Apple’s M3 Max MacBook Pro will be a performance powerhouse

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Apple launched the Apple Silicon M1 chip back in 2020, and it was nothing short of a silicon revolution. Apple’s new chip was way ahead of the competition in terms of performance and efficiency. 

The Cupertino company followed up with the M2 chip in 2022, which was even better compared to its predecessor. It’s fair to say with Apple Silicon; even professionals returned to the MacBook Pro for their work. 

And now, Apple is reportedly working on an even more powerful M-series silicon, the Apple M3 Max, that will power the upcoming MacBook Pros. According to the report, its performance will gain is going to be mind-blowing. 

M3 Max MacBook Pro to get substantially more powerful CPU and GPU

Reputed Apple journalist Mark Gurman has revealed via Bloomberg that Apple has begun testing its most powerful mobile chipset, the M3 Max. 

The upcoming Apple M3 Max could sport 16 CPU cores with 12 high-performance and four efficiency cores, and 40 GPU cores in at least one of its configurations.

The configuration in testing also features a whopping 48GB of integrated RAM, although we’re sure there will be more memory on offer when it launches.

In contrast, the current flagship 16-inch MacBook Pro maxes out at a 12-core CPU and 38-core GPU, and a 16-core Neural Engine, with up to 96GB of RAM and up to 8TB SSD storage. 

It sounds pretty alluring, but this configuration costs $6,500, and only a handful of professionals can take advantage of its enormous power. 

Now, consider the fact the upcoming M3 Max MacBook Pro will be even more powerful. In addition to adding more cores, the M3 chips will also be using TSMC’s latest 3nm production process.

In contrast, TSMC’s 5mm process was used to manufacture the M2 series. The manufacturing process jump will yield better battery life and strong performance gains, even without adding more cores.

Unfortunately, M3 Max MacBook Pro isn’t coming anytime soon

However, this beast of a machine is not expected to launch anytime soon, at least not before January 2024. 

However, if you don’t need all this power, and we don’t expect many would require it, the base variant of the M3 chip will be plenty powerful, with the same configuration as the base M2 chip.

It will have eight CPU cores and up to 10 GPU cores, while the M3 Pro will start with 12 CPU cores and 18 GPU cores. In contrast, the M2 Pro starts with 10 CPU cores and 16 GPU cores.

So, we guess Apple will start launching the M3-powered devices pretty soon, starting October 2023. However, we speculate the launch will be limited to the base variant M3, while the M3 Pro and the M3 Max-equipped devices will be stored for a later date, likely in early 2024.

So, for October 2023, keep your eyes locked on the M3-equipped 13-inch MacBook Air, 13-inch MacBook Pro, Mac mini, and iMac. We speculate the 15-inch MacBook Air with M3 and the rest of the Macs with M3 Pro and M3 Max will be unveiled in 2024.

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