Latest news with #M2Ultra
Yahoo
10-03-2025
- Yahoo
Apple's Best New Chipset Isn't the M4 Max
Aside from the launch of the sky blue M4-powered MacBook Air, this week's flurry of Apple announcements saw the introduction of the most powerful Apple silicon desktop processor yet. Given Apple's numbering scheme for its own chipsets, you'd think that would be one with an M4 label attached, but it's actually the M3 Ultra, which will power the newest Mac Studio. Since Apple started releasing its own chipsets with the M designation, we've seen a variety of different labels attached. First came the standard processor, then the Pro, then the Max, and then the Ultra, with performance improving with each iteration. We're now up to the M4 Max and the M3 Ultra. When preordering directly from Apple, you can fit the latest Mac Studio with either the M4 Max or the M3 Ultra, but the latter's superior capabilities are evident in the pricing: The starting price of an M3 Ultra Mac Studio is double that of an M4 Max Mac Studio. Here's what's going on: As with previous generation chipsets with the Ultra moniker, the M3 Ultra is essentially two M3 Max processors fused together and appearing as one, using a technique Apple calls UltraFusion. You're basically getting twice the performance: This piece of silicon features an incredible 184 billion transistors. So many cores Here are some more stats: The M3 Ultra offers up to 32 CPU cores (compared to 24 on its most comparable predecessor, the M2 Ultra. It sports up to 80 CPU cores (compared to 76 on the M2 Ultra), 32 neural cores (the same as the M2 Ultra), support for up to 512GB of memory (compared to 192GB on the M2 Ultra), and up to 819GB/s of memory bandwidth (compared to 800GB/s). Overall, performance is around 1.5x of the Apple M2 Ultra. While the M2 Ultra chipset is the direct forebear to the M3 Ultra, if you're buying a Mac Studio, you'll be choosing between the M3 Ultra to the M4 Max—the latter being the processor that launched last year with the refreshed MacBook Pros. The M4 Max gives you up to 16 CPU cores, up to 40 GPU cores, 16 neural cores, support for up to 128GB of memory, and up to 546GB/s of memory bandwidth. One of the benefits of the M3 Ultra supporting so much RAM—more than half a terabyte—is that users can run more powerful AI models locally, on their own machines. A Mac Studio with an M3 Ultra inside should have enough oomph to run something like DeepSeek R1 locally, without having to connect to servers in China. The M3 Ultra also comes with a Thunderbolt 5 upgrade, doubling the maximum data transfer rates from Thunderbolt 4, up to 120Gb/s. This means you can even link multiple Mac Studios together (if you've got the budget for them), while the display engine on the M3 Ultra is capable of driving more than 160 million pixels—the equivalent of eight Pro Display XDRs. "M3 Ultra is the pinnacle of our scalable system-on-a-chip architecture, aimed specifically at users who run the most heavily threaded and bandwidth-intensive applications," says Johny Srouji, a senior vice president of hardware technologies at Apple. And what of the M4 Ultra? Apple hasn't said anything about it yet, but intimated to Ars Technica that it might not add an Ultra model this time around. That would make the M4 series the first to go without an Ultra variant, but as these super-powerful, super-expensive chipsets are only of interest to those with the most demanding needs and the deepest pockets, less frequent launches may be the most logical course of action.
Yahoo
05-03-2025
- Yahoo
Want Apple's best Mac Studio? Prepare to pay over $14,000
Apple just launched its new Mac Studio alongside the latest MacBook Air. The new Studio comes equipped with either an M4 Max or an M3 Ultra chip, and while it sounds mighty powerful and fully capable of rivaling some of the best Macs, it's also crazy expensive. If you want to configure it with all the bells and whistles Apple offers, you'll have to pay over $14,500 — a huge increase over the previous generation. The new Mac Studio is certainly nothing to turn your nose up at. The M4 Max configuration starts with a 14-core CPU, 32-core GPU, and a 16-core neural engine. You're also getting 36GB of unified memory and 512GB of SSD storage. This will set you back $1,999, which is the same as the last-gen Mac Studio that came equipped with the M2 Max and the M2 Ultra chips, so we're all good. The M3 Ultra version — which, although the naming might be confusing, is indeed more powerful — starts at $3,999. Again, this is the same as the previous generation, although the specs go up significantly. Buying the M3 Ultra Mac Studio gives you a 28-core CPU, a 32-core neural engine, and a 60-core GPU. The base version sports 96GB of unified memory and 1TB of SSD storage, so it's a solid upgrade compared to the M2 Ultra equivalent. Price-wise, it's all downhill from here — or should I say, uphill. Let's say you're after the best of the best. In the case of this particular workstation, that means upgrading to the M3 Ultra chip (with a 32-core CPU, an 80-core GPU, and a 32-core neural engine). Next, you'd pick the 512GB unified memory upgrade, which is only available with the top M3 Ultra and costs $4,000 all on its own. Lastly, 16TB storage, which is also an expensive upgrade — switching from 1TB to 16TB adds $4,600. These hardware upgrades alone add up to an eye-watering $14,099. That's Mac Pro levels of pricing, and is a lot more than the previous generation, which maxed out at $8,799. You can make this slightly more expensive (because why not, at this point) by adding pre-installed software — Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro — adding up to a total of $14,598. While $14,600 is a lot to spend on anything, especially a PC, it's worth noting that the Mac Studio is aimed at professionals who really need that kind of power for their day-to-day workloads. Still, Apple went all-out on the pricing, and the increase from $8,799 to over $14,000 is definitely significant.
