Apple Unveils M4 Pro and M4 Max Chips, Supporting Thunderbolt 5 Connectivity and Powering Apple Intelligence

Oct. 30 (Portaltic/EP) –

Apple has introduced the M4 Pro and M4 Max processors, which are manufactured with a 3-nanometer process that improves performance and energy efficiency, support Thunderbolt 5 connectivity, and power Apple Intelligence.

The Apple Silicon M4 processor family has been expanded with two new members to form “the most advanced range of chips ever created for a personal computer”, incorporating “the world’s fastest CPU core”, but also more powerful GPUs and the “fastest Neural Engine to date,” said Senior Vice President of Hardware Technologies, Johny Srouji.

The M4, M4 Pro and M4 Max chips are manufactured with a 3-nanometer process, and designed for Apple Intelligence, Apple’s personal intelligence system that debuts on the American brand’s computers with macOS Sequoia 15.1.

At the base of this family is M4, which will power the new 24-inch Mac Mini and iMAc, recently introduced by Apple. This chip integrates a CPU with up to ten cores with four performance cores and six efficiency cores, which is up to 1.8 times faster than the M1 chip, according to Apple.

It also integrates a GPY that offers improved graphics performance, twice as fast as that of the M1 chip, and a 16-core Neural Engine, which powers the features used by Apple Intelligence, such as Writing Tools and other processes based on artificial intelligence. .

The M4 chip supports up to 32GB in its unified memory and has a higher bandwidth of 120GB/s. The display engine of the M4 range has been optimized and supports two external monitors in addition to the integrated display. Additionally, devices with the M4 chip feature up to four Thunderbolt 4 ports.

M4 PRO

The M4 Pro chip integrates a CPU with up to 14 cores with ten performance cores and four efficiency cores. It’s up to 1.9 times faster than the M1 Pro’s CPU and up to 2.1 times faster than the most recent PC AI chip released (in testing, Apple compared it to MSI Prestige 13 AI+ Evo A2VMG systems -014US with Core Ultra 7 258V).

The GPU integrates up to 20 cores, which doubles the graphics performance of the M4, allowing you to develop and test ‘apps’ in different simulators in Xcode faster. And it improves the quality, image and fluidity of video games with the optimization of ray tracing through hardware acceleration.

The M4 Pro chip also integrates a Neural Engine and supports up to 64 GB of unified memory and 273 Gb/s bandwidth. It has support for connecting devices using Thunderbolt 5, which offers data transfer speeds of up to 120 Gb/s, more than double that of Thunderbolt 4.

M4 MAX

The M4 Max chip integrates a CPU with up to 16 cores with twelve performance cores and four efficiency cores. It is up to 2.2 times faster than the M1 Max CPU and up to 2.5 times faster than the most recent PC AI chip released on the market.

The GPU integrates up to 40 performance cores and is 1.9 times faster than the M1 Max. Supports up to 128GB of ultra-fast unified memory and up to 546Gb/s bandwidth. This performance power allows developers to interact with large language models composed of nearly 200 billion parameters.

The M4 Max chip’s enhanced multimedia engine features two video encoding engines and two ProRes accelerators. And like the M4 Pro chip, it supports Thunderbolt 5 connectivity to deliver data transfers of up to 120 Gb/s.