Apple Starts Testing Upcoming M3 Chip Variants

Apple has products running the M2 chip or its variants that are still upcoming. That being the case, it should probably be no surprise that the iPhone maker is already working on the next generation of chips to succeed it. Likely to be called simply the M3 family of chips, Bloomberg reports that the fruit company has already started putting them through their paces.

Or, according to the Mark Gurman Power On newsletter, Apple “is already ramping up testing” of the M3 chips. The report also goes on to reveal a slight glimpse into what the next-generation processor has to offer. Citing an App Store developer, the report notes that “at least one version in testing has 12 CPU cores, 18 graphics cores and 36GB of memory”. On the CPU cores, they are split evenly between six high-performance cores, with the remaining six being efficiency cores for less intense tasks.

This particular chip is noted as likely being the “base-level version of what will be the M3 Pro coming next year”, with a “future high-end MacBook Pro serving as the testbed. The newsletter then goes on with speculating what the M3 Max and Ultra variants will be packing, based on the difference between the M1 Pro, M2 Pro and the supposed M3 Pro in testing. We won’t go into all that, but also noted is the use of the 3nm manufacturing process used to make the M3 line chips, allowing more cores to be squeezed in compared to before

Naturally, with these M3 chips, don’t expect them to be coming to something you can buy anytime soon. Gurman made this prediction before, but notes again that the first Macs with these new chips will only be “arriving toward the end of the year or early next year”. That being said, when they do become available, Gurman says you can probably find them in new iMacs, MacBook Pro and Macbook Air models across the spectrum.

(Source: Bloomberg)