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Personally looking forward to better battery life. Planning to buy iPhone 15 Pro, iPad Pro oled/m3 and a new Apple Watch also..
 
This is why M3 is likely to be based on A16 to mitigate risk.

Many people believe M3 is based on A17, but in all likelihood Apple won’t use a new core with a new process.

But the A17 is a new core and is being produced on a new process, so that doesn't make much sense. If both the A17 and M3 are using the new process, they will both more than likely use the same cores.

Which cores are used in the M-series has more to do with timing... The M1 and the A14 used the same cores and process and were released about the same time. The M2 was released last summer in "mid cycle", so they used the current generation (A15) cores on that same process. If the M3 doesn't debut until the the Fall/Winter, it'll more than likely use the same cores as the A17.

Apple has limited the latest generation cores to the higher end iPhone Pros, starting last year. So they should know by now where production on the 3nm process can be directed towards.
 
This is why M3 is likely to be based on A16 to mitigate risk.

Many people believe M3 is based on A17, but in all likelihood Apple won’t use a new core with a new process.

I expect the real risk with A17 is 3nm, not the cores.

So Apple will use the massive volume of A17 to de-risk the 3nm production process and then once the iPhone production starts to ramp down towards the end of 2023, TSMC will have the fab capacity to start ramping M3 on 3nm and we will see the first M3 Macs arrive in 1Q 2024.
The M1 was based on the A14 and the at-the-time bleeding edge 5nm process, and it launched two months after the A14. So there is precedent for Apple to use the latest A-series core and fab process in the M-series.
 
Man, I was really hoping the 15" MBA would get the M3 :confused:
Like all product, do a hands on, play various you tube videos or other content does the larger MBA suffice nicely? Good speakers or display as demoed. Try it for a week next that will tell you if it’s for you versus older similar laptops such as the 14” M1 pro MBP still available as new from 3rd party retailer. ;)
 
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Like all product, do a hands on, play various you tube videos or other content does the larger MBA suffice nicely? Good speakers or display as demoed. Try it for a week next that will tell you if it’s for you versus older similar laptops such as the 14” M1 pro MBP still available as new from 3rd party retailer. ;)

Doing basic tasks (browsing/video/office apps) will yield no discernible benefit.

The main reason to really yearn for M3 chips, esp. on something fanless like the MBA, is the efficiency improvements - both battery and sustained performance will see significant improvement.

In the case of a machine like the 15" MBA I'd certainly wait as it seems likely an update to the M3 could be 6-9 months after... whenever the 13" is updated the 15" will certainly be, and that machine will be a year old by the time the 15" is available.
 
I gotta say, these "the M3 chip totally started production, pinky swear, oh no wait, I meant it's starting production months from now" rumors are still more exciting than hearing about the iPhone 15's maybe-haptic-maybe-not volume buttons. :cool:
But are the volume buttons on a 3nm process or not? I don’t want any stop-gap buttons! 🤨
 
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The main reason to really yearn for M3 chips, esp. on something fanless like the MBA, is the efficiency improvements - both battery and sustained performance will see significant improvement.
The only thought that comes up, is the fact that Apple might not optimize it for just that. They may prefer to use the energy efficiency to improve performance so they can market it as improved over past SoCs. Also we are reminded again this whole lovely topic is a wish list for a rumor. But I hope its real for the fans.
 
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It looks likely that the M3 will debit in the 24" iMac this fall. Then potentially the 13" Laptops.

I would expect an M3 iPad Pro to launch in early 2024 with the OLED screens are ready

Then M3 Mac Mini, M3 Pro/Max Macbook Pros, and maybe Mac Studios (depending on if they introduce M2 Macbook Studios this year).
 
The only thought that comes up, is the fact that Apple might not optimize it for just that. They may prefer to use the energy efficiency to improve performance so they can market it as improved over past SoCs. Also we are reminded again this whole lovely topic is a wish list for a rumor. But I hope its real for the fans.

It'll definitely be both... by default, it looks like the single core scores are going to see a better than 20% improvement and there will likely be a couple more. But there will almost certainly be a bigger improvement in battery life compared to the jump from M1 -> M2.
 
We need to remember that the sources for Kuo and Ross Young are in the supply chain and those sources likely know nothing more than "this thing started production today" with no idea of where it actually is going or why it started production or even how long the production run was going to be. So Kuo and Young take these rumors and extrapolate them to Apple products they expect to be produced.

