New Delhi: Apple Unveils M4 Chipset Family for Enhanced Performance in the AI Era
Apple has introduced its new M4 chipset family—comprising the M4, M4 Pro, and M4 Max—designed to empower a diverse range of professionals, including entrepreneurs, students, creators, data scientists, 3D artists, composers, and developers. Built on advanced second-generation 3-nanometer technology, these chipsets promise significantly improved performance and power efficiency.
Performance and Efficiency Enhancements
According to Apple, the CPUs in the M4 family feature the world’s fastest CPU core, providing the industry’s best single-threaded performance and dramatically enhanced multithreaded capabilities. The GPUs have also been upgraded, building on the breakthrough graphics architecture of the previous generation. Notably, they feature faster cores and a ray-tracing engine that is twice as fast as before.
For the first time, the M4 Pro and M4 Max support Thunderbolt 5, while also offering a substantial increase in unified memory bandwidth—up to 75 percent.
Neural Engine and Machine Learning Advances
Apple emphasizes that the M4 family includes a Neural Engine that is up to twice as fast as its predecessor, along with improved machine learning (ML) accelerators integrated within the CPUs. This combination delivers remarkable performance for professional and AI workloads.
Detailed Specifications
- M4 Chip:
- Up to 10-core CPU (4 performance cores and up to 6 efficiency cores).
- Performance is up to 1.8 times faster than the M1.
- 10-core GPU, achieving graphics performance that is up to 2 times faster than the M1.
- Supports up to 32GB of unified memory with a bandwidth of 120GB/s.
- M4 Pro:
- Up to 14-core CPU (10 performance cores and 4 efficiency cores).
- Offers performance up to 1.9 times faster than the M1 Pro, and up to 2.1 times faster than the latest AI PC chip.
- Supports up to 64GB of unified memory and has a memory bandwidth of 273GB/s, which is a 75 percent increase over the M3 Pro.
- M4 Max:
- Features an up to 16-core CPU (12 performance cores and 4 efficiency cores).
- Performance is up to 2.2 times faster than the M1 Max and up to 2.5 times faster than the latest AI PC chip.
- Supports up to 128GB of unified memory and an impressive memory bandwidth of 546GB/s—four times that of the latest AI PC chip, facilitating interaction with large language models featuring nearly 200 billion parameters.
Built for Apple Intelligence
Apple asserts that the M4, M4 Pro, and M4 Max are crafted for the demands of Apple Intelligence, setting a new benchmark in computing performance for a wide array of professional applications. The introduction of these chipsets marks a significant step forward in Apple’s ongoing commitment to enhancing the capabilities of its devices, particularly as the industry increasingly leans into artificial intelligence and high-performance computing.
