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Apple M4

Apple M4 is a series of ARM-based system on a chip (SoC) designed by Apple Inc., part of the Apple silicon series, including a central processing unit (CPU), a graphics processing unit (GPU), a neural processing unit (NPU), and a digital signal processor (DSP). The M4 chip was introduced in May 2024 for the iPad Pro (7th generation), and is the fourth generation of the M series Apple silicon architecture, succeeding the Apple M3.[3][4][5] It was followed by the professional-focused M4 Pro and M4 Max in October 2024.[6]

Apple M4 Series
General information
Launched
  • M4: May 15, 2024; 5 months ago (2024-05-15)
  • M4 Pro and Max: November 8, 2024; 1 day ago (2024-11-08)
Designed byApple
Common manufacturer
Architecture and classification
Application
Technology node 3 nm (N3E)
Instruction setARMv9.2-A[1]
Physical specifications
Transistors
    • M4
    • 28 billion
Cores
    • M4
    • 8-10 (3-4 P-Core + 4-6 E-Core)
    • M4 Pro
    • 12-14 (8-10 P-Core + 4 E-Core)
    • M4 Max
    • 14-16 (10-12 P-Core + 4 E-Core)
Memory (RAM)
    • M4
    • LPDDR5X 7500 MT/s
    • (8 or 16 or 24 or 32 GB)[2]
    • M4 Pro
    • LPDDR5X 8533 MT/s
    • (24 or 48 or 64 GB)
    • M4 Max
    • LPDDR5X 8533 MT/s
    • (36 or 48 or 64 or 128 GB)
GPUs
  • Apple-designed integrated graphics
  • M4
  • 8-10 core
  • M4 Pro
  • 16-20 core
  • M4 Max
  • 32-40 core
Co-processorNPU: 38 TOPS
Products, models, variants
Variant
History
PredecessorApple M3

The M4 series is built upon TSMC's second-generation 3-nanometer process and contains 28 billion transistors.[7]

Design

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The M4 features a 10-core design made up of four performance cores and six efficiency cores (with one performance core disabled on binned models). The SoC also includes a 10-core GPU (with hardware-accelerated ray tracing, dynamic caching, and mesh shading introduced with the M3), as well as a 16-core NPU.[8]

The M4 Neural Engine has been significantly improved compared to its predecessor, with the advertised capability to perform up to 38 trillion operations per second, claimed to be more than double the advertised performance of the M3. The M4 NPU performs over 60x faster than the A11 Bionic, and is approximately 3x faster than the original M1.[9]

The M4 is packaged with LPDDR5X unified memory, supporting 120GB/sec of memory bandwidth. The SoC is currently offered in 8GB, 16GB, 24GB, and 32GB configurations. It is also Apple's first SoC to use the ARMv9 CPU architecture (specifically ARMv9.2-A).[10][3]

The M4 Pro features an up to 14-core CPU, with 10 performance cores and 4 efficiency cores, along with up to a 20-core GPU that Apple claims is twice as powerful as that in the M4 when used in the corresponding MacBook Pro. The M4 Max chip comes with up to 16 CPU cores, 40 GPU cores, and 16 Neural Engine cores, addressing up to 128GB unified memory with over half a terabyte per second of memory bandwidth.[11]

Performance

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Apple claims up to 50% more CPU performance and 4x more GPU performance on the M4 compared to the M2. The M4 competes for the highest-scoring consumer SoC for single-core benchmarks according to various sources such as the Geekbench benchmarking suite[12] and Passmark Software's CPU benchmarks.[13] Compared to other modern CPUs, the M4 does not outperform the M3 Pro in multi-core performance [14] but it does in single-core performance [15][16] and competes with AMD's Ryzen 7 9700X[17][18] and Intel's Core i9-14900K.[19][20][21][22] In multithreaded performance, the M4 performs similarly to the 12-core M3 Pro.[23]

Additional features

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The M4 is the first iPad SoC to support hardware-accelerated AV1 decoding, as well as hardware-accelerated mesh shading and ray tracing introduced to MacBooks in the M3. A new display controller has also been implemented to support the iPad Pro (7th generation)'s Tandem OLED display.[8][24]

Products that use the Apple M4 series

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M4

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M4 Pro

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M4 Max

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Comparison with other SoCs

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  • The table below shows comparable SoCs
Variant CPU GPU NPU Memory Transistor
count 		TDP
(W) 		Used in
P-[a]
cores 		E-[b]
cores 		Cores[c] EU ALU Cores Performance RAM (MT/s) Control-
lers[d] 		Bandwidth
GB/s
A18 Pro 2 4 06 096 0768 16 35 TOPS LPDDR5X 7500 4 60 08 iPhone 16 Pro
M3 4 08 128 1024 18 TOPS LPDDR5 6400 8 102.4 25 billion 20
M4 3 6 10 160 1280 38 TOPS LPDDR5X 7500 120 28 billion 22 iPad Pro (256-512GB)[26]
4 iPad Pro (1-2TB)[26], iMac (4-port), Mac Mini, MacBook Pro 14"
4 08 128 1024 iMac (2-port)
M4 Pro 8 16 256 2048 LPDDR5X 8533 16 273 Mac Mini, MacBook Pro
10 20 320 2560
M4 Max 32 512 4096 24 410 MacBook Pro
12 40 640 5120 32 546

