What the new Apple M3 processors can do
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1. History of Apple M processors
Apple has been accused of lack of innovation for years. They say that by producing $700 wheels for the Mac Pro and expensive headphones, the company got used to super profits and forgot how to step out of its comfort zone. But in 2020, the revolution came from unexpected places. At the conference, Apple representatives detonated an information bomb. After the presentation of the new iPhones, AirPods and iOS at WWDC 2020, the famous One More Thing slide lit up above Tim Cook's head. The head of Apple announced his separation from Intel and the launch of his own line of single-chip processors, Apple M.
Critics laughed at the company: do you think that a tiny SoC processor for a smartphone will suddenly destroy the desktop Core i7? Ha, that won't happen! But three years later, every second person wants a new MacBook, and major manufacturers such as Dell and HP are investing in the development of single-chip processors with alternative ARM architecture. The recent buzz with startup NUVIA, which has key developers from Apple, Intel and Qualcomm, only confirms this. But that is another story. Let's return to M3.
As before, the M3 chip is an all-in-one single-chip system: all system elements, including the processor, RAM and USB controllers, are soldered onto one chip. The number of active cores and their types depend on the specific processor version:
- M3: 8 flow Rate cores and 10 graphics, up to 24 GB of RAM.
- M3 Pro: 12 flow Rate and 18 graphics cores, up to 36 GB of RAM.
- M3 Max: 16 flow Rate and 40 graphics cores, up to 128 GB of RAM.
This is a completely logical division in the usual style for Intel and AMD, when the younger models are aimed at the mass market, the firmware is created for creatives, and the M3 Max is best suited for solving especially complex and resource-intensive tasks.
The entire M-series is built using a 3nm process technology. The CPU cores have improved fan-out prediction for increased efficiency. Performance cores have a broader decoding engine, while efficiency cores have a deeper execution engine. This greatly improves overall flow Rate and efficiency compared to the first generation. For younger models the increase is up to 40%, older ones will be 70-80% faster.
M3 chips also support dynamic GPU caching, allowing for more efficient distribution of computing resources for efficient flow Rate in multi-core tasks. M3 chips support mesh shading, which greatly improves the gaming experience, and for the first time in Mac hardware, ray tracing is implemented, which significantly increases the speed of 3D rendering.
Also, the new M3 processors have an improved media engine. It is responsible for hardware support for H.264, HEVC, ProRes, ProRes Raw and AV1. In simple terms, watching streaming video on streaming platforms - for example, Apple TV+, YouTube, Netflix. Well, don’t forget about the modified neural engine, which is responsible for machine learning tasks.
Below is a detailed comparison of how much faster the new M3 is than the original M1. Still, this is the most popular processor in the series.
2. Compare Apple M3 flow Rate in Logic Pro, Blender, Final Cut and other applications
In the table below we have summarized the results of all flow Rate measurements, using the results of the original M1 processor as a reference point. This way, we can better track the evolution of Apple chips without complicating the picture with too much data. To maintain the purity of the experiment, only MacBook Air laptops took part in the tests, and not firmware with M Max and M Pro chips.
| Test | Apple M1 (%) | Apple M2 (%) | Apple M3 (%) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Geekbench 6.2 | 100 | 118 | 141 |
| Cinebench R23 | 100 | 111 | 132 |
| Blender | 100 | 123 | 135 |
| Xcode | 100 | 118 | 140 |
| Premiere Pro | 100 | 118 | 146 |
| Final Cut Pro | 100 | 113 | 132 |
| HandBrake | 100 | 115 | 139 |
| Logic Pro | 100 | 117 | 132 |
The results table shows that in synthetic multi-core flow Rate measurements in Geekbench 6.2, the new M3 shows a flow Rate increase of 41% compared to the M1 and 23% compared to the M2. In Cinebench the picture is similar, although the gap is slightly smaller: the M3 is 32% faster than the M1 and 23% faster than the M2. In real-world applications, the M3 shows significant, but still not revolutionary improvements, no matter how many Apple fans would like it. If we average all the data obtained on converting and rendering videos in Handbrake, Final Cut Pro and Premiere Pro, then M3 copes with them almost one and a half times faster than M1. Naturally, these are greatly simplified figures that depend on the format and resolution of the video, but if you do not need accuracy down to a percentage, you can safely count on an increase of 40-50%.
