Apple M4 becomes the new underdog of arm processors

Apple's M4 chip is officially here, debuting in the new iPad Pro at Apple's "Let Loose" event on May 7, 2024.

Built using second-generation 3-nanometer technology, M4 is a system on a chip (SoC) that advances the industry-leading power efficiency of Apple silicon and enables the incredibly thin design of iPad Pro. It also features an entirely new display engine to drive the stunning precision, colour, and brightness of the breakthrough Ultra Retina XDR display on iPad Pro.

 

A new CPU has up to 10 cores, while the new 10-core GPU builds on the next-generation GPU architecture introduced in M3, and brings Dynamic Caching, hardware-accelerated ray tracing, and hardware-accelerated mesh shading to iPad for the first time. M4 has Apple’s fastest Neural Engine ever, capable of up to 38 trillion operations per second, which is faster than the neural processing unit of any AI PC today. 

Combined with faster memory bandwidth, along with next-generation machine learning (ML) accelerators in the CPU, and a high-performance GPU, M4 makes the new iPad Pro an outrageously powerful device for artificial intelligence.

New Technologies Enabling the New iPad Pro

Delivering a giant leap in performance over the previous iPad Pro with M2, M4 consists of 28 billion transistors built using a second-generation 3-nanometer technology that further advances the power efficiency of Apple silicon. M4 also features an entirely new display engine designed with pioneering technologies, enabling the stunning precision, colour accuracy, and brightness uniformity of the Ultra Retina XDR display, a state-of-the-art display created by combining the light of two OLED panels.

New 10-core CPU

M4 has a new up-to-10-core CPU consisting of up to four performance cores and now six efficiency cores. The next-generation cores feature improved branch prediction, with wider decode and execution engines for the performance cores, and a deeper execution engine for the efficiency cores. And both types of cores also feature enhanced, next-generation ML accelerators.

M4 delivers up to 1.5x faster CPU performance over the powerful M2 in the previous iPad Pro.1 Whether working with complex orchestral music files in Logic Pro or adding highly demanding effects to 4K video in LumaFusion, M4 boosts performance across pro workflows.

Performance and features

One reason the M3 series of chips had notable performance improvements compared to the M2 was that they were made using a 3nm process, as opposed to the M2’s 5nm process. This upgraded process meant that the chips could offer greater output while also tuning up efficiency in a double whammy of benefits to users. What about the M4?

Well, Apple revealed some interesting details at its iPad event on May 7. There, Apple hardware executive Tim Millet explained that the M4 is made using a second-generation 3nm process that is more efficient than what came before it (looking into the future, Apple isn’t expected to debut its first 2nm chips until 2025 at the earliest). There’s an all-new display engine, while both the CPU and the GPU have been tuned up.

Starting with the CPU, it comes with four performance cores and six efficiency cores. Apple says the CPU is 50% faster than that found in the M2 (although it didn’t mention performance compared to the M3). The 10-core GPU, meanwhile, comes with dynamic caching, ray tracing, and hardware-accelerated mesh shading, and it offers up to four times the rendering performance of the M2, Apple says.

In terms of efficiency, you’ll get the same level of output for half the power draw compared to the M2, according to Apple. And when put up against what Apple says is a leading PC chip in a thin-and-light laptop (Apple’s not naming names), Apple declares you can expect the same performance while using just a quarter of the power. So while we won’t know for sure until we can review an M4 device, Apple is clearly confident that its new chip offers a lot of performance while keeping cool and quiet.

The M4 also contains an updated 16-core Neural Engine that can perform up to 38 trillion operations per second (TOPS). Apple says it’s more powerful than any neural processing unit in any AI PC today, which is an important claim given Apple’s rather slow approach toward reacting to the surge in interest in generative AI.

Thanks to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, we also have a timeline for M4 MacBooks. Gurman thinks that Apple will debut its first M4 MacBooks by the end of 2024—potentially in October or November. The first Macs with the M4 treatment might be a low-end 14-inch MacBook Pro and a 24-inch iMac.

