M3 Professional/Max vs M2 Professional/Max

Apple launched its new M3, M3 Professional, and M3 Max customized silicon with the brand new MacBook Professional laptops and iMac. With extra highly effective CPUs, GPUs, and media engines, the chips additionally help as much as 128GB of unified reminiscence. Be a part of alongside for our in-depth M3 Professional/Max vs M2 Professional/Max comparability (and base M3 vs M2 too) for a way every thing compares.

Apple has refreshed the MacBook Professional and iMac simply earlier than the top of 2023 with the brand new M3 household. Whether or not you’re curious about shopping for a brand new laptop computer or desktop Mac or are simply inquisitive about how the brand new Apple Silicon compares, let’s bounce in!

We’ll additionally embody the entry-level M3 vs M2 within the charts under. And for detailed MacBook Professional and iMac comparisons, try these guides:

M3 Professional/Max vs M2 Professional/Max

CPU, GPU, reminiscence, neural engine specs

Apparently, for the M3 Professional, the high-end has 1 much less GPU core and 50GB/s much less reminiscence bandwidth.

Apple says the M3 household effectivity cores are as much as 30% sooner than the M2 household, and as much as 50% sooner than the M1 household.

For efficiency cores, the M3 household is 15 and 30% sooner than M2 and M1, respectively.

And Apple says rendering on M3 is as much as 1.8x sooner than M2 (and as much as 2.5x sooner than M1).

Transistor rely

The general transistor rely has elevated to 25 billion for the M3, 37 billion for M3 Professional, and 92 billion for the M3 Max.

CPU benchmark scores

In our first take a look at M3 iMac benchmarks, the single-core and multi-core scores got here in close to the 35% enchancment that Apple claims.

And for the M3 Max, it’s clocking in about 44% sooner than M2 Max for multi-core scores and about 10% sooner for single-core efficiency.

We haven’t seen M2 Professional benchmarks seem simply but.

GPU benchmark scores and new options

In one of many first GPU benchmarks to point out up on Geekbench, the M3 Max earned a steel rating of 158466, which is up 15% in comparison with the 137525 Steel rating of the M2 Max.

Together with the 2 additional GPU cores (as much as 40) of the M3 Max and sooner efficiency, the M3 GPUs include:

• {Hardware}-accelerated ray tracing
  • Allows “extremely lifelike lighting, shadows, and reflections” in video games
• {Hardware}-accelerated mesh shading
  • Improved functionality and effectivity for geometry processing permitting for “extra visually advanced scenes.”
• Dynamic caching
  • Mounted GPU underutilization by dynamically allocating native reminiscence to {hardware} in real-time

Right here’s visualization of how GPU utilization improves with Dynamic Caching.

Apple says the M3 GPU is the “Largest leap ahead in graphics structure” for its silicon. We’ll be preserving an eye fixed out for GPU benchmarks for the M2 Professional and M3.

Media engines

Like its predecessors, the M3 household has devoted media engines to supply hardware-accelerated H.264, HEVC, ProRes, and ProRes RAW help. And so they characteristic the identical quantity of engines because the M2, M2 Professional, and M2 Max.

The M3 Max chip contains two video encode engines and two ProRes encode and decode engines just like the M2 and M1 Max.

However one side that’s new, all the new M3 chip media engines include AV1 decode.

Exterior show help

For the variety of exterior displays supported, it stays at as much as 2 with M2 Professional and as much as 4 with M3 Max.

Just like the M2 Professional and Max, the M3 Professional and Max can help one show at as much as 8K/60Hz or at 4K/240Hz over HDMI.

M3 Professional/Max vs M2 Professional/Max wrap-up

For professionals who want the newest and biggest from Apple (want a tax write-off or simply don’t thoughts spending the cash) choosing up a brand new MacBook Professional with an M3 chip shall be value it.

However for anybody who already has an M2 Professional/Max and/or doesn’t have workflows that require the quickest efficiency, passing on the brand new {hardware} most likely makes probably the most sense.

For these on the fence about which MacBook Professional specs to go together with, you will get the identical 11, 12, 14, or 16-core processor with the M3 Professional and M3 Max in each the 14 and 16-inch fashions. The principle distinction in value is the upgraded GPU energy together with the extra succesful media engine and elevated exterior show help with the M3 Max chip.

In terms of reminiscence, in case you have medium to heavy workflows and/or plan to maintain your new MacBook Professional for a number of years, going with 36GB or extra will seemingly be definitely worth the $400+ improve.

You will discover the brand new M3 MacBook Professional laptops at Apple, Amazon, and different retailers quickly.