Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “Apple M3 Mac Event: Everything you need to know!”.
This is much later than I would normally be shooting and that’s because Apple’s event tonight was at 5:00 p.m. on the Halloween Eve to talk about new chips and two new Mac models. So let’s talk about everything they discussed in the keynote first, things. First Apple announced the new generation of Apple silicon. We are on the third generation of Apple silicon.
Now, with M3 M3 is a trio of new Chips consisting of M3 M3 Pro and M3 Max all launching. Simultaneously, previously, we’ve had Apple release. Their standard M chip followed up by their Pro and Max chip, and today we got all three all at the same time now, similar to the iPhone events. They focused heavily on graphics performance and, in particular, the ability to have the new gpus and the Macs have mesh shading and Ray tracing capabilities, which is going to push Mac gaming significantly further, and we haven’t really seen a significant bump to graphics performance, as we’ve seen Here in quite some time, also similar to the A7 Pro found in the iPhone 15 Pro is the fact that these chips are 3 nanometer. And if you you, don’t know anything about nanometers or chip sizes, that basically means that the smaller the chip, the less power it produces and the less heat that is exerted from that chip Apple spent a decent amount of time.
Discussing Dynamic caching, which allows the system to utilize the GPU even further in those Peaks and valleys where an application might not be using the GPU 100 % of the time all the time, and this allows the OS to be able to dynamically cach to that onboard System memory further increasing performance, which is awesome. They also discussed Hardware level rate tracing, which is also really cool because for the last few years rate tracing has been a priority on the PC gaming and console gaming front. And now we have that on a Mac.
Now that we have three generations of Apple, silicon Apple can now stack up the current two generations to the latest and there are significant performance gains to M1, which is really awesome. Considering the fact that M1 came out in 2020, in some cases, you’re looking at 2.5 times the performance of M1 compared to M3, and especially for those that are buying the Bas level computer, whether that be the 24-in iMac or the Baseline MacBook Pro. That is a significant step up and, if you’re using an Intel Mac, those numbers are even more astronomical, especially comparing the fastest Intel MacBook Pro to one of these M3 machines.
It’S a significant bump in performance and these Apple silicon computers, especially with the M3 use. So much less power than those Intel Max, resulting in significantly less heat output. Therefore, you won’t hear those fans. Blasting Apple also introduced an updated neural engine for better performance, especially when doing AI type tasks, and then, additionally, they added an av1 decoder to the media engine which allows you to stream movies for longer. Av1 is a codec.
That’S used for many streaming websites like YouTube and Netflix, so you’ll definitely be able to use your computer on battery for much longer when binge watching. All those shows so breaking down the three chips. As far as what you get, you can go to a 8 core CPU, a 10 core GPU and up to 24 gigs of unified memory on the M3 Pro you can go up to a 12 core CPU, an 18 core GPU and 36 GB of unified memory And then, if you go all out with the M3 Max you’re, getting 16 cores of CPU 40 cores of GPU and 128 gigs of unified memory now, as far as Hardware updates go, we got two new machines. We got a new Macbook Pro and a new iMac. The MacBook Pro is more of an internal upgrade, except for the fact that it got a new color option called space black, and this joins the 50 Shades of space gray that we’ve had over the last few years in terms of the lineup.
They also changed a little bit of the structure. We no longer have a 13-in MacBook Pro with the touch bar, so rip touch bar you’ve been good since 2016, and now we have a base model M3 based MacBook Pro, which replaces it. The based model. Now is an 8 core CPU 10 core GPU 8 gigs of RAM and 512 gig SSD for1 15.99. And then, if you want an M3 Pro, that is an 11 core CPU 14 core GPU, 18 gigs of unified memory, 512 gig SSD, and that one comes in at the same price as last year’s computer at $ 19.99.