Yahoo
05-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Apple reveals M3 Ultra, taking Apple silicon to a new extreme
The new chip delivers up to 2.6x the performance of M1 Ultra, along with Thunderbolt 5 connectivity and support for more than half a terabyte of unified memory — the most ever in a personal computer CUPERTINO, Calif., March 05, 2025--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Apple® today announced M3 Ultra, the highest-performing chip it has ever created, offering the most powerful CPU and GPU in a Mac®, double the Neural Engine cores, and the most unified memory ever in a personal computer. M3 Ultra also features Thunderbolt 5 with more than 2x the bandwidth per port for faster connectivity and robust expansion. M3 Ultra is built using Apple's innovative UltraFusion® packaging architecture, which links two M3 Max dies over 10,000 high-speed connections that offer low latency and high bandwidth. This allows the system to treat the combined dies as a single, unified chip for massive performance while maintaining Apple's industry-leading power efficiency. UltraFusion brings together a total of 184 billion transistors to take the industry-leading capabilities of the new Mac Studio® to new heights. "M3 Ultra is the pinnacle of our scalable system-on-a-chip architecture, aimed specifically at users who run the most heavily threaded and bandwidth-intensive applications," said Johny Srouji, Apple's senior vice president of Hardware Technologies. "Thanks to its 32-core CPU, massive GPU, support for the most unified memory ever in a personal computer, Thunderbolt 5 connectivity, and industry-leading power efficiency, there's no other chip like M3 Ultra." Ultra Performance and Efficiency M3 Ultra provides the most performance of any Mac chip, while maintaining the industry-leading power-efficiency of Apple silicon. It features up to a 32-core CPU with 24 performance cores and eight efficiency cores, delivering up to 1.5x the performance of M2 Ultra, and up to 1.8x that of M1 Ultra. It also has the largest GPU in any Apple chip, with up to 80 graphics cores that bring up to 2x faster performance than M2 Ultra, and up to 2.6x faster than M1 Ultra.1 The advanced graphics architecture in M3 Ultra features dynamic caching, along with hardware-accelerated mesh shading and ray tracing, so it can fly through the most demanding content creation workloads and games. A powerful 32-core Neural Engine fuels AI and machine learning (ML), and powers Apple Intelligence™, the personal intelligence system that puts powerful generative models right at the core of the new Mac Studio. In fact, M3 Ultra is built for AI, including ML accelerators in the CPU, Apple's most powerful GPU, the Neural Engine, and over 800GB/s of memory bandwidth. AI professionals can use Mac Studio with M3 Ultra to run large language models (LLMs) with over 600 billion parameters directly on device, making it the ultimate desktop for AI development. Unparalleled Memory The unified memory architecture of M3 Ultra integrates the most high-bandwidth, low-latency memory ever available in a personal computer. Starting at 96GB, it can be configured up to 512GB, or over half a terabyte. This outpaces the memory available in today's most advanced workstation graphics cards, removing limitations for pro workloads that demand large amounts of graphics memory like 3D rendering, visual effects, and AI. Thunderbolt 5 for Next-Generation Connectivity M3 Ultra brings Thunderbolt 5 to Mac Studio for up to 120 Gb/s data transfer speeds — more than double that of Thunderbolt 4. Each Thunderbolt 5 port is supported by its own custom-designed controller directly on the chip. This provides dedicated bandwidth for each port on Mac Studio, making it the industry's most capable implementation of Thunderbolt 5. Thunderbolt 5 ports on Mac Studio are a game changer for pro users who require faster