First Benchmark Results Surface for M3 Chip in New Macs

[redbeard331]

I just want that new wallpaper!!!

I just got a new MacBook Pro a few months ago, figured they’d never make another in black, and here we are.

 

[PowerMac5500]

Deleted

 

[dropadrop]

Though the M3 is still 15-20% faster than the M2. The M3 Pro vs M2 Pro will be the interesting comparison. There may not be much difference in the multicore, since they reduced the number of power cores. M3 Max vs M2 Max should be similar to the M3 vs M2.

M3 vs 11 core vs 12 core M3 Pro will be a common dilemma. Each step costing about 300€ here.

 

[weaztek]

Pretty good numbers. About 3x my 2018 i5 Mac Mini.

Anyone know how the Geekbench 5 and Geekbench 6 metrics compare? I have no plans to upgrade to GB6.

 

[ignatius345]

Hmm. Doing a fair bit of heavy multitasking and design work (Illustrator, InDesign) and not hitting any real speed bumps on my M1 iMac or the M1 Mini I use at work, both with 16GB of RAM. I suspect over time software and OS updates will take their toll, as they always do. But for now I just can't see a compelling reason I'd update, especially with the iMac which is otherwise totally unchanged. (Would it have killed them to at least throw us a bone and add a new color or something?)

I also have M1 Air with 8GB of RAM, and that one is starting to feel a little slower since the update to Sonoma. Not sure why, but it would be the only Mac I'd replace -- probably in favor of the new 14" MBP since it's got that amazing display.

 

[OrenLindsey]

I was thinking the same thing. Current iMac is a 2010 i3 model... do you think I'll notice a performance boost?

I think it's hard to understate how much of a performance boost you'll be getting.

 

[tweaknmod]

I bought an absolute top spec iMac some years ago on launch day. Within a few months, a new model MacBook Pro was introduced that was faster than my iMac.

Was I disappointed or felt I'd been taken for a ride? Of course not. It's natural progression, new stuff comes out that's faster than old stuff. It's how things work.

Comparison is the thief of joy.

 

[Orange Bat]

IMO, we’ve gotten to a point where no one really NEEDS to upgrade if they already bought into Apple Silicon. Buying a Mac has become like buying an iPhone: you can wait and buy it when you need it and not sooner. My M1 machine is still fantastic and I feel no need to upgrade. It will be at least a couple of more years before I buy another Mac.

 

[quagmire]

There is another thread floating around where the thread starter was complaining about the M3 being in a Pro and only having 8GB of Ram. They said it was ridiculous.

My example of why it made sense was specifically you as the consumer. I said there are probably tons of people who want the MiniLED and 120hz but dont need the power of an M3Pro or Max and dont need 16GB of Ram for their daily.

I am one of them too, although, I will probably go with the base M3 Pro.

But that base M3 at $1599 is very tempting.

I think it's a great machine, I just wish at that price they had bumped up the RAM (or priced it at $1499 for the 8GB).

No doubt, the 8 GB of RAM is my one gripe with it. I would bump my config to 16 GB. But I was going more along the lines of the HP the Pro line offers. Don't need the memory bandwidth, the extra cores, etc. I don't do anything that pushes the limits of these chips.

Just the screen size, or the additional ports (HDMI, SD card slot, etc.) as well? Just wondering what kind of MacBook Air lineup would be better for Apple and its customers: the current 13" and 15" inch or something like a 12" and 14"?

Wasn't the screen size, but the technology. I wanted the mini-LED display. At the time as well of when the 14" MBP came out, I wanted magsafe, the extra ports was nice, and preferred the design over the MBA.

I don't think I could go back because the image quality of mini-LED is freaking amazing, especially when viewing HDR content.

 

[eropko]

I was thinking the same thing. Current iMac is a 2010 i3 model... do you think I'll notice a performance boost?

Yeah, everything you do will just happen instantly. I've noticed boost even coming from 2018 i5 to 2021 M1Max.

 

[klasma]

20% speed boost is extremely high. I wonder how well Geekbench translates to daily experience because wow.

For UI stuff, the threshold where a speed increase becomes generally perceptible is at about 30%, from usability research. Of course, for longer-running tasks you’ll save time, and you’ll save battery.

 

[pi6xjdskfa]

All I know right now is that they are not "Pro" for the outrageous prices they are charging. Generationally they are still far behind. When it comes to render power, you can buy a fully decked out Desktop PC with a soon to be released 14900K and 5090 GPU. That system will be expandable, serviceable and upgradeable. Not to mention running faster PCIe Lanes. The M3 is still PCIe4! The 5090 will dance circles, multi-fold, around whatever boost to the GPU apple has added to the M3. Apple has really painted themselves into a corner with moving to a phone SOC for their laptops/desktops. So sad. Someone should be fired for making the choice to do that.

how do you fit desktop into backpack and keep it under 3.5 pounds?

 

[smulji]

We’ve got to stop and put on our thinking caps for a minute. Here’s what people are missing:

M1 was a huge jump over Intel in respective machines, many increases in the multi-X range. Then M2 comes along with 20% improvements. Then M3.

MEANING

When M2 to M3 is 20% better, it’s like a whole additional 6 or 8 core Intel chip from the 2019 16” MBP on top of 3 of those already.

The math may not be perfect, but a 20% jump from M2-M3 is a LOT of power from a couple years ago.

getting 20% better performance by increasing clock speed by around 17% is to be expected but that's what has some people worried. That Apple is basically relying on TSMC's process technology to increase performance by as opposed to to improving performance via IPC. You can't keep increasing clock speed indefinitely without consuming more power.