Creating music in Logic Pro also shows noticeable productivity gains, especially in projects with multiple tracks and effects. However, there is a nuance here related to the features of multi-threaded processing in many sequencers, as well as the vastly different requirements of individual AUV3 plugins. For example, rendering the same master with a pair of extremely power-hungry Acustica Audio compressors and EQs on the master could bring even the most powerful M3 Max to its knees, let alone the regular M1 and M2 versions. If you use only stock plugins from Logic Pro, then M3 copes with rendering the master track to WAV on average 32% faster.
In Xcode, when compiling code on M3, the flow Rate gain is about 20% compared to M2 and 40% compared to M1.
3. M3: gaming processor?
When developing the M1 chip, Apple was just testing out the video graphics capabilities, the M2 was more of an intermediate option, but the M3 was already advertised as a powerful gaming processor with a built-in GPU, capable of running AAA blockbusters a la Resident Evil 4 Village and Shadow Of Tomb Raider with maximum graphics settings and a frame rate of more than 60 frames per second. For example, a MacBook Pro with M3 Max produces about 90 FPS in RE Village at maximum settings at 3200x1800, with slight drops to 70 FPS in the most intense moments.
However, we are testing the regular M3 here, not the M3 Max. And the results there are much more modest. Judging by comprehensive testing, the regular M3 is more likely to be suitable for the role of an inexpensive gaming PC, which will produce from 40 to 60 FPS in the games mentioned above with the upscaler enabled and mixed graphics settings. That is, we are talking about flow Rate at the level of an inexpensive gaming laptop with a video card a la GeForce GTX 1050 or a younger version of the Xbox Series S console. For a tiny single-chip chip, this is a solid result!
It was a “glass half full” section, now the bad news. The first is the price. The 2024 MacBook Air 13 with a 10-core version of the M3 processor, 16 GB of RAM and a far from capacious 512 GB SSD drive will cost a potential buyer somewhere between 66-67 thousand hryvnia. For the same money you can find a gaming laptop on the level of Asus ROG Strix or Acer Predator with more powerful hardware and a video card of the GeForce RTX 4060 level and support for DLSS 3.0. Well, or assemble a stationary PC of this level yourself.
And even if you still choose a MacBook with an M3, the question will very quickly arise, what to play? Apple has ignored the AAA games market for a very long time and is now desperately trying to jump on the last carriage of the departing train by porting recent hits like Baldur's Gate 3, Resident Evil Village and Path Of Exile 2 to MacOS. However, this does not help much: the Steam section for MacOS looks the same expensive and rich, like a barbecue party visiting a family of raw foodists: there are very few large projects and, as a rule, these are not very fresh games a la Disco Elysium. For which, by the way, you don’t need a PC for several thousand dollars. There is nothing to say about the Apple Arcade service, it is still jam-packed with mobile match-3 games.
4. Conclusion: is it worth upgrading?
If we go back a few years to the time of the M1 presentation, Apple's successes cause either delight or envy. Making a powerful single-chip chip, which in some cases will outperform desktop Intel Core i9 and Ryzen 9, is expensive. Further progress expectedly slowed down, and now Apple, along with AMD and Intel, simply updates the line annually, progressively increasing single-core and multi-core flow Rate. As a result, the M3 turned out to be an excellent, but not revolutionary update, which is noticeably ahead of the first-born M1, but compared to the M2 it does not look so promising. This is if we talk about everyday and professional tasks.
Regarding the “MacBook and games” item, everything is much less obvious. There are frankly few interesting games on Mac and, frankly, this is unlikely to change in the near future. Knowing Apple's love of controlling everything and imposing its vision on developers, it seems to us that most major studios will remain making games for consoles, ignoring the dubious prospect of porting and supporting games for MacOS, iOS and iPadOS. But this is exactly what Apple wants after the company’s smartphones and tablets switch to M-series chips. And no one is going to look for their Phil Spencer or Jim Ryan there.
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