Understanding the Apple M4 Series processors

Apple M4
Apple M4 is an ARM-based system on a chip (SoC) designed by Apple Inc. as a central processing unit (CPU) and graphics processing unit (GPU) for the 7th generation iPad Pro. Released in May 2024, it is the fourth generation of Apple Silicon architecture, succeeding the Apple M3.
Wikipedia 

The M4 Series is built on the N3E 3nm process. Previously they were rumored to go into production in the 2nd half of 2025 with systems available starting in 2026. Now apparently, Mark Gurman says the end of 2024 we will begin to see low-end and mid-tier M4 series system, with high-end in 2025.

May 7, 2024 Apple announced the M4 for the iPad Pro will be available May 15, 2024. There has been no official announcements yet about the M4 Series for Macs.

TSMC who manufactures these chips for Apple, is also working on 2nm chips, expected in 2025. TSMC is also rumored to be working on 1.6nm or 16 angstrom (angstroms are 10 times smaller than nanometer) or A16 chips, expected as soon as 2027. There are also plans for 1nm or 10 angstrom or A10 chips at a later date.

We must be getting closer to the limit of how far we can shrink these chips. A human hair is 80,000-100,000 nanometers wide. A single gold atom is about a third of a nanometer, so you would think a 1nm process must be awfully close to the limit.

Yehuda Rothschild Apple M4 Processor Series YouTube Channel

The brilliance of Apple silicon is the components of each one are the same. There are just more or less of them in each type.

Performance of the various M4 processors, just like their predecessors really will boil down to the base M4 processor performance. At this point specifications are wild guesstimates starting with M3 Series specifications.

** If you are browsing this page from a phone, you may want to view the following chart in landscape mode.

Assuming a 2 year processor life cycle, before the end of 2027 the M4 Series should be history and fully replaced by the Apple M5 Processor Series in newly released products.

CPU & GPU Performance Benchmarks

Buying an Apple M4 Series computer

Any Apple M4 Series computer will be an incredible experience compared to music and video production on Intel hardware. However it is highly recommended to get at least 16GB of memory (or more) and 512GB storage (or more) if you select an M4 Series system.

There are 9 basic form factors of Apple macOS systems with M4 Series processors expected, 5 laptops and 4 desktops.

• 13″ MacBook Air M4
• 15″ MacBook Air M4
• 14″ MacBook Pro M4
• 14″ MacBook Pro M4 Pro & M4 Max
• 16″ MacBook Pro M4 Pro & M4 Max
• 24″ iMac M4
• Mac mini M4 & M4 Pro
• Mac Studio M4 Max & M4 Ultra
• Mac Pro M4 Ultra & M4 Extreme

Thanks!
-Yehuda

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