The M4 Generation is a bigger deal than you realize...

With an Apple October Event right around the corner, the M4 series of chips is looking mighty tasty! Today let's do a deep dive into the M4 we already have, and discuss the chip level improvements that we can expect for M4 Pro, M4 Max, and M4 Ultra chips!

time stamps
0:00 M4 is super fast
3:02 M4 vs M3 improvements
4:20 Nerdy core level improvements
6:06 Why M4 is different
7:35 A new kind of Ultra chip
8:56 GPU is less exciting
9:52 Apple October Event expectations

Gear:
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[dansanger]

As impressive as the processor improvements are, an increase to 16 GB of RAM would mean far more to most users than the increase in processor speed.

[frenchpressfinance]

I know it's probably asking too much but I'd love to see the original M1 lineup (M1/Pro/Max/Ultra) in these graphs, just to see how much the advancement has been for us early adopters (M1 Max owner here)

[nikhildasm]

For now as for how limited iPadOS is, the M4 iPad pro is the most slimest and most powerful Netflix and Youtube Machine.

[brentsmithline]

About time that Apple moved to 16GB shared memory with the Mac's.

[igormel]

this video brought back memories of my bachelor's degree time having computer architecture classes

[niveZz-]

4:09 friendly reminder to put the link for the vid in the description

[thelbtlover]

The M4 Mac Mini is going to be absolutely terrible. The Mac Mini doesn't need to be any smaller, especially since they're going to remove a bunch of ports, forcing me to use dongles and hubs. It's going to take up even MORE space on my desk while looking ugly as heck due to the hubs and dongles I'm going to have to use. If they made the footprint 50% smaller but made it taller with at least 8x Thunderbolt ports, it would be a good redesign, but you know they're going to remove everything except for maybe 2x Thunderbolt ports, maybe 4x Thunderbolt ports on the Max/Ultra chips. Right now the Mac Mini has 4x Thunderbolt ports AND 2x USB A ports, allowing you to connect up to 6x USB devices. It also has HDMI, ethernet, etc. This redesign isn't about giving us a better computer. It's about forcing people who actually need a computer with ports to pay an extra $1, 000+ for a Mac Studio.

[guitarrise]

So basically the regular M4 is going to perform equally to my M2 Max Machine. Uhm interesting. Still I don’t even push my machine to the limit so that’s completely insane.

[levi.s]

15inch M4 MacBook Air will be my next Laptop and replace my late 2013 15“ MBP.

[thorium]

For the GPUs, when we look at the A series chips in iPhones the A18 Pro which is derived from M4 does strangely have double the raytracing performance of the previous A17 Pro which is based on M3. In pure rasterisation performance it is about 20% faster. So I do think something is new. That doubling in raytracing performance should provide great improvements for workloads such as blender

[xdarshan]

The M4 iPad Pro is so powerful that the display needs to be on when connected to an external display with a bluetooth keyboard and mouse. Absolutely incredible.

[mariuszarszylo]

Buying a new laptop every 3-5 years. Dang, I still use my 2014 Macbook Pro. It's honestly time to get a new one, but I think I can hold off for a new generation.

[misterdragzon]

Meanwhile my M1 Pro with 32GB is still easily handles my workloads.
Waiting to see actual new functionality…

[genxtechguy]

Well, I guess it’s time to upgrade from my 7yr old Intel based iMac Pro. Still running perfectly though.

[LJC]

I really want to see an extreme chip just for the Mac Pro, so it’s existence is justified. Paying $2000 more just for PCIe slots does not make much sense

[ordinaryalan]

All I want is an M4 Pro 27" iMac 5k desktop. Give me that and I'm happy.

[mattbosley]

I love how sure everyone is that there will be an Apple event in October even though it's already October and they haven't announced one yet. But they did announce last year's pretty late, and it wasn't until the end of the month. I would love it if they fooled everyone and waited until November, though.

[ekinteko]

I've said this from Day 1.
If you follow closely, you can figure out what Apple is planning. In an era where Android/ARM Phones hit a plateau with the QSD 865, they were already behind the legendary A13. Then came the A14 and M1.

That is why I told people: don't wait buy now. The M1 iPad will hold up for many years, and so will the M1 Max chipset inside the MacBook Pro (14in).

With the A15, I noticed the upgrades, it was good and focused on efficiency. They traded these gains for performance on the M2 Pro/Max/Ultra. But I did not think it was a worthy upgrade, and my recommendation was to go for the previous ones on a steep discount. I noted that the next generation will probably be more worthy.

Before the next-gen came we got the A16 and I was very disappointed. We got no architectural and no lithography improvements. It was basically the A15 pushed to 11. This was a bad omen. Then we got the M3 Lineup, and the fears were confirmed. This was basically the A15/A16 turned upto 12/10 and using a bad node. Based on that we also got the A17 chipset which was also flawed (high heat, low battery, little performance difference). The culprit was Apple, they were unable to innovate on the architectural side. And the culprit was TSMC, we were not seeing the +35% upgrade that was promised.

Well, it seems they weren't entirely lying. They saved that for the "mature" silicon and called it gen-2. And we saw Apple take advantage of this with the M4 iPad. So likely we would see these upgrades with the A18. And we just did, having about an extra +20% performance at roughly -20% the energy. This will interpret and scale up with the M4 Pro (mainstream) but more-so with the flagship M4 Max chipset. And due to the hiatus, we can probably expect an M4 Ultra too, with great performance.

All this to say, Apple has stolen the wind from under Qualcomm. The QC 8g4 was exciting.... but the A18 Pro. And while the Windows Ultrabooks (aka ARMbooks) looked very promising, now with the M4 Max arguably using less battery for more performance, and higher optimisations, would make the MacBook's a more desirable option. And it is a no-contest with tablets with the iPad's wiping the floor in terms of Apps, Optimisation, and Sales Numbers as opposed to Android Tablets.

I only wish we also get an updated iPad Mini, and they either go with an overclocked A18 Pro chipset, or just give us one with the M1 on a discount. I don't want Apple to raise it's price higher and cheap out with a croppy A16 chipset. That is what the rumours say.

[carloslemos]

I'll wait until single core performance is double compared to M1

[battery_wattage]

I think there are more pilots using the M4 iPads than actual power users fully utilizing the hardware. 😂
Some pilots would just purchase just because of brighter screen and better thermal. Otherwise it’s the ultimate streaming machine.