Apple M4 Processor Series

Understanding the Apple M4 Series processors

The M4 Series will be built on the 2nm 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.

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.

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.

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

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