Apple M3 is a series of

ARM In human anatomy, the arm refers to the upper limb in common usage, although academically the term specifically means the upper arm between the glenohumeral joint (shoulder joint) and the elbow joint. The distal part of the upper limb between ...

-based

system on a chip A system on a chip (SoC) is an integrated circuit that combines most or all key components of a computer or Electronics, electronic system onto a single microchip. Typically, an SoC includes a central processing unit (CPU) with computer memory, ...

(SoC) designed by

Apple Inc. Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, in Silicon Valley. It is best known for its consumer electronics, software, and services. Founded in 1976 as Apple Comput ...

, part of the

Apple silicon Apple silicon is a series of system on a chip (SoC) and system in a package (SiP) processors designed by Apple Inc., mainly using the ARM architecture family, ARM architecture. They are used in nearly all of the company's devices including Mac ...

series, as a

central processing unit A central processing unit (CPU), also called a central processor, main processor, or just processor, is the primary Processor (computing), processor in a given computer. Its electronic circuitry executes Instruction (computing), instructions ...

(CPU) and

graphics processing unit A graphics processing unit (GPU) is a specialized electronic circuit designed for digital image processing and to accelerate computer graphics, being present either as a discrete video card or embedded on motherboards, mobile phones, personal ...

(GPU) for its

Mac Mac or MAC may refer to: Common meanings * Mac (computer), a line of personal computers made by Apple Inc. * Mackintosh, a raincoat made of rubberized cloth * Mac, a prefix to surnames derived from Gaelic languages * McIntosh (apple), a Canadi ...

desktops and

notebooks A notebook is a small book often used for writing. Notebook or The Notebook may also refer to: Computing *Laptop, a type of personal computer **Notebook (laptop), a specific, smaller class of laptop *Google Notebook, a discontinued online appli ...

and the

iPad Air The iPad is a brand of tablet computers developed and marketed by Apple that run the company's mobile operating systems iOS and later iPadOS. The first-generation iPad was introduced on January 27, 2010. Since then, the iPad product lin ...

tablets. Released in late 2023, it is the third generation of ARM architecture intended for Apple's Mac computers after switching from Intel Core to Apple silicon, succeeding the

Apple M2 Apple M2 is a series of ARM architecture family, ARM-based system on a chip (SoC) designed by Apple Inc., launched 2022 to 2023. It is part of the Apple silicon series, as a central processing unit (CPU) and graphics processing unit (GPU) for ...

Release

Apple announced the M3 on October 30, 2023, at its

Halloween Halloween, or Hallowe'en (less commonly known as Allhalloween, All Hallows' Eve, or All Saints' Eve), is a celebration geography of Halloween, observed in many countries on 31 October, the eve of the Western Christianity, Western Christian f ...

-themed ''Scary Fast'' online event, along with models of the iMac and the MacBook Pro using the M3.

Design

The M3 series is Apple's first 3 nm design for desktops and notebooks. It is manufactured by

TSMC Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (TSMC or Taiwan Semiconductor) is a Taiwanese multinational semiconductor contract manufacturing and design company. It is one of the world's most valuable semiconductor companies, the world' ...

CPU

* M3: 8-core CPU with 4 performance cores and 4 efficiency cores * M3 Pro: 11- or 12-core CPU with 5 or 6 performance cores and 6 efficiency cores * M3 Max: 14- or 16-core CPU with 10 or 12 performance cores and 4 efficiency cores * M3 Ultra: 28- or 32-core CPU with 20 or 24 performance core and 8 efficiency cores

GPU

The redesigned GPU includes features like Dynamic Caching, Mesh Shading, and hardware-accelerated ray tracing. The Dynamic Caching technology allocates local memory in real time. Unlike conventional approaches, Dynamic Caching ensures that only the precise amount of memory required for a task is used, thereby optimizing memory usage and potentially enhancing performance and efficiency. This is particularly beneficial for graphics-intensive tasks, where dynamic memory allocation can be critical. Supported

codec A codec is a computer hardware or software component that encodes or decodes a data stream or signal. ''Codec'' is a portmanteau of coder/decoder. In electronic communications, an endec is a device that acts as both an encoder and a decoder o ...

s on the M3 include 8K

H.264 Advanced Video Coding (AVC), also referred to as H.264 or MPEG-4 Part 10, is a video compression standard based on block-oriented, motion-compensated coding. It is by far the most commonly used format for the recording, compression, and d ...

, 8K

H.265 H is the eighth letter of the Latin alphabet. H may also refer to: Musical symbols * H number, Harry Halbreich reference mechanism for music by Honegger and Martinů * H, B (musical note) * H, B major People * H. (noble) (died after 12 ...

