Apple has recently announced the launch of the M4Pro and M4Max chips, which, along with the M4 chip, will bring significant performance improvements and advanced features to Mac computers. All three chips are manufactured using the industry-leading second-generation 3-nanometer process technology, optimizing both performance and energy efficiency. The M4 series chips feature a high-speed central processing unit (CPU) that achieves top-tier single-thread performance and significantly enhances multi-thread performance.
In terms of graphics processing, the M4 series continues the groundbreaking architecture of its predecessors with faster core speeds and a doubling of ray tracing performance. The M4Pro and M4Max chips enable the Mac's first support for Thunderbolt 5, and the unified memory bandwidth has been increased by up to 75%. Thanks to the neural network engine with up to double the performance of its predecessor and the machine learning accelerators in the CPU, the M4 series chips deliver exceptional performance for professional and AI tasks.
The M4 chip makes its debut on the Mac, offering outstanding performance for all users. It features up to a 10-core CPU, including 4 performance cores and up to 6 efficiency cores, with CPU performance up to 1.8 times faster than the M1. The 10-core graphics processor provides superior graphics performance, up to twice as fast as the M1 chip. The 16-core neural network engine is faster and designed for Apple's intelligence and other AI tasks. The M4 chip supports up to 32GB of unified memory, with memory bandwidth increased to 120Gb/s, and supports the use of two external displays simultaneously with the built-in display.
The M4Pro chip further enhances the advanced technologies first introduced by the M4, featuring up to a 14-core CPU, including up to 10 performance cores and 4 efficiency cores. CPU performance is up to 1.9 times faster than the M1Pro, and the graphics processor includes up to 20 cores, double that of the M4 chip. The M4Pro chip supports up to 64GB of high-speed unified memory and memory bandwidth up to 273GB/s, an increase of up to 75% compared to the M3Pro. The M4Pro chip also enables the Mac's first support for Thunderbolt 5, achieving data transfer speeds of up to 120Gb/s.
The M4Max chip is designed for professionals facing extremely heavy tasks, featuring up to a 16-core CPU, including up to 12 performance cores and 4 efficiency cores. Its performance is up to 2.2 times faster than the M1Max chip's CPU, and the graphics processor has up to 40 cores, up to 1.9 times faster than the M1Max chip. The M4Max chip supports up to 128GB of high-speed unified memory and memory bandwidth up to 546GB/s, four times that of the latest AI PC chips. The enhanced media processing engine of the M4Max chip includes two video encoding engines and two ProRes accelerators, making it an ideal choice for video professionals. Like the M4Pro chip, the M4Max chip supports Thunderbolt 5, with data transfer speeds up to 120Gb/s.
The M4, M4Pro, and M4Max chips are designed for Apple's intelligence, and the personal intelligent system Apple's intelligence has now arrived on personal computers, bringing the Mac into a new era. Apple's intelligence combines powerful generative models with industry-leading privacy features, unlocking new ways to work, communicate, and express oneself on the Mac using the performance of Apple's chips and the neural network engine. The energy efficiency of the M4 series chips ensures that the new MacBook Pro lineup meets Apple's high standards for energy efficiency, with battery life up to 24 hours. This means less charging time and less energy consumption over the product's lifecycle. For desktop systems like the iMac and Mac mini, the energy efficiency of Apple's chips also means reduced overall energy consumption.