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Apple M2 Pro vs Apple M3 Pro 11-Core

Apple M2 Pro

► remove from comparison Apple M2 Pro

The Apple M2 Pro is a System on a Chip (SoC) from Apple that is found in the early 2023 MacBook Pro 14 and 16-inch models. It offers all 12 cores available in the chip divided in eight performance cores (P-cores) and four power-efficiency cores (E-cores). The E-cores clock with up to 3.4 GHz, the P-Cores up to 3.7 GHz (mostly 3.3 GHz in multi-threaded workloads and 3.4 GHz in single threaded).

The big cores (codename Avalanche) offer 192 KB instruction cache, 128 KB data cache, and 36 MB shared L2 cache (up from 24 MB in the M1 Pro). The four efficiency cores (codename Blizzard) are a lot smaller and offer only 128 KB instruction cache, 64 KB data cache, and 4 MB shared cache. CPU and GPU can both use the 24 MB SLC (System Level Cache). 

The unified memory (16 or 32 GB LPDDR5-6400) next to the chip is connected by a 256 Bit memory controller (200 GB/s bandwidth) and can be used by the GPU and CPU.

Apple states that the M2 Pro has a 25% higher performance than the M1 Pro in Xcode compiling.

The integrated graphics card in the M1 Pro offers all 19 cores.

Furthermore, the SoC integrates a fast 16 core neural engine (faster than M1 Pro), a secure enclave (e.g., for encryption), a unified memory architecture, Thunderbolt 4 controller, an ISP, and media de- and encoders (including ProRes).

The M2 Pro is manufactured in 5 nm at TSMC (second generation) and integrates 40 billion transistors. 

Apple M3 Pro 11-Core

► remove from comparison Apple Apple M3 Pro 11-Core

The Apple M3 Pro 11 Core is a system on a chip (SoC) from Apple for notebooks that was introduced late 2023. It integrates 11 of the 12 CPU cores with 5 of 6 performance cores with up to 4.06 GHz and 6 efficiency cores with 2.8 GHz.

Compared to the M2 Pro the M3 Pro has been slimmed down somewhat and swaps two performance cores for efficiency cores. This is due to the changed core configuration, as 6 cores are now used per cluster (the M2 Pro and M3 still have 4 cores per cluster). Furthermore, the memory bus has been reduced from 256 bits to 192 bits (150 GB/s vs. 200 GB/s). Thanks to the new architecture and higher clock rates, the new M3 Pro is still slightly faster.

The M3 Pro also integrates a new graphics card with dynamic caching, mesh shading and ray tracing acceleration via hardware. In the entry-level model, only 14 of the chip's 18 cores are used and support up to 3 displays simultaneously (internal and 2 external).

GPU and CPU can jointly access the shared memory on the package (unified memory). This is available in 18 or 36 GB variants and offers 150 GB/s maximum bandwidth (192 bit bus).

The integrated 16-core Neural Engine has also been revised and now offers 18 TOPS peak performance (compared to 15.8 TOPS in the M2 but 35 TOPS in the new A17 Pro). The video engine now also supports AV1 decoding in hardware. H.264, HEVC and ProRes (RAW) can still be decoded and encoded.

Unfortunately, the integrated WLAN only continues to support WiFi 6E (no WiFi 7), unlike the small M3 SoC thunderbolt 4 is also supported (max 40 Gbit/s).

The chip is manufactured in the current 3nm process (N3B) at TSMC and contains 37 billion transistors (-7.5% vs. Apple M2 Pro).

ModelApple M2 ProApple M3 Pro 11-Core
SeriesApple Apple M2Apple Apple M3
Series: Apple M3
Apple M2 Max compare2.42 - 3.7 GHz12 / 12 cores48 MB L3
Apple M2 Pro « 2.42 - 3.5 GHz12 / 12 cores24 MB L3
Apple M2 Pro 10-Core compare2.42 - 3.7 GHz10 / 10 cores24 MB L3
Apple M2 compare2.42 - 3.48 GHz8 / 8 cores8 MB L3
Apple M3 Max 16-Core compare2.75 - 4.06 GHz16 / 16 cores
Apple M3 Max 14-Core compare2.75 - 4.06 GHz14 / 14 cores
Apple M3 Pro 12-Core compare2.75 - 4.06 GHz12 / 12 cores
Apple M3 Pro 11-Core « 2.75 - 4.06 GHz11 / 11 cores
Apple M3 compare2.75 - 4.06 GHz8 / 8 cores
Clock2424 - 3504 MHz2748 - 4056 MHz
L1 Cache3.3 MB
L2 Cache36 MB
L3 Cache24 MB
Cores / Threads12 / 1211 / 11
5 x 4.1 GHz Apple M3 P-Core
6 x 2.7 GHz Apple M3 E-Core
Transistors40000 Million37000 Million
Technology5 nm3 nm
FeaturesARMv8 Instruction SetARMv8 Instruction Set
iGPUApple M2 Pro 19-Core GPUApple M3 Pro 14-Core GPU
ArchitectureARMARM
Announced
TDP27 Watt
Manufacturerwww.apple.com

