Apple is working on its most powerful chip yet, the M3 Max – but don’t expect to see it this year

Apple is already testing the high-end variant of its upcoming M3 chip: the M3 Max, which can characteristic in high-end Mac merchandise just like the next-gen MacBook Professional.

As reported by Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, Apple leaker extraordinaire, a third-party Mac developer discovered references to the chip in Apple’s check logs. The M3 Max will reportedly characteristic a 16-core CPU and 40-core GPU, the previous of which can characteristic 12 efficiency cores and 4 effectivity cores.

It’s a major step up in CPU phrases from the earlier M2 Max chip, which provided 8 efficiency cores and 4 effectivity cores. The GPU solely beneficial properties two cores over its M2 predecessor, nevertheless it’s unlikely that’ll be a sticking level for customers; Apple’s silicon already provides spectacular graphical capabilities for artistic workloads.

The brand new chip will supposedly be manufactured on a brand new 3nm course of, which ought to supply each efficiency and power-efficiency benefits over TSMC’s 5nm course of, which was used for the M2 collection of chips.

The newest and biggest MacBook?

Though we don’t have precise particulars of the gadget through which Apple is allegedly testing the M3 Max, it’s apparently an unreleased MacBook mannequin codenamed ‘J514’. This aligns with a earlier leak detailing a 14-inch MacBook Professional with the identical codename.

Curiously, the leak reveals that the J514 machine makes use of 48GB of RAM, although the current-gen MacBook Professional can carry as much as 96GB, so it’s probably this check machine isn’t probably the most high-end configuration that will likely be accessible.

Though Gurman has beforehand claimed we’ll see M3 gadgets this yr, I wouldn’t anticipate this mannequin to be a part of the preliminary lineup; likelihood is we’ll first see Mac merchandise bearing the usual M3 chip, most likely a brand new MacBook Air, earlier than the M3 Professional and M3 Max chips arrive. Naturally, we are able to anticipate an M3 Extremely (which is more likely to basically be two M3 Max chips sandwiched collectively to make one final frankenprocessor) to reach in professional-grade Mac merchandise later in 2024.

Apple’s MacBook Professional line has lengthy cemented itself as worthy of standing among the many finest laptops – and M3 guarantees to be quicker and extra highly effective than something earlier than it. For a lot of – myself included – M2 was spectacular however not fairly the generational leap we’d have preferred to see. Will M3 ship? We’ll have to attend and see…