Apple just keeps coming out with better and better tech to encourage us to part with our hard-earned cash. The recently designed M3 chip is here, but the M2 was just released in 2022. The question on everybody’s mind is: How much better is the M3, really?
The M3 series includes the M3 Pro, M3, and M3 Max chips. Of course, these chips are designed to wow us with improvements in efficiency, performance, and capabilities. Believe it or not, the M3 has had some significant changes over the M2. Apple has used the 3nm process to bring about these changes as well as completely redesigning the GPU.
M3 Compared to the M2
One of the changes between the M2 and M3 is that the M3 chip has a more advanced fabrication process bringing it down to just 3nm versus the 5nm of the M2 series. The number of transistors in the M3 is 5 billion more than the 20 billion of the M2. This increase means that the capabilities of the M3 are improved. As expected, the M3 outperforms the M2 by nearly 20% in single-core tasks. It outperforms more than 20% for multi-core tasks. Overall, the performance increase from the M2 to the M3 is about 15%.
The 3nm fabrication process means that the M3 has a higher performance while not having an increase in power consumption. If you are a user who likes to have as much time as possible between recharges, and who doesn’t, the M3 will be the best choice for you. The M3 also has 24GB of unified memory. Using this process allows the M3 to be even more efficient when utilizing memory over the performance of the M2.
M3 Pro Compared to M2 Pro
The M3 Pro has fewer transistors than the M2 Pro by about 3 billion. However, despite the smaller number of transistors, the M3 Pro’s use of 3nm technology allows it to still have an increase in performance, albeit moderate. When comparing single-core tasks between the M3 Pro and M2 Pro, the M3 Pro has a nearly 20% improvement over the M2 Pro. However, the M3 Pro’s comparison of multi-core tasks has a more modest improvement of less than 10%. This is still an improvement, though, in a way that users can appreciate and benefit from.
M3 Max compared to M2 Max
The M3 Max really amps up the number of transistors compared to the M2 Max. The M3 Max has a staggering 92 billion transistors while the M2 Max has just 67 billion. This drastic increase in transistors means the M3 Max has the capacity to perform more efficiently and has more complex capabilities when it comes to processing. The improvements in the M3 max marks a shift towards improving the processing power versus previous generations.
The Takeaway
Generally, when Apple comes out with a new chip, you can expect improvements. The M3 chips do just that. If you want better performance, more complexity of capabilities, and more efficiency, you should consider the M3, M3 Pro, or M3 Max devices over M2 iterations.