 

[Return Zero]

Both the CPU and GPU cores are Apple's own design (CPU have been since A6; GPU since… A11 or so).



They have, so far, always had a new microarchitecture. M1 has the same Firestorm/Icestorm cores as A14, M2 has the Avalanche/Blizzard cores like A15, and M3 probably skips Everest/Sawtooth to go straight to A17's cores (because Ax is on a 12-month schedule, and Mx so far has been on roughly an 18-month schedule, so it occasionally needs to skip a generation).

So far, we haven't seen them upgrade the GPU cores but not the CPU cores. I suppose they could do that, but I can't think of why they would.

Not exactly

Apple M3 chips appears to be a hybrid of the A17 Pro, A16 Bionic designs

The new M3 chips are here and there’s a lot to digest. As Apple doesn’t make a point of revealing the design origins of its chips, it can be an interesting exercise to put the pieces of the puzzle together.

www.notebookcheck.net

Gotcha. I think this article might clarify exactly what we're talking about... Potentially still A16 CPU (Everest/Sawtooth) but with A17 GPU because that GPU was originally designed to go with the A16.

 

[Mescagnus]

Only if it had a decent screen size!!

It appears larger if you lean forward and look at it from a shorter distance.

😉

 

[chucker23n1]

Not exactly

Apple M3 chips appears to be a hybrid of the A17 Pro, A16 Bionic designs

The new M3 chips are here and there’s a lot to digest. As Apple doesn’t make a point of revealing the design origins of its chips, it can be an interesting exercise to put the pieces of the puzzle together.

www.notebookcheck.net

Hmmmm.

Based on clock speed change alone, both scenarios seem plausible.

If we take the A16 at 3.5 GHz (2,556) and scale that to 4.05 GHz, we end up with 2,958. Or the A17 at 3.8 GHz (2,899): 3,090. Both within the margin of error of these results.

 

[pi6xjdskfa]

Guys, it was the same size as 13 Air is now.

28x20x1.3cm 12 inch
vs.
30x21x1.12cm M2 Air

M2 Air might be only 1-2cm bigger, but tad thinner (12 was wedge design)

for me it was 2 pound weight that was huge! i have back pain and it helped out a lot. the macbook pro 14 i carry is 3.5 pounds.

 

[klasma]

you take the joy out of life

Tech is a bad choice if you’re looking for joy in life. 😉

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

This is why AIO’s are doomed. What we all need is a new Mini and a range of displays to pick from. No more throwing out a nice display when processor obsolete, either.

Of course, another way to go would be to put iMac guts on a card inside an AIO screen. When the guts get too old, replace the card like we used to be able to replace/upgrade RAM in iMac.

• Open panel/remove back,
• remove old iMac card,
• insert new iMac card,
• replace panel/back,
• enjoy up-to-date iMac.

Bonus: maybe engineer that so that an iMac without a card is ASD 2 monitor. Then one product frame + screen + camera + speakers could cover BOTH bases.

Yes, I know that is extraordinarily unlikely from Apple, but it would be a mother-nature-friendly way to NOT doom AIO and overcome the "screen outlasts the tech guts" issue.

Personally, with long-term love for iMacs I used for well over a decade, there's NO way I would ever buy another without overcoming the issue of screen life vs. tech guts life. Go card-based approach, resurrect TDM functionality, etc or bust IMO. And I voted with my wallet on this topic by embracing separates and NOT even buying the screen from Apple.

 

[crypthick]

Just waiting for M3 iPad Pro so that there’s enough headroom for a calculator app

 

[eropko]

getting 20% better performance by increasing clock speed by around 17% is to be expected but that's what has some people worried. That Apple is basically relying on TSMC's process technology to increase performance by as opposed to to improving performance via IPC. You can't keep increasing clock speed indefinitely without consuming more power.

Power to performance ratio is what matters. So 17% increase in clock speed and 20% increase in performance didn't increase power consumption by 17%. That's what 3nm were used for.
Of course if their power performance is the same as M1 M2

 

[Orange Bat]

Hmm. Doing a fair bit of heavy multitasking and design work (Illustrator, InDesign) and not hitting any real speed bumps on my M1 iMac or the M1 Mini I use at work, both with 16GB of RAM. I suspect over time software and OS updates will take their toll, as they always do. But for now I just can't see a compelling reason I'd update, especially with the iMac which is otherwise totally unchanged. (Would it have killed them to at least throw us a bone and add a new color or something?)

I also have M1 Air with 8GB of RAM, and that one is starting to feel a little slower since the update to Sonoma. Not sure why, but it would be the only Mac I'd replace -- probably in favor of the new 14" MBP since it's got that amazing display.

I completely agree. The reason I bought the 15 inch Air wasn’t because I needed a faster machine but because I could use a new laptop and liked the form factor. Apple needs to give us more than simple tech bumps to make upgrading attractive to many M1 and M2 owners moving forward.

 

[klasma]

Usually "programming stuff" is parallelized quite well

The build tool I (have to) use disagrees. 😉

 

[Velli]

Kinda pointless comparing performance 13 years apart.
I'm pretty sure that your 2010 Mac Pro has a much larger performance gap compared to a 1997 PowerMac.

Except, in 2010 a 1997 PowerMac was useless. Today, a 2010 Mac Pro may not be fast, but definitely usable. Things don’t move as fast anymore, which is why 20% increase is actually very good.

 

[Jacoblee23]

How does this compare to a base 14" M1 Pro?