Benchmarks

Cinebench 2024 - Cinebench 2024 CPU Single Core
123 Points (85%)
144 Points (100%)
Cinebench 2024 - Cinebench 2024 CPU Multi Core
1030 Points (19%)
908 Points (17%)
Cinebench R23 - Cinebench R23 Multi Core
min: 14787     avg: 14795     median: 14794.5 (14%)     max: 14802 Points
13315 Points (12%)
Cinebench R23 - Cinebench R23 Single Core
min: 1647     avg: 1648     median: 1647.5 (70%)     max: 1648 Points
1942 Points (83%)
Cinebench R20 - Cinebench R20 CPU (Single Core)
min: 446     avg: 446.5     median: 446.5 (50%)     max: 447 Points
502 Points (56%)
Cinebench R20 - Cinebench R20 CPU (Multi Core)
min: 4018     avg: 4031     median: 4031 (10%)     max: 4044 Points
3529 Points (9%)
Cinebench R15 - Cinebench R15 CPU Multi 64 Bit
2069 Points (13%)
1913 Points (12%)
Cinebench R15 - Cinebench R15 CPU Single 64 Bit
230 Points (69%)
281 Points (85%)
Blender - Blender 3.3 Classroom CPU *
331 Seconds (4%)
355 Seconds (5%)
Blender - Blender 2.79 BMW27 CPU *
365 Seconds (3%)
R Benchmark 2.5 - R Benchmark 2.5 *
100%
1 M2 Pro +
0.4 sec (9%)
Geekbench 6.2 - Geekbench 6.2 Single-Core
2663 Points (72%)
3113 Points (84%)
Geekbench 6.2 - Geekbench 6.2 Multi-Core
14568 Points (57%)
14412 Points (57%)
Geekbench 5.5 - Geekbench 5.1 - 5.4 64 Bit Single-Core
min: 1952     avg: 1957     median: 1957 (83%)     max: 1961 Points
2331 Points (98%)
Geekbench 5.5 - Geekbench 5.1 - 5.4 64 Bit Multi-Core
min: 14859     avg: 14961     median: 15010 (27%)     max: 15013 Points
13312 Points (24%)
Mozilla Kraken 1.1 - Kraken 1.1 Total Score *
443.8 ms (1%)
374.1 ms (0%)
Octane V2 - Octane V2 Total Score
76205 Points (67%)
98732 Points (87%)
WebXPRT 4 - WebXPRT 4 Score
100%
1 M2 Pro +
253 Points (73%)
WebXPRT 3 - WebXPRT 3 Score
386 Points (80%)
431 Points (90%)
CrossMark - CrossMark Overall
min: 1797     avg: 1805     median: 1804.5 (69%)     max: 1812 Points
1966 Points (75%)
Power Consumption - Cinebench R15 Multi Power Consumption - external Monitor *
40.1 Watt (7%)
Power Consumption - Idle Power Consumption - external Monitor *
2.1 Watt (1%)
Power Consumption - Idle Power Consumption 150cd 1min *
4.8 Watt (5%)
Power Consumption - Cinebench R15 Multi Power Efficiency - external Monitor
47.7 Points per Watt (36%)

Average Benchmarks Apple M2 Pro → 100% n=17

Average Benchmarks Apple M3 Pro 11-Core → 106% n=17

- Range of benchmark values for this graphics card
- Average benchmark values for this graphics card
* Smaller numbers mean a higher performance
1 This benchmark is not used for the average calculation

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Redaktion, 2017-09- 8 (Update: 2023-07- 1)