And then, if you want a 16-in MacBook Pro, that’s going to going to be the same cost as last year. That gets you an M3 Pro 12 core CPU 18 core GPU 18 gigs of RAM and 52 gig SSD for $ 24.99. Now, if you’re looking to get the max chip, you can get an M3 Max with 14 core CPU 30 core GPU 36 gigs of RAM 1 TB SSD, and that comes in at $ 34.99. The thing I like about this, the most is the fact that it simplifies the lineup. You have a 13-inch MacBook Air, a 15-inch, MacBook Air, a 14-inch MacBook Pro and a 16-inch MacBook Pro, and it makes it really simple before the 13-inch MacBook Pro with the touch bar was kind of in a weird spot, where it didn’t really get an external change. It got updated chips and it had a fan, but the MacBook Air didn’t and it was less than the 14-inch MacBook Pro but didn’t have any of the newer features because it was in the same body as the previous Intel machines.
So that was kind of in an awkward spot, and I’m glad that Apple made a baseline, MacBook Pro 14-in that replaces it now. One thing to consider is the fact that if you want that space black color, you have to get a pro or a Max chip, and then one thing I always like like to do just because it’s fun is check all the boxes on apple.com and if we Add every single thing you could possibly add the most expensive MacBook Pro you can get is $ 71.99. That includes a M3 Max chip with 16 cores of CPU, 40 cores of GPU 16 core neural engine 128, gigs of unified memory, 8, TB of SSD storage and, of course, a 16-in MacBook Pro and the next product that Apple upgraded was the iMac and we’ve been Waiting for this for a long time, iMac never got an upgrade to M2, so we are going straight to m three and this is a significant bump. The thing I do appreciate here is obviously this is only internal spec bump, so there is no price change.
It’S just swapping out the chip and some of the other components and you can get a pretty decent iMac here. You can max out a standard 24-in iMac with an M3 chip as well as 24 gigs of RAM and 2 terby of SSD storage for $ 26.99 and obviously I think most people that are going to be buying an iMac aren’t going to Max it out. But if you needed to this is a pretty powerful computer for the price. The one thing I was missing, though, is a larger iMac. Now Apple killed the 27in iMac and replaced it with this, which is cool. But we still don’t have a 27in or a even a 30-in iMac option with Pro chips. Yet. And I really think that whenever we do get that it’ll be a really compelling device and a lot of people might argue the fact that you could just get a Mac Studio and a studio display and there’s your 5K 27in monitor.
But at the same time, it’s still not an iMac. In my opinion, especially with the 25th anniversary. This is a staple product in the lineup and I think Apple needs to make a larger, more beefy, bring back iMac Pro type option and let it be in the enclosure of a pro display, xdr and have it have a high-end Pro or Max chip in that All-In-One and I think it would be pretty popular a couple small things: the iMac also still includes lightning based accessories, so your magic Trackpad, your magic mouse and your keyboard are still lightning, even though everything else has gone.
Usbc and apple also did spend a lot of time talking about performance and having their own charts. Of course, those can be taken with a grain of salt and the name of today’s event was scary, fast and I’m very curious to see what these computers are like. In person I know year-over-year, we’ve gotten Apple silicon upgrades that have resulted in performance gains, but this time going from M2 to M3, especially in the GPU Department, seems to be a significant bump, and I hope that is translated into real world usage. Another small thing, Apple kind of grazed over is the fact that the new Macbook Pros do have brighter displays and their base knits for SDR content is now 600 to match the studio display. So if you’re looking for one of the new IMAX, 14-in, MacBook Pro or 16-in, MacBook Pro and you’re, getting an M3 or M3 Pro those are going to be available next week and if you’re looking for a 14 or 16-in MacBook Pro with the M3 Max chip. That’S not going to be available until November. All in all, I think this was a good apple event, especially in the fact that now we’re in the Apple silicon era of Max, we can get upgrades whenever it’s available for Apple to do so versus previously. We would have had to wait for Intel or wait for AMD to release gpus and CPUs to Warrant an upgrade and the craziest part. Is it’s only been since January, since the M2 Pro and M2 Max MacBook Pros released, but the iMac was well overdue.
For that upgrade and honestly, I think it’s really good for Apple to come out with new chips. This often because they’re putting some pressure on Intel and AMD as their competitors to be able to make better products – and I think competition is always going to be a good thing. So thank you guys so much for watching keep an eye out for an M3 iMac. As well as a M3 MacBook Pro review shortly in the future and have a good night, .