iPad Pro's M4 Chip Outperforms M3 by Up to 25%

[Confused-User]

The M3 is on a more expensive node (version) on the 3nm process (N3E). The M4 is on a later 3nm node (N3P) that is less expensive. Apple used N3E for the A17 Pro and M3 chips to be able to get on 3nm quicker but they seem to have decided that was for a limited run and and now moving their newer generated to the less expensive N3P.

If Apple can only run AI on the newest chips, that will severely hinder their ability to get this in front of most of their customers. There doesn’t seem to be anything in the M4 that is really unique for AI, just more faster components. At most, you would have the AI running faster on newer chips and slower on older chips. That is a familiar pattern. There are also likely to be some AI processes that can only run on server side.

The M3 and A17 are on N3B. The M4 is on N3E. N3P won't be shipping until late this year, and likely won't be seen until the M5, though Apple has many paths forward.

The big difference for AI seems to be that the M3 can't run dual INT8 instead of single FP16 ops. The M4 can, just like the A17, giving it double the performance for the majority of tasks it'll be doing (plus a few % more, due to minor improvements or better clocks).

 

[picpicmac]

I doubt Apple designs their product release schedule around what would humiliate the competition.

This. The armchair warriors on the internet think computer companies are like some Bond villain.

The MBA may get the M4 chip later in the year if Apple can ramp up production enough, or it may not. At the scale that Apple operates, a lot of their product design decisions really comes down to whether they can secure sufficient manufacturing capacity or not ...

This too. Apple can contract with Foxconn (and the other major assembly companies) to operate manufacturing plants for Apple SKUs, as needed, but the supply chain from the key suppliers (TSMC, Samsung, Micron, LG, Sony, Amperex, etc.) of components is where the engineering/supply-line expertise of Apple comes into play.

Apple is one of the more important customers for component manufacturers, with multi-billion dollar contracts in many cases.

The whole global economy is one of management expertise coordinating engineering developments.

Those armchair warriors like to rag on Tim, but Apple has demonstrated it is better than most companies in getting products into the hands of people, and those people being happy with their products.

 

[ric22]

"everyone" does not know this and most people don't care. I have helped a few people buy Macs and no one knew what kind of processor was inside. I think this is the usual case.

That said, I am very interrested in the M4 and later Macs. I'm working in robotics and just now have decided to move from Intel Xeon and Nvidia GPUs to Apple Silicon for AI and related work. I'm getting very respectable performance on the M2-Pro. In a year I'll buy whatever is best and available. But most people, they would do well with a Chromebook.

I obviously used "everyone" to refer to the news being public knowledge. Clearly I wasn't referring to every last human on earth. 🤦‍♂️

 

[ducknalddon]

This is powerful, but as others have mentioned it's limited by iOS. Perhaps Apple are getting ready for the big unveil of Mac OS on these iPads? The new keyboard set up has a mouse pad, and remember when Apple redesigned Mac OS with stacked (vertical) buttons and everyone thought this was because they were getting ready to open Mac OS up to be viable on touch screens. Maybe we're getting very close to that time.

I really hope not, it would be too much of a compromise.

 

[Torty]

I am glad I already got my M3 MBA a few weeks ago before all those M4 rumors started. Cause my 2012 MBP really shows it's age and SW support is becoming worse and worse. It would give me headache today if I should wait for M4 or get an old SOC for premium money.

But they should have given the M4 the MBA too even with a later release. It wasn't a good buyer experience to see a new chip a few weeks later after spending a lot of money.

 

[SoldOnApple]

I just ordered the Air M2 13 with the pencil pro. My iPad Pro days are over, for now.

 

[Mdx4ever]

I‘m still rocking iPad Pro 12.9 3td edition and after 5 years it serves me beautifully 😀
it showing its age however with beginning to be bit sluggish with Logic and Steinberg Cubase and other places.
I have opted for Pro and hopefully it will last me for yet another 5 years

 

[MrGimper]

M1 12.9" 1TB is still running everything I want. What do people do that actually need all this power on an iPad?

Battery health is below 90% now tho but I keep AC+ on a monthly basis, so may be time for an "intermittent fault" and an express replacement

 

[Mdx4ever]

Obviously you don’t need it
why I do, is in the post above

 

[PaladinGuy]

I totally get that some people get a huge amount of value from iPads. I also agree that the efforts by Microsoft to make Windows a dual interface are not very good, which probably means macOS on an iPad would be non-ideal.

