultra worked out for Apple - they've already gone for completely different dies for Mac and Pro. There were also rumours of a new high-end server/AI-development chip that would presumably replace the Ultra in the Mac Pro (let's call it M4 Ludicrous).

Meanwhile, the 2023 Mac Pro looks awfully like the PCIe Tower's last stand - M4 Ludicrous could have a shedload of TB5 ports and would make more sense in a 1U rack. The Studio is a spiritual - and far more credible - successor to the Trashcan Mac Pro, and a future desktop Mac Pro might look more like a Studio.

...the Studio design was quite clearly determined by the cooling needs of the M1 Ultra (if you could build a M1 Max into a MBP, they could have built it into a Mini) - it's also a more repairable (and hence more expensive) internal design than the Mini but Apple don't seem to have made a big deal of that. If there's not going to be a M4 Ultra - or if there is but the power consumption is now far lower - there may not be a Mac Studio.

So we could see M4 "Apple TV-sized" Mac - no M4 pro option - plus a larger M4 Max desktop replacing the Studio Max and super-expensive Mac Pro with M4 Ludicrous.

...or all sorts of other permutations.

 

[nathansz]

I have to wonder what score the Intel chips will get with the updated microcode that doesn't slowly fry itself. I mean, it won't make the scores go up.

For my 14700k, virtually no effect

Still getting around 3000 single core 19,000 multi core in macos

It does a little better at multi core in windows since windows better understands how to use the p/e cores. In macOS you have to tell it they the e-cores are just extra threads of the p-cores

 

[surfzen21]

I was sort of expecting a 12GB base and an optional 8GB upgrade to bring mine to 20GB. One can dream...

If the base was going to be 12gb that would mean they are using 6gb RAM chips and the next upgrade would be to 18gb.

 

[ifxf]

I wouldn’t purchase any apple hardware this year. Have to see how AI shakes out. If it is popular the computers introduced today will have a short life as Apple introduces improved AI hardware and ups memory.

 

[God of Biscuits]

I bet the new machine is called the Mac nano, and maybe they optionally keep the Mac mini around as a budget option.

 

[mrapplecored]

Apple has ramped up testing of four new Mac models equipped with an M4 chip, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. Apple is planning to refresh the MacBook Pro, Mac mini, and iMac with M4 chips this year, and we could see the new models sometime in October.

The four machines have base-level M4 chips, according to developer logs. Three of the Macs have a 10-core CPU and 10-core GPU. The fourth machine has an 8-core CPU and an 8-core GPU, which is not an M4 configuration that we've seen so far. All four of the M4 Macs have either 16GB or 32GB of Unified Memory.

The M4 used in the 256GB and 512GB iPad Pro models has a 9-core CPU and 10-core GPU, while the chip used in the 1TB and 2TB models has a 10-core CPU and 10-core GPU. The high-end iPad chip is the same chip that will be in some of the Mac models.

Gurman does not mention M4 Pro or M4 Max chips, which would be used in higher-end Mac mini and 14-inch MacBook Pro models, as well as the 16-inch MacBook Pro. M4 Pro and M4 Max chips would have a higher number of CPU and GPU cores, as well as more maximum memory.

It is not clear if Apple is only introducing lower-end models with the standard M4 chip, or if there are plans for M4, M4 Pro, and M4 Max models but those higher-end chips simply weren't seen in the developer logs.

Prior rumors have suggested that both the 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models would see a refresh, and Gurman previously said that the new, slimmer Mac mini that's in the works will be available with both M4 and M4 Pro chip options.

Article Link: Apple Testing Four New M4 Macs Ahead of Fall Launch

Finally some good news about Macs getting the latest chips and updates in general!

 

[AND411]

I bet the new machine is called the Mac nano, and maybe they optionally keep the Mac mini around as a budget option.

I don't think so, Apple already has far too many different devices in its lineup anyway.
A MacBook SE is what's missing!

 

[chucker23n1]

Apple aren't stupid and probably understand that (say) releasing the M4 exclusively in the iPad Pro is going to Osbourne-effect the Mac

I don’t think that analogy quite holds up. Heck, if it did, Apple could never release another hardware product with a newer SoC without simultaneously upgrading the entire frigging product line-up across platforms.

Most years, the iPhone is ahead in its SoC generation. This time, the iPad is. That’s a bit more striking, sure.

I don’t understand what people want here. For Apple to hold everything back?

It’s also a largely immaterial discussion. Most people do not go through the line-up and yell “hey, why does the iPad have a newer SoC? What’s up with that, Apple?”

, or that not competing more aggressively with the PC market is going to leave the Mac market as a slowly evaporating pond.

For now, the Mac is doing financially better than ever. It also, especially for the laptops, enjoys a great reputation. If anything, I’d worry more about the OS.

 

[chucker23n1]

Except I don't think Apple are stupid enough to do invoke it accidentally, and are quite intentionally trying to promote the iPad - as a cash register for the App store and Apple Services - over the Mac.

?? What? No. The MacBook Air update was overdue, the M4 wasn’t ready, and the M3 was a perfectly valid bump anyway. Meanwhile, the iPad Pro needed a newer display controller. So they waited for the M4 to launch it.

Goodness, everyone is acting like the Mac is in a really dire shape. It’s not. It still has the best laptop CPUs in the market.

I don't think the future of the Mac Studio and the "Pro" Mac Mini variant is quite clear from what we currently know.

I can see the Pro mini dying and essentially being a one-off with the M2 Pro. But the Studio? It’s fine as it is.

 

[Cheffy Dave]

M4 mini is a day one purchase.

Without a MAX or PRO M4, I’m out!

 

[subjonas]

I'm always surprised when people claim this. I've seen a couple of examples of specific models from Microsoft doing it, but it's far from the norm. In the EU and UK it's not hard to find OEMs that charge 1/4 of what Apple do for the small RAM upgrades, or don't even offer a configuration as low as 8GB.

OP didn’t say it was the norm (it may or may not be). OP said those other specific major competitors (Dell/Lenovo/HP) do similar (do they not?), therefore it’s unfair to not include them in making comparisons.

 

[ric22]

OP didn’t say it was the norm (it may or may not be). OP said those other specific major competitors (Dell/Lenovo/HP) do similar (do they not?), therefore it’s unfair to not include them in making comparisons.

MacRumors was the OP of this thread- I was replying to someone who commented.

Those specific competitors mentioned have generally been much cheaper when it comes to RAM upgrades in the UK than Apple, so my comment still stands. In MacBook Pro price range I don't think they even still offer a meagre 8GB model either. 👀

 

[Torty]

16GB base will make iPad Pro look bad. Will it get M5 in spring?

 

[ric22]

16GB base will make iPad Pro look bad. Will it get M5 in spring?

iPadOS doesn't require as much RAM as MacOS... more multi tasking is typically performed on a Mac too