If you’re considering buying a new MacBook, it may be worth waiting till autumn.
Word is that Apple plans to release a new set of machines featuring a next-gen M3 chip in October.
The ultra-fast products in the pipeline include 13-inch models of the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro, and the all-new iMac.
That’s according to Bloomberg’s resident Apple reporter, Mark Gurman, who is known for outing the company’s upcoming hardware first.
So should you buy a new Mac now or wait a few months? It doesn’t help that Apple only just released an M2 MacBook Air and high-end M2 Ultra Macs — the latter with its most powerful chip to date at eye-watering prices.
To help you make up your mind, here’s everything you need to know about the new M3 chip, and the improvements it should bring.
What is the M3 chip?
After switching from Intel chips to its own custom-built chips in 2020, Apple completed the transition with the launch of the new M2 Ultra in June.
Now, every single new Apple computer features the company’s in-house system-on-a-chip (SoC). The M3 will be the third-generation chip to be included in Apple’s hardware, following the M1 (2020) and M2 (2022).
By using an SoC, Apple can integrate and control many different functions of its machines — things like computing and graphics power, memory, artificial intelligence, and data security — on a single chip, instead of using separate components mounted to a motherboard.
Before adopting its own silicon, Apple Macs used multiple chips, but the M-series is considered to be faster and more efficient than Intel’s chips.
Faster speeds and better battery
Naturally, Apple has touted every new chip as more powerful than the last, and the same should apply to the M3.
Notably, the newcomer is expected to be Apple’s first to use chip-making partner TSMC’s 3-nanometer (nm) manufacturing process. This will make it a denser chip that can fit in more transistors, which should allow for lower power consumption while enabling better performance.
Compared to the 5nm process used by Apple’s M1 and M2, the first-generation 3nm process can reduce power consumption by up to 45 per cent, improve performance by 23 per cent, and reduce area by 16 per cent. Meanwhile, the second-generation 3nm process can reduce power consumption by up to 50 per cent, improve performance by 30 per cent, and reduce area by 35 per cent.
Apple has reportedly booked almost 90 per cent of TSMC’s first-gen 3nm process capacity this year for iPhones, Macs, and iPads.
When is MacBook Air M3 coming?
The first Apple machines to get its M3 chip are tipped to be the MacBook Air 13-inch, MacBook Pro 13-inch, and the all-new iMac.
All three products are expected to land in October.
What are the other Apple silicon chips?
There are currently two main types of Apple silicon chips, the M1 and M2, each with different, more powerful variants. These are known as the Pro, Max, and Ultra, and are targeted at professionals who require more computing power for tasks like content creation.
Launched in June, the top-of-the-range M2 Ultra, for instance, combines two M2 Max chips, and features 134 billion transistors — 20 billion more than its predecessor, the M1 Ultra.
Apple claims it’s the most powerful chip on a personal computer. The M2 Ultra also features a 60 or 76 core GPU configuration, making it ideal for graphics-intensive workloads. But you’ll have to spend big to get it: The M2 Ultra Mac Studio desktop computer starts from £4,199.
By comparison, the standard M2 comes with up to a 10-core GPU, while the M2 Pro features up to a 19-core GPU, and the M2 Max offers a 38-core GPU. The variants are limited to select MacBook Pro and Mac Mini models.
All told, most people looking for a Mac for general use can probably get by with an entry-level M2 MacBook Air 13-inch, which currently costs £1,149. In fact, you may find you can even make do with the £999 M1 MacBook Air from 2020.
