Apple M4 Processor Series
Understanding possibly five Apple M4 Series processors
Apple M4
Apple M4 Pro
Apple M4 Max
Apple M4 Ultra
Apple M4 Extreme
Wikipedia
The M4 Series will be built on the 2nm process. They are rumored to go into production in the 2nd half of 2025 with systems available starting in 2026.
TSMC who manufactures these chips for Apple, is also rumored to be working on 1.4nm chips, expected as soon as 2027. There are also plans for 1nm 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.
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.
Component | M4 ? | M4 Pro ? | M4 Max ? | M4 Ultra ? | M4 Extreme ? |
Efficiency CPU Cores | 4 | 6 | 4 | 8 | 16 |
Efficiency Clock | 2.75GHz | 2.75GHz | 2.75GHz | 2.75GHz | 2.75GHz |
Performance CPU Cores | 4 | 5 or 6 | 10 or 12 | 20 or 24 | 40 or 48 |
Performance Clock | 4.05GHz | 4.05GHz | 4.05GHz | 4.05GHz | 4.05GHz |
Neural Engine Cores | 16 | 16 | 16 | 32 | 64 |
GPU Cores options | 8 or 10 | 14 or 18 | 30 or 40 | 60 or 80 | 120 or 160 |
Unified Memory options | 8GB 16GB 24GB | 18GB 36GB | 36GB 48GB 64GB 96GB 128GB | 64GB 96GB 128GB 192GB 256GB | 128GB 192GB 256GB 384GB 512GB |
Memory Bandwidth | 100GB/s | 150GB/s | 300GB/s or 400GB/s | 800GB/s | 1600GB/s |
Video Decode Engines | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 4 |
Video Encode Engines | 1 | 1 | 2 | 4 | 8 |
ProRes Encode-Decode Engines | 1 | 1 | 2 | 4 | 8 |
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
Useful Links
Apple related pages
Updated periodically – Apple Silicon is the DAW standard
Updated periodically – Apple Mac Studio M1 Max & M1 Ultra
Updated periodically – Apple Mac Studio M2 Max & M2 Ultra
Updated periodically – Apple Mac Studio M3 Max & M3 Ultra
Updated periodically – Apple MacBook Pro M1 Pro & M1 Max
Updated periodically – Apple MacBook Pro M2 Pro & M2 Max
Updated periodically – Apple MacBook Pro M3 Pro & M3 Max
Updated periodically – Apple Mac Pro M2 Ultra
Updated periodically – Apple Mac mini M1
Updated periodically – Apple Mac mini M2 & M2 Pro
Updated periodically – Apple Mac mini M3 & M3 Pro
Updated periodically – Apple Studio Display
Updated periodically – Apple M1 Processor Series
Updated periodically – Apple M2 Processor Series
Updated periodically – Apple M3 Processor Series
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