The iPad Pro is a gorgeous product and is great at a few things. I think it’s just very niche at this point. As The Verge pointed out, among many others, Apple really needs to find a wider use case for the iPad through software. Software is the way to make it more useful to more people.

No knock on people who use and love iPads. I just think there are a very small number of people that will ever come close to using the power of the M4 iPad Pro with current software.

 

[Mdx4ever]

I totally get that some people get a huge amount of value from iPads. I also agree that the efforts by Microsoft to make Windows a dual interface are not very good, which probably means macOS on an iPad would be non-ideal.

The iPad Pro is a gorgeous product and is great at a few things. I think it’s just very niche at this point. As The Verge pointed out, among many others, Apple really needs to find a wider use case for the iPad through software. Software is the way to make it more useful to more people.

No knock on people who use and love iPads. I just think there are a very small number of people that will ever come close to using the power of the M4 iPad Pro with current software.

I think iPad nailed the Pro software situation on iPad Pro already 😉
daVinci, Logic Pro, etc;

 

[bradman83]

Now that Apple allows emulators in the App Store, VMWare or Parallels needs to develop one so that we can run Windows or MacOS on these things.

RAM is still a limiting factor even if CPU horsepower isn’t; 8GB is enough to run Linux in a VM but would be limiting for Windows or macOS.

 

[bradman83]

Strange release timing. I wonder if an AI boost was needed earlier than planned, and the M3 series wasn't up to the task?

WWDC and the Fall events will be exciting!

The benchmarks show an only modest increase in machine learning capabilities over the M3. Apple’s AI features will likely run on any device with an A14/M1-class Neural Engine or higher.

The M3 was built on a flawed, expensive first-gen 3nm process. No one except Apple was using it. The N3E process the M4 is based on is significantly better in terms of yields and overall costs. It makes sense for Apple to get chip production off N3 and onto N3E as quickly as possible.

 

[dandy1117]

I totally get that some people get a huge amount of value from iPads. I also agree that the efforts by Microsoft to make Windows a dual interface are not very good, which probably means macOS on an iPad would be non-ideal.

The iPad Pro is a gorgeous product and is great at a few things. I think it’s just very niche at this point. As The Verge pointed out, among many others, Apple really needs to find a wider use case for the iPad through software. Software is the way to make it more useful to more people.

No knock on people who use and love iPads. I just think there are a very small number of people that will ever come close to using the power of the M4 iPad Pro with current software.

“Niche?” I believe that many people are unaware of the wide range of industries that use the iPad Pro. The tablet is heavily utilized in areas such as aviation, real estate, medical offices, event production, and digital graphic design. My company creates custom enterprise applications for these industries. IMPORTANT: Not all iPad business software is distributed on the App Store and is highly specialized and vertical in nature.

The iPad Pro's form factor, faster processor, better audio and video, and improved input/output capabilities make it an essential tool for many mobile professionals. The iPad Pro is not just a lightweight laptop, it does things far more easily than a MacBook for these users like scanning and marking up documents, or use LiDAR for AR and set design measurements. It is also condescending to tell these professionals that they do not need an iPad Pro. Although Final Cut Pro can run on a MacBook Air, I do not think it is appropriate to criticize a video editor for investing in more capable hardware to complete their work.

The iPad lineup is versatile and commonly used in enterprise and business as kiosks and points of sale. And specifically, the iPad Pro has penetration as a mobile computer for use beyond digital artists.

 

[Mdx4ever]

M3 was a flop. M2 Pro outperformed M3
M4 is different though and hopefully lives up to its name 😉
Ordered ipad pro m4…

 

[chucker23n1]

AMD isn’t. Look at their Zen processors. Granted, they don’t release a new one each year, however they get >10% IPC gains each time without fail. They are in fact due to repeat this with Zen 5 in Q3. I am not knocking Apple, the M series chips are incredible. I am just very curious what they plan to do next.

Apple M1 through M4
Intel 1068NG7, 1195G7, 1265U, 1365U, 165U
AMD 4800U, 5700U, 6800U, 7736U, 7840U, 8840U

 

[gusping]

Apple M1 through M4
Intel 1068NG7, 1195G7, 1265U, 1365U, 165U
AMD 4800U, 5700U, 6800U, 7736U, 7840U, 8840U

View attachment 2376942

Single threaded performance is not equal to IPC. Instructions per clock.... Clue is in the name.