(8/10bit, up to 4:4:4), 8K

Apple ProRes Apple ProRes is a high quality, " visually lossless" lossy video compression format developed by Apple Inc. for use in post-production that supports video resolution up to 8K. It is the successor of the Apple Intermediate Codec and was introdu ...

, VP9,

JPEG JPEG ( , short for Joint Photographic Experts Group and sometimes retroactively referred to as JPEG 1) is a commonly used method of lossy compression for digital images, particularly for those images produced by digital photography. The degr ...

and

AV1 AOMedia Video 1 (AV1) is an open, royalty-free video coding format initially designed for video transmissions over the Internet. It was developed as a successor to VP9 by the Alliance for Open Media (AOMedia), a consortium founded in 2015 tha ...

decoding.

NPU

The M3 contains dedicated neural network hardware in a 16-core Neural Engine capable of executing over 18 trillion operations per second, which is faster than the A16 Bionic's 15.8 trillion operations per second NPU seen in the

iPhone 14 Pro The iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max are smartphones that were developed and marketed by Apple Inc. They are the List of iPhone models, sixteenth generation flagship iPhones, succeeding the iPhone 13 Pro and Pro Max. The devices were unveil ...

series.

AI

Apple specifically targeted AI development and workloads, both with the Neural Engine and with the increased maximum memory (128 GiB) of the M3 Max, allowing AI models with high numbers of parameters. Apple claims a 15% performance improvement for AI workloads on the M3 (compared to the previous generation M2).

Memory

The M3's

Unified Memory Architecture A graphics processing unit (GPU) is a specialized electronic circuit designed for digital image processing and to accelerate computer graphics, being present either as a discrete video card or embedded on motherboards, mobile phones, personal co ...

(UMA) is similar to the M2 generation; M3 SoCs use 6,400

MT/s In computer technology, transfers per second and its more common secondary terms gigatransfers per second (abbreviated as GT/s) and megatransfers per second (MT/s) are informal language that refer to the number of operations transferring data that ...

LPDDR5 SDRAM. As with prior M series SoCs, this serves as both RAM and video RAM. The M3 has 8 memory controllers, the M3 Pro has 12 and the M3 Max has 32. Each controller is 16-bits wide and is capable of accessing up to 4 GiB of memory. The M3 Pro and 14-core M3 Max have lower memory bandwidth than the M1/M2 Pro and M1/M2 Max respectively. The M3 Pro has a 192-bit memory bus where the M1 and M2 Pro had a 256-bit bus, resulting in only 150 GB/sec bandwidth versus 200 GB/sec for its predecessors. The 14-core M3 Max only enables 24 out of the 32 controllers, therefore it has 300 GB/sec vs. the 400 GB/sec for all models of the M1 and M2 Max, while the 16-core M3 Max has the same 400 GB/sec as the prior M1 and M2 Max models.

Other features

Other components include an

image signal processor An image processor, also known as an image processing engine, image processing unit (IPU), or image signal processor (ISP), is a type of media processor or specialized digital signal processor (DSP) used for image processing, in digital cameras or ...

(ISP), a

NVM Express NVM Express (NVMe) or Non-Volatile Memory Host Controller Interface Specification (NVMHCIS) is an open, logical-device interface functional specification, specification for accessing a computer's non-volatile storage media usually attached via th ...

storage controller, a Secure Enclave, and a

USB4 Universal Serial Bus 4 (USB4), sometimes erroneously referred to as USB 4.0, is the most recent technical specification of the USB (Universal Serial Bus) data communication standard. The USB Implementers Forum originally announced USB4 in 201 ...

controller that includes

Thunderbolt 4 Thunderbolt is the brand name of a hardware interface for the connection of external peripherals to a computer. It was developed by Intel in collaboration with Apple. It was initially marketed under the name Light Peak, and first sold as part ...

or Thunderbolt 5 support.

Products that use the Apple M3 series

M3

* MacBook Pro (14-inch, Nov 2023) - 10-core GPU * MacBook Air (13-inch and 15-inch, Mar 2024) - 8 and 10-core GPU * iMac (24-inch, 2023) - 10-core GPU * iPad Air (7th generation, 2025) - 9 core GPU

M3 Pro

* MacBook Pro (14-inch and 16-inch, Nov 2023) - 14 and 18-core GPU

M3 Max

* MacBook Pro (14-inch and 16-inch, Nov 2023) - 30 and 40-core GPU

M3 Ultra

* Mac Studio (2025) - 60 and 80-core GPU

Variants

The table below shows the various SoCs.

References

{{Application ARM-based chips Computer-related introductions in 2023 Apple silicon