Tim Hardwick
Apple's fall 2024 Mac announcements included new iMac, Mac mini, and MacBook Pro models, all of which debuted with variants of Apple's M4 chip. Apple is set to refresh the rest of its Mac lineup with M4-series processors over the next 12 months, marking the first time Apple will use the same generation of chips across all of its Macs.
This means we can expect new M4 versions of the MacBook Air, Mac Studio, and Mac Pro models next year. Here's what the latest rumors tell us about when each machine will go into production and what updates we can expect for them.
M4 MacBook Air
Apple is set to release updated 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Air models in March 2024 that feature Apple's M3 chip, and the company will soon begin producing M4 versions ahead of an early 2025 launch, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. No new design changes are planned for the MacBook Air models, and the focus will be on the M4 chip, but the base model will come with at least 16GB of RAM after Apple updated the base M3 model to 16GB, up from 8GB. The M4 MacBook Air could also feature a new 12-megapixel Center Stage camera with Desk View support, an improvement over the current 1080p FaceTime HD camera, given that both the new M4 iMac and M4 MacBook Pro models also debuted with an updated camera. The machines will ship next year between January and March.
M4 Mac Studio
Apple plans to update the Mac Studio when the M4 MacBook Air launches in early 2025. It will feature a variation of the M4 processor, likely the M4 Ultra or Max chip. The current model comes in M2 Max and M2 Ultra variants. Mark Gurman claims that the Mac Studio was supposed to be updated along with the MacBook Air, but it will now be updated between March and June. Previous reports had him saying the Mac Studio would ship in mid-2025, so it’s unclear what has changed.
M4 Mac Pro
Apple last updated the Mac Pro in June 2023, adding the M2 Ultra chip and officially completing the transition away from Intel chips. According to Mark Gurman, Apple will update the Mac Pro in the summer of 2025. Like the Mac Studio, the next Mac Pro will skip the M3 series. Instead, it will feature a top-end version of the M4 chip, codenamed “Hidra.” Based on the chip’s description, it could be positioned as either “Ultra” or “Extreme.” Gurman said the M4 Ultra chip in the next Mac Pro will “likely” have up to a 32-core CPU and up to an 80-core GPU, which would be double the M4 Max’s 16-core CPU and up to 40-core GPU. It can also support up to 512GB of storage, a significant increase from the current 192GB limit.
M4 Series Performance
Like the M3, the M4 is built on a 3nm process, but with improvements from Apple supplier TSMC to improve performance and power efficiency. The M4 also includes an improved Neural Engine that powers accelerated AI workloads. Apple says it’s the company’s most powerful Neural Engine yet, capable of performing 38 trillion operations per second.
Geekbench 6 benchmark results have surfaced for Apple’s new M4 Pro and M4 Max chips in the new Mac mini and MacBook Pro models, so we have some indication of performance. In the new Mac mini and MacBook Pro models, the most powerful M4 Pro and M4 Max variants outperform the most powerful M2 Ultra chip in the Mac Studio and Mac Pro: The M4 Max is 25 percent faster than the M2 Ultra in terms of peak multi-core CPU performance. Meanwhile, the M4 Max is 20 percent faster than the M4 Pro when it comes to peak multi-core CPU performance.
In terms of graphics performance, Geekbench 6 results show that the M4 Pro and M4 Max are about 40 percent and 25 percent faster in graphics than the M3 Pro and M3 Max chips, respectively. Notably, the 16-inch MacBook Pro with its top-end M4 Max chip with 40 cores has 85 percent faster graphics than the Mac Studio with its top-end M2 Ultra chip with 76 cores, even though it has 36 fewer GPU cores.
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