I could easily see the rumors of M3 production starting in December 2022 as being EVT (Engineering Verification Test) runs to work out package production (so SoC plus RAM). They could have even been A17 EVT and the source thought it was M3 because it was 3nm.



I believe that the A17 will soak up the vast majority of TSMC's 3nm production through Spring and Summer and therefore I don't expect to see serious M3 production until this Fall and therefore could see M3 not formally appearing in product until a Spring 2024 Mac event with the 13" Air (and maybe a 15" refresh) and the 24" iMac.

16 years you still haven't grown tired of Macrumors complete ignorance on supply chain. heads up to you for continuing explaining it.
 
  • 232 million iPhones, 61 million iPads and 26 million Mac and MacBook units were sold in 2022
Care to guess which product line TMSC has been busy stockpiling 3NM line. Hint it dwarfs the other lines.
Well hell, I completely forgot about the iOS devices 😂
 
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More evidence that M3 is in production. CEO of TSMC said as much in the earnings call yesterday (bold is my emphasis):

Next, let me talk about our N3 and N3E status. Our 3-nanometer technology is the first in the semiconductor industry to high-volume production with good yield. As our customers' demand for N3 exceeds our ability to supply, we expect N3 to be fully utilized in 2023 supported by both HPC and smartphone applications.

See also https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/could-we-see-m3-before-a17.2382874/post-32115157
 
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As good as I am confident it will be, I would not consider a base M3 to be an SoC for "High Performance Computing" applications. But perhaps TSMC considers any PC SoC to be an HPC SoC.
 
I would not consider a base M3 to be an SoC for "High Performance Computing" applications...
Perhaps ... maybe this is also evidence that M3 Pro Max Ultra are in production which is expected with the debut of the Mac Pro.
 
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Can they go sub 1 nanometer? Or is that not a thing?
It’s not integer math. Things can be smaller than 1nm without being zero.

They may start using Angstroms which are one tenth the size of nanometers. Alternately they may use a different way to talk about process sizes. The current processes don’t really correspond to a specific nanometer length. It is a conventionalized way of talking about feature density and not entirely constant between different Fabs.
 
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but but but others here said that M3 is already in mass production since late Dec/Jan

And others - like me, have said you won't see them this year. I've got a better track record that Kuo or Gurman that this site likes to quote all the time.
 


Apple's next-generation M3 chip will enter mass production in the second half of 2023, according to info shared today by analyst Ming-Chi Kuo.

m3-feature-black.jpg

In a tweet, Kuo said M3 chip production will begin "slightly ahead" of the M3 Pro and M3 Max. Apple should use the M3 chip for future models of the 13-inch MacBook Air, 13-inch MacBook Pro, 24-inch iMac, and Mac mini, while the higher-end M3 Pro and M3 Max chips are destined for the next 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models, which Bloomberg's Mark Gurman expects to be released in the first half of 2024.

The M3 chip is expected to be manufactured based on Apple chipmaking partner TSMC's latest 3nm process, compared to 5nm for the M2 chip. As a 3nm chip, the M3 should offer significant performance and power efficiency improvements.

As for the long-rumored 15-inch MacBook Air, Kuo said the laptop will be equipped with the M2 chip. Back in June 2022, Kuo predicted that the 15-inch model would also be available with the M2 Pro chip, but he no longer expects this.

The key takeaway from Kuo's latest information is that the first Macs with the M3 chip are likely still months away from launching. This makes sense given that the next Mac Pro desktop tower is rumored to feature the M2 Ultra chip, and it is likely that Apple would finish its rollout of the M2 series of chips before announcing the M3 chip.

Article Link: Kuo: M3 Chip Still Months Away, Entering Mass Production in Second Half of 2023

My gut feeling is the M3 will be a small boost in performance overM1 and M2 but most of it's benefit is in running cooler and increase battery life. By running cooler it should retrofit into most the existing Mac computers saving money. Apple big leap was moving to System On A Chip with the M1, but performance benefit will be small moving forward and barely noticable for the typical Apple user.
 
My gut feeling is the M3 will be a small boost in performance overM1 and M2 but most of it's benefit is in running cooler and increase battery life. By running cooler it should retrofit into most the existing Mac computers saving money. Apple big leap was moving to System On A Chip with the M1, but performance benefit will be small moving forward and barely noticable for the typical Apple user.
You really think Apple is so cheap to not redesign what’s necessary to make computer run its best? Like it was mentioned they will instead optimize any new SoC to gain performance even at some cost to energy usage. ;)
 
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