Notes

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  1. ^ Performance Cores
  2. ^ Efficiency cores
  3. ^ Each GPU core has 16 execution units (EUs) and 128 arithmetic logic units (ALUs)
  4. ^ Each LPDDR5 memory controller contains a 16-bit memory channel and can access up to 4GiB of memory.[2]

References

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  1. ^ "llvm-project/blob/e5e38ddf1b8043324175868831da21e941c00aff/llvm/lib/Target/AArch64/AArch64Processors.td at main · llvm/llvm-project". GitHub. 29 August 2024. Retrieved 12 September 2024.
  2. ^ a b Smith, Ryan (May 7, 2024). "Apple Announces M4 SoC: Latest and Greatest Starts on 2024 iPad Pro". AnandTech. Retrieved June 14, 2024.
  3. ^ a b Leswing, Kif (May 7, 2024). "Apple announces new iPad Pro with M4, new iPad Air tablets". CNBC. NBCUniversal. Retrieved May 8, 2024.
  4. ^ Warren, Tom (May 7, 2024). "Next-gen M4 chips start arriving in Apple devices this year". The Verge. Vox Media. Retrieved May 8, 2024.
  5. ^ "Apple introduces M4 chip" (Press release). Cupertino, CA: Apple Inc. May 7, 2024. Retrieved May 8, 2024.
  6. ^ Benedetto, Antonio G. Di (2024-10-30). "Apple updates the MacBook Pro with M4 Pro and M4 Max chips". The Verge. Retrieved 2024-10-30.
  7. ^ Sohail, Omar (2024-05-07). "Apple's M4 Is Made Using Second-Generation 3nm Process, Sports Higher Core Count, Upgraded Neural Engine; New GPU Supports Mesh Shading And Other Upgrades". Wccftech. Retrieved 2024-07-11.
  8. ^ a b c "Apple unveils stunning new iPad Pro with the world's most advanced display, M4 chip, and Apple Pencil Pro" (Press release). Cupertino, CA: Apple Inc. May 7, 2024. Retrieved May 8, 2024.
  9. ^ "Introducing TSMC N3E As Seen In Apple M4 SoC | TechInsights". www.techinsights.com. Retrieved 2024-07-11.
  10. ^ Larabel, Michael (2024-06-15). "Apple M4 Support Added To The LLVM Compiler, Confirming Its ISA Capabilities". phoronix.com. Retrieved 2024-06-16.
  11. ^ "Apple's new MacBook Pro features the incredibly powerful M4 family of chips" (Press release). Cupertino, CA: Apple Inc. October 30, 2024. Retrieved November 10, 2024.
  12. ^ Norem, Josh (May 10, 2024). "The Apple M4 Is the New Geekbench Single-Core Performance Champion". ExtremeTech. Ziff Davis. Retrieved May 12, 2024.
  13. ^ "Apple M4 10 Core Benchmark". www.cpubenchmark.net. Retrieved 2024-10-20.
  14. ^ "Geekbench". October 27, 2024.
  15. ^ "Mac15,9 - Geekbench". browser.geekbench.com. Retrieved 2024-10-20.
  16. ^ "Apple M3 Max 16 Core Benchmark". www.cpubenchmark.net. Retrieved 2024-10-20.
  17. ^ "Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd. X670E AORUS MASTER - Geekbench". browser.geekbench.com. Retrieved 2024-10-20.
  18. ^ "AMD Ryzen 7 9700X Benchmark". www.cpubenchmark.net. Retrieved 2024-10-20.
  19. ^ "ASUS System Product Name - Geekbench". browser.geekbench.com. Retrieved 2024-10-20.
  20. ^ "Intel Core i9-14900K Benchmark". www.cpubenchmark.net. Retrieved 2024-10-20.
  21. ^ "iPad16,6 - Geekbench". browser.geekbench.com. Retrieved 2024-10-20.
  22. ^ "Apple M4 10 Core Benchmark". www.cpubenchmark.net. Retrieved 2024-10-20.
  23. ^ Mayo, Benjamin (May 11, 2024). "iPad Pro with M4 chip boasts impressive performance jump compared to just-released M3 MacBook Air". 9to5Mac. Retrieved May 12, 2024.
  24. ^ "M4 vs. M3: How much better are Apple's latest chips?". Digital Trends. 2024-05-09. Retrieved 2024-07-11.
  25. ^ a b "Apple's new Mac mini is more mighty, more mini, and built for Apple Intelligence". Apple Newsroom. Retrieved 2024-10-29.
  26. ^ a b "iPad Pro - Technical Specifications". Apple. Retrieved 2024-11-09.


 

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