The M2 generation of Macs isn’t done rolling out yet, with a 15-inch MacBook Air M2 and potentially an M2 Ultra Mac Pro set to debut at Apple’s upcoming WWDC event. But the company is already hard at work preparing for the next generation of devices, with tests on the M3 processors well advanced according to a new rumor.
In the latest installment of his Power On newsletter, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman claims that Apple is working on the next update to its Mac chip, citing data shared by an understandably anonymous App Store developer. The version of the M3 spotted in testing, believed to be an approximation of the base M3 Pro, has 12 CPU cores, split into six high-performance cores and six low-power cores. That compares to 10 CPU cores (six high power and four efficiency) in the M2 Pro and eight (four/four) in the M1 Pro. The report thus gains credibility by being a logical progression from previous versions.
The purported M3 Pro also includes 18 graphics cores (another logical progression from 16 in the M2 Pro and 14 in the M1 Pro) and 36GB of RAM (compared to 32GB in the previous two chips). Based on the various progressions, Gurman speculates that the M3 Max could feature 14 CPU cores and 40 graphics cores, while the M3 Ultra, thanks to optimizations made possible by the 3nm manufacturing process, could “up to 28 cores of processor and sport more than 80 graphics cores, compared to a 64-core limit on the M1 Ultra. They will be very fast processors.
Gurman argues that the M3 could be a key part of Apple’s strategy to win back customers from the Mac family, which saw a 31% drop in revenue in the latest financial results. The M3, he says, could help the company offer “new ways to entice customers back into the lineup.”
In other words, this is going to be a big year for the Mac. All eyes will be on WWDC next month for the remaining M2 machines, but Gurman thinks the first M3 Macs could arrive by late 2023 or early 2024. Apple, he was told , already working on M3-based versions of the iMac, MacBook Pro, and MacBook Air.
