Written by
Vain Rowe
With the M4 chip being released on 7 May 2024, lots of users wonder what's new and what improvements it has achieved compared to the last chip generation—the M3 chip. Well, this post from iBoysoft walks you through a comprehensive comparison of these two generations of chips. If you're ready, read on!
The introductions of M4 chip and M3 chip
Before exploring the differences between the M4 chip and the M3 chip, let's have a basic learning of these two generations of chips first.
The brief introduction of the M4 chip
Apple M4 is a series of ARM-based systems 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 released in May 2024 for the iPad Pro (7th generation). As the fourth generation of the M series Apple silicon architecture, it succeeded the Apple M3, followed by the professional-focused M4 Pro and M4 Max in October 2024. The M4 series is built upon TSMC's second-generation 3-nanometer process and contains 28 billion transistors.
The brief introduction of the M3 chip
Apple M3 is a series of ARM-based systems on a chip (SoC) designed by Apple Inc., part of the Apple silicon series, as a central processing unit (CPU) and graphics processing unit (GPU) for its Mac desktops and notebooks.
Released in late 2023, it is the third generation of ARM architecture intended for Apple's Mac computers after switching from Intel-based Core to Apple silicon, succeeding the Apple M2. The M3 series is Apple's first 3 nm manufactured by TSMC for Apple desktop and notebook lineups.
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M4 vs M3 chip: the improvements and differences
As the successor of the M3 chip, the M4 chip indeed welcomes new features and enhancements. This post walks you through exploring them from the efficiency core, GPU, and neural engine aspects.
Before diving into the details, let's see a table first:
| M3 Chip (2023–2024) | M4 Chip (2024) |
| Made using TSMC's 3nm technology (N3) | Made using TSMC's enhanced 3nm technology (N3E) |
| Based on iPhone 15 Pro's A17 Pro chip (2023) | Based on iPhone 16's A18 chip (2024) |
| 25 billion transistors | 28 billion transistors (+12%) |
| 8-core CPU (4 performance + 4 efficiency cores) | Up to 10 CPU cores (4 performance + 6 efficiency cores) |
| 4.05 GHz CPU clock speed | 4.3 GHz CPU clock speed |
| 16-core Neural Engine, 18 trillion operations per second | 16-core Neural Engine, 38 trillion operations per second (+111%) |
| LPDDR5 memory | LPDDR5X memory |
| 100 GB/s memory bandwidth | 120 GB/s memory bandwidth (+20%) |
| Dedicated display engine | |
| GPU with standard power efficiency | More power-efficient GPU: Maintains performance with significantly less power |
M4 chip vs M3: efficiency core
Both the M4 chips and M3 chips are configured with performance cores and efficiency cores, and the performance cores are set with higher clock speed and efficiency core with a lower clock speed.
Based on Geekbench's ranking and test, the Apple M4 processor offers a base frequency of 4.40GHz, higher than the 4.05GHz provided by the M3 chip. With a higher number of cores, it definitely gets remarkably advanced performance for sure.
There are two forms of the integration of efficiency cores and performance cores on M4 chips, the one with a nine-core CPU with three performance and four efficiency cores, and the other one with a ten-core CPU with four performance and six efficiency cores.
The M3 chip, however, is built with eight, and half of them provide better performance while the rest of them deal with basic tasks on the machine.
M4 chip vs M3 chip: GPU
From the official statement of Apple, we know that the M4 chip's 10-core GPU "builds on the next-generation GPU architecture introduced in the M3 chip". Through a further study, we find that M4's GPU is approximately two times faster than the M3 chip.
The M3 chip's GPU provides standard power efficiency, while the M4 chip is built with a more power-efficient GPU that maintains performance with significantly less power.
M4 chip vs M3 chip: Nerual Engine
The significant improvements in the Neural Engine of the M4 chip are a big step forward to more perfect M series chips, which highlights the chip's remarkable artificial intelligence and advanced machine learning capabilities.
For the users who have less demand for hardware, it's not that worth carrying out the update of the M3 chip to the M4 chip.
Yet if you have a peculiar demand for the AI feature, it's recommended to implement the chip update since the M4 chip greatly improves Neural Engine, boosting higher performance in supporting and running new Apple Intelligence and AI features.
Final words
This post guides you to know the M4 chip and M3 chip in a basic perspective, on top of that, it explores the improvements and enhancements brought by the M4 chips. If you're curious about these differences or if you are thinking about whether you should update a device, you can read this post to make a final decision.