data transfer speeds for external storage, docking, and hub solutions, and want to be ready for the next generation of expansion chassis. Thunderbolt 5 also enables connecting multiple Mac Studio systems together for workflows that push the limits of content creation and computer science exploration. Cutting-Edge Technologies Built In In the pursuit of maximizing performance and efficiency, M3 Ultra integrates Apple's advanced technologies right on the chip: Apple's custom-built UltraFusion packaging technology uses an embedded silicon interposer that connects two M3 Max dies across more than 10,000 signals, providing over 2.5TB/s of low-latency interprocessor bandwidth, and making M3 Ultra appear as a single chip to software. With 2x the resources of M3 Max, the media engine within M3 Ultra is capable of far more concurrent video processing. The chip offers dedicated, hardware-enabled H.264, HEVC, and four ProRes® encode and decode engines, allowing M3 Ultra to play back up to 22 streams of 8K ProRes 422 video. The display engine supports up to eight Pro Display XDRs, driving more than 160 million pixels. The Secure Enclave works with hardware-verified secure boot and runtime anti-exploitation technologies to provide state-of-the-art security. Better for the Environment The power-efficient performance of M3 Ultra helps the new Mac Studio meet Apple's high standards for energy efficiency and reduces the total amount of energy consumed over the product's lifetime. Today, Apple is carbon neutral for global corporate operations and, as part of its ambitious Apple 2030 goal, plans to be carbon neutral across its entire carbon footprint by the end of this decade. Apple revolutionized personal technology with the introduction of the Macintosh in 1984. Today, Apple leads the world in innovation with iPhone, iPad, Mac, AirPods, Apple Watch, and Apple Vision Pro. Apple's six software platforms — iOS, iPadOS, macOS, watchOS, visionOS, and tvOS — provide seamless experiences across all Apple devices and empower people with breakthrough services including the App Store, Apple Music, Apple Pay, iCloud, and Apple TV+. Apple's more than 150,000 employees are dedicated to making the best products on earth and to leaving the world better than we found it. Results are compared to previous-generation Mac Studio systems with Apple M1 Ultra, 20-core CPU, 64-core GPU, and 128GB of RAM; and Mac Studio systems with Apple M2 Ultra, 24-core CPU, 76-core GPU, and 192GB of RAM. NOTE TO EDITORS: For additional information visit Apple Newsroom ( or email Apple's Media Helpline at © 2025 Apple Inc. All rights reserved. Apple, the Apple logo, Mac, UltraFusion, Mac Studio, Apple Intelligence, ProRes, and Apple Pro Display XDR are trademarks of Apple. Other company and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners. View source version on Contacts Press Contacts: Todd WilderApplewilder@ Lauren KlugApplel_klug@
Yahoo
05-03-2025
- Yahoo
M4 MacBook Air 或今晚亮相，Apple 順帶為 Mac Studio 更新 M4 Max 和 M3 Ultra 晶片？
發表 M3 iPad Air 和 iPad 11 後 Apple 本週似乎還有動作，根據彭博 Mark Gurman 的說法，原先就傳這個禮拜最有可能登場的 M4 MacBook Air 實際將在今晚到來。不光如此，他還透露新款 Mac Studio「最快」也會在本週和新的 MBA 一同亮相，而其升級的重點將是 M4 Max 和尚未公開過的 M3 Ultra 晶片。 With an M3 Ultra going into the Mac Studio, Apple could differentiate from the Mac Pro, which could then get the M4 Ultra. Right now, the Mac Studio and Mac Pro oddly both have the M2 Ultra and same overall performance. — Mark Gurman (@markgurman) March 4, 2025 現有的 Mac Studio 提供了 M2 Max 和 M2 Ultra 兩個版本，Gurman 認為引入 M4 Max 和 M3 Ultra 後，能讓它和目前也可選 M2 Ultra 但之後會升級 M4 Ultra 的 Mac Pro 區隔開來。Apple 是否會這麼做？或許再過幾個小時就有答案了。 更多內容： M4 MacBook Air 流言懶人包：設計不變、新增奈米紋理玻璃與 Thunderbolt 4？ M3 iPad Air、新精妙鍵盤齊登場，售價 HK$4,599 起和 HK$2,099 起 11 代 iPad 升級 A16 晶片與 128GB 儲存空間，售價 HK$2,799 起 緊貼最新科技資訊、網購優惠，追隨 Yahoo Tech 各大社交平台！ 🎉📱 Tech Facebook： 🎉📱 Tech Instagram： 🎉📱 Tech WhatsApp 社群： 🎉📱 Tech WhatsApp 頻道： 🎉📱 Tech Telegram 頻道：
