This week, Apple unveiled its latest M4 series chips at a launch event, marking its strong presence in the personal computer market. Apple claims that devices equipped with the M4Pro and M4Max significantly outperform competitors' AI PC chips, especially in handling artificial intelligence tasks.
The M4Pro chip offers up to 14 CPU cores, with 10 high-performance cores and 4 efficiency cores, along with 20 GPU cores. Apple states that the M4Pro is 2.1 times faster in AI computing capabilities than Intel's Core Ultra7258V, while the M4Max boasts an even more impressive claim of a 4-fold performance advantage in AI workloads.
Although Apple did not specify the exact workloads mentioned, industry speculation suggests that Apple primarily focuses on bandwidth-limited tasks such as large language models (LLMs). The M4Pro supports up to 64GB of LPDDR memory with a bandwidth of 273GB/s, and the M4Max supports 128GB of memory with a bandwidth of 546GB/s. In comparison, Intel's Core Ultra chips can only support up to 32GB of memory with a bandwidth of 132GB/s, providing support for Apple's comparison.
Beyond the robust AI computing performance, the M4Pro and M4Max also see significant improvements in other areas. These chips utilize TSMC's second-generation 3nm process technology, with Apple claiming that their CPU cores are industry-leading in single-threaded performance. The graphics processing capabilities of the M4 series have also been enhanced, with Apple stating that ray tracing performance has doubled compared to the previous generation.
In terms of new product launches, Apple updated its MacBook Pro and Mac mini series. The new MacBook Pro maintains a similar appearance to its predecessor but has undergone comprehensive internal upgrades, including higher display brightness and enhanced multi-display support. The new Mac mini has made design improvements while retaining its compact size, but with a reduction in the number of interfaces.
Apple's new M4 chips and updated Mac products showcase its continuous innovation and efforts in the high-performance computing field.
Key Highlights:
🌟 The M4Pro and M4Max chips lead in AI computing performance, with the M4Max claiming a 4-fold performance advantage over Intel chips.
💻 The new MacBook Pro and Mac mini series have been updated with improved configurations, but with minimal changes in appearance.
⚙️ The M4 series chips utilize TSMC's latest 3nm technology, significantly enhancing single-threaded performance and graphics processing capabilities.