A high-end MacBook Pro with an M4 Pro or M4 Max chip and an M4-powered Mac Mini may also be released in late 2024 or possibly early 2025. The rest of Apple's computer lineup will receive an M4 upgrade throughout 2025, even those that are only sporting an M2 chip right now.

The Most Powerful Neural Engine Ever

M4 has a blazing-fast Neural Engine — an IP block in the chip dedicated to the acceleration of AI workloads. This is Apple’s most powerful Neural Engine ever, capable of an astounding 38 trillion operations per second — a breathtaking 60x faster than the first Neural Engine in A11 Bionic. 

Together with next-generation ML accelerators in the CPU, the high-performance GPU, and higher-bandwidth unified memory, the Neural Engine makes M4 an outrageously powerful chip for AI. And with AI features in iPadOS like Live Captions for real-time audio captions, and Visual Look Up, which identifies objects in video and photos, the new iPad Pro allows users to accomplish amazing AI tasks quickly and on device.

iPad Pro with M4 can easily isolate a subject from its background throughout a 4K video in Final Cut Pro with just a tap, and can automatically create musical notation in real time in StaffPad by simply listening to someone play the piano. And inference workloads can be done efficiently and privately while minimising the impact on app memory, app responsiveness, and battery life. The Neural Engine in M4 is Apple’s most capable yet, and is more powerful than any neural processing unit in any AI PC today.

 M4 Specs

The base version of Apple's M4 chip is no longer a mystery. Thanks to the "Let Loose" event on May 7, which you can watch on YouTube, we know that the M4 chip is sticking with the same 3-nm process technology as the M3 chip. The M5 chip will likely be the first to use 2-nm technology.

The M4 iPad Pro was just announced, but several performance scores have popped up recently in the Geekbench online database. We estimated that if the M4 chip offers the same upgrade trajectory we saw from the M2 chip to the M3 chip, a multi-core Geekbench score should be just over 15,000 and we weren't too far off.

Apple's iPad Pro M4 generates an impressive single-core score of about 3,600 on average, and a stellar multi-core score of over 14,500 in most tests. That's roughly 20% higher than the 12,087 multi-score our 13-inch MacBook Air M3 review unit delivered.

These early Geekbench 6 results for the iPad Pro M4 easily beat out the Snapdragon X Elite prototype's highest scores of 2,574 (single-core) and 12,562 (multi-core), giving Apple the hypothetical edge in the M4 vs Snapdragon X Elite battle.

For iPad Pro M4 models with 256GB or 512GB of storage, the M4 chip includes a 9-core CPU (3 performance, 6 efficiency), a 10-core GPU, and a 16-core Neural Engine, and it gets paired with 8GB of RAM. With 1TB or 2TB of storage, the M4 chip keeps the same 10-core GPU and 16-core Neural Engine, but gains a 10-core CPU (4 performance, 6 efficiency), and gets paired with 16GB of RAM.

Both chips will be capable of 120GB/s unified memory bandwidth, and features like dynamic caching, hardware-accelerated ray tracing and mesh shading.

M4 AI Features

The M4 chip is very capable when it comes to AI features, with its Neural Engine delivering up to 38 trillion operations per second. Apple says this Neural Engine is 60x faster than its first Neural Engine ever. 

The M4 chip might be "an outrageously powerful chip for AI," but in order to fully unlock its AI capabilities, the iPad Pro will need AI-backed software. We'll hopefully get to see many of these AI features debut for macOS 15 and iPadOS 18 at WWDC 2024.

Better for the Environment

The power-efficient performance of M4 helps the all-new iPad Pro meet Apple’s high standards for energy efficiency and deliver all-day battery life. This results in less time needing to be plugged in and less energy consumed over its lifetime.

Today, Apple is carbon neutral for global corporate operations, and by 2030, plans to be carbon neutral across the entire manufacturing supply chain and life cycle of every product.