 

[PaladinGuy]

“Niche?” I believe that many people are unaware of the wide range of industries that use the iPad Pro. The tablet is heavily utilized in areas such as aviation, real estate, medical offices, event production, and digital graphic design. My company creates custom enterprise applications for these industries. IMPORTANT: Not all iPad business software is distributed on the App Store and is highly specialized and vertical in nature.

The iPad Pro's form factor, faster processor, better audio and video, and improved input/output capabilities make it an essential tool for many mobile professionals. The iPad Pro is not just a lightweight laptop, it does things far more easily than a MacBook for these users like scanning and marking up documents, or use LiDAR for AR and set design measurements. It is also condescending to tell these professionals that they do not need an iPad Pro. Although Final Cut Pro can run on a MacBook Air, I do not think it is appropriate to criticize a video editor for investing in more capable hardware to complete their work.

The iPad lineup is versatile and commonly used in enterprise and business as kiosks and points of sale. And specifically, the iPad Pro has penetration as a mobile computer for use beyond digital artists.

No need to take offense. Just my opinion. As I said, I’m glad for the people that have great use for it.

 

[ZipZilla]

Sadly, the M4 is gimped by being chained to a giant iPhone OS. Do better,Apple

 

[chucker23n1]

Single threaded performance is not equal to IPC. Instructions per clock.... Clue is in the name.

You're right. The chart looks great for AMD now!

 

[dandy1117]

No need to take offense. Just my opinion. As I said, I’m glad for the people that have great use for it.

I just wanted to clarify the purpose of my previous post. I didn't take any personal offense from your statement. I am an enterprise app developer. My intention was to provide some context to the conversation and challenge the idea that the iPad Pro is a niche device.

The iPad lineup outsells the Mac by unit sales, and based on the average sale price, many of those sales are for the iPad Pro. https://www.businessofapps.com/data/apple-statistics/

Apple iPad revenue worldwide by quarter 2025| Statista

In the first quarter of Apple's financial year 2025, iPad sales generated about 11.75 billion U.S.

www.statista.com

 

[chucker23n1]

While your comment is tongue in cheek, the criticism is true. But, my commentary to the criticism, though is that we've had a Desktop / Laptop replacement tablet for over a decade in the x86 MS Surface Pro tablets. More recently, SΛMSUNG DeX has been a thing for the better part of a decade. And neither have lit the world on fire, much less, amount to anything other then a rounding error.

Someone prove me wrong. I don't see Apple being the one "holding back" because Microsoft and Samsung have proven the concept to be nothing more then a niche.

Yep. Ubuntu tried it with Unity, Microsoft with Continuum. And convertibles have existed since the 1990s.

At the end of the day, separate, dedicated devices are more popular.

 

[gusping]

You're right. The chart looks great for AMD now!

View attachment 2376954

Ah yes, Geekbench. The be all and end all of CPU performance.

 

[chucker23n1]

Ah yes, Geekbench. The be all and end all of CPU performance.

I mean, yeah, when the original thread is about Geekbench results, comparisons to other vendors should be as well.

Here's the problem with your claim: with the CPUs I'm listing,

• Apple's SoCs are M1 @ 3.2 GHz, M2 @ 3.5 GHz, M3 @ 4.05 GHz, M4 @ 4.4 GHz. That's already not great. Apple is approaching a ceiling here.
• Intel's CPUs, meanwhile, are Ice Lake @ 2.3 GHz, Tiger Lake @ 2.9 GHz, Alder Lake @ 1.8 GHz, Raptor Lake @ 1.8 GHz, Meteor Lake @ 1.7 GHz. So Intel has been keeping the clock relatively low and even reducing it in some generational shifts (Ice Lake, Alder Lake, now Meteor Lake), which is why their IPC is doing so well.
• Finally, AMD goes 1.8 GHz, 1.8 GHz, 2.7 GHz, 2.7 GHz, 3.3 GHz, 3.3 GHz. So while the 8840U scores 49% higher than the 4800U did, it also needs 83% more clock to do so.

Which makes me wonder why you would even bring up IPC at all. It clearly isn't AMD's strength, at least on mobile.

 

[turbineseaplane]

Man, to me it’s crazy.
I love my iPad and am using it right now, but all I do on it is mostly surf the web. It is the best web browsing experience on the couch or bed bar none.

Same
Browse the web, watch video content, do a few emails here and there --- map things out for road trips