Apple's M4 Pro and M4 Max processors are twice as fast as their M1, Thunderbolt 5 120Gbps counterparts

Alongside the new MacBook Pro models, Apple also introduced its new M4 Pro and M4 Max processors. The base M4 chip made its debut earlier this year in the latest iPads.

All three processors are built on a second-generation 3nm manufacturing process, which enhances performance and energy efficiency compared to their predecessors. The integrated graphics processors are based on architecture from the previous generation.

The M4 Pro and M4 Max processors are the first to support Thunderbolt 5, with a unified memory bandwidth increased by 75%. According to Apple, the new NPU Neural Engine integrated into these chips is nearly twice as fast as its predecessor.

Apple M4 Pro

The M4 Pro chip features up to 14 compute cores, including up to 10 performance cores and 4 efficiency cores. Apple claims it is 1.9 times faster than the M1 Pro and up to 2.1 times faster than the "latest AI PC chip." The GPU has up to 20 cores, offering performance that is double that of the M4's GPU and up to 2.4 times faster than "the latest AI PC chip."

"This significant performance boost allows developers to build and test applications on multiple simulators in Xcode faster than ever before. With the enhanced hardware acceleration for ray tracing in the M4 series GPUs, games like Control look even more appealing, and professional 3D renderings can produce stunning images in even less time."

The M4 Pro supports up to 64 GB of fast unified memory and 273 GB/s memory bandwidth—75% more than the M3 Pro and "twice the bandwidth of any AI PC chip." M4 Pro also supports Thunderbolt 5 on Macs with data speeds of up to 120 Gbps.

Apple M4 Max

M4 Max has up to 16 compute cores: up to 12 performance cores and 4 efficiency cores. The manufacturer claims it is 2.2 times faster than the M1 Max and up to 2.5 times faster than the same hypothetical AI PC. The GPU has up to 40 cores, which are 1.9 times faster than the M1 Max and up to 4 times "faster than the latest AI PC chip."

"Thus, large workloads, such as noise reduction in raw footage, can now be processed in real-time in DaVinci Resolve Studio."

M4 Max supports up to 128 GB of unified memory and a bandwidth of up to 546 GB/s. Apple notes that this allows developers to easily interact with large language models that have nearly 200 billion parameters. The advanced media chip in the M4 Max includes two video encoding engines and two ProRes accelerators. Like the M4 Pro, the M4 Max supports Thunderbolt 5 with speeds up to 120 Gbps.

Artificial Intelligence in Mac

The company highlights that the M4, M4 Pro, and M4 Max are designed for Apple Intelligence. Artificial intelligence is available in English starting with macOS Sequoia 15.1.

"With the newly revamped Siri, users can seamlessly switch between voice and typed queries to accelerate task completion throughout the day, while Siri can answer thousands of questions about the Mac and other Apple products."

New features of Apple Intelligence, including the integration of ChatGPT into Siri and Writing Tools, will be available in December. Additional capabilities will be rolled out in the coming months.

Source: Apple