[polishTar]

In addition to the reduced memory bandwidth, the M3 pro also loses 2 performance cores for only 2 more efficiency cores.

M2 pro: 8 performance cores + 4 efficiency cores.

M3 pro: 6 performance cores + 6 efficiency cores.

Not a great trade... I'm not sure the M3 pro can be considered an upgrade

[photonerd]

Depends. Is it faster? Then it's an upgrade.

Has the CPU industry really managed to pull off it's attempt at a bs coup that more cores always === better?

I thought we'd learned our lesson with the silly Mhz Myth already?

[polishTar]

I guess we'll have to wait for benchmarks but I did find this interesting:

Apple's PR release for M2 pro: "up to 20 percent greater performance over M1 Pro"

Apple's announcement for M3 pro: "up to 20 percent faster than M1 Pro" (they didn't bother to compare it to M2 pro)

[rewmie]

> Depends. Is it faster?

The devil tends to be in the details. More precisely, in the benchmark details. I think Apple provided none other than the marketing blurb. In the meantime, embarrassingly parallel applications do benefit from having more performant cores.

[nabakin]

> Has the CPU industry really managed to pull off it's attempt at a bs coup that more cores always === better?

I thought this at first then I realized the cost-performance benefit gained from adding more cores often outweighs just improving the performance of single cores. Even in gaming. I think this is what led AMD to create their Ryzen 9 line of CPUs with 12 cores in 2019.

That being said, I abhor the deceptive marketing which says 50% more performance when in reality, it's at most 50% more performance specifically on perfectly parallel tasks which is not the general performance that the consumer expects.

[trostaft]

I find that frustrating with how intel markets its desktop CPUs. Often I find performance enhancements directly turning off efficiency cores...

[saagarjha]

Faster than what? M1 Pro? Just barely.

[throwaway2037]

Let me re-write your post with the opposite view. Both are unconvincing.

<< Depends. Is it faster? Then it's an upgrade. Has the CPU industry really managed to pull off it's attempt at a bs coup that more MHz always === better?

I thought we'd learned our lesson with the silly cores Myth already? >>

[ricardobeat]

The new efficiency cores are 30% faster than M2, and the performance ones 20% faster, so lets do the math:

    M2: 8 + 4

    M3: 6*1.2 + 6*1.3 =
        7.2 + 7.8

That’s nearly double the M2’s efficiency cores, a little less on the performance ones.

They do say the system overall is up to 65% faster, and has lower power consumption at the same performance level.

[polishTar]

You're not considering the difference in performance between the p and e cores. The math should be something more like:

  M2 pro = 8*3 + 4 =28 (the *3 representing that the performance cores contribute ~3x more to total system performance than the efficiency cores)

  M3 pro = 6*3*1.15 + 6*1.3 =28 (apple claims 15% more performance for the p cores not 20%)

> They do say the system overall is up to 65% faster, and has lower power consumption at the same performance level.

They don't claim either of those things. They claim the performance is 20% faster than the M1 pro. Interestingly, they made that exact same claim when they announced the M2 pro.

Energy efficiency might be better, but I'm skeptical till I see tests. I suspect at least some of the performance gains on the p+e cores are driven by running at higher clock rates and less efficiently. That may end up being more significant to total energy consumption than the change in the mix of p/e cores. To put it another way, they have more e cores, but their new e cores may be less efficient due to higher clock speeds. Total energy efficiency could go down. We'll just have to wait and see but given that apple isn't claiming an increase in battery life for the M3 pro products compared to their M2 pro counterparts, I don't think we should expect an improvement.

[nabakin]

I wouldn't trust Apple's marketing on that if it's where you got those numbers from

[1123581321]

E cores are ~30% faster and P about 15%. So the question would be how much the Es assist when Ps are maxed on each chip. In any other situation, more/better E cores should outperform and extend battery. I’m not saying that means you should want to spend the money.

[polishTar]

I love Apple's E cores. It just sucks that the M3 pro gains so few given the reduction in P cores.

Apple's E cores take up ~1/4 the die space of their P core. If the M3 pro lost 2 performance cores but gained 4-8 efficiency cores it'd be a much more reasonable trade.

[greesil]

Could you not resolve these questions with benchmarking?

[Dunedan]

Depends on what you consider an upgrade. As M3 cores perform better than M2 cores, I expect the M3 configuration to perform similar to the M2 one, even though it trades performance cores for efficiency cores. Apple apparently believes that its users value improved efficiency for longer lasting battery more than further improved performance.

[raydev]

Functionally, how does this impact observed performance on heavy loads like code compile or video manipulation? I doubt it's not much, and these are the low/mid-tier priced machines we are talking about.

If you bought a $2k M2 machine and traded it for a $2k M3 machine, you may gain better battery life with no concessions, except for benchmark measurements (that don't affect your daily work).

[spookie]

These are not low/mid tier machines when talking about "consumer-grade".

[jug]

This makes going Mac Mini M2 Pro over iMac M3 feel real compelling. The respective prices of these models are in fact the same, so if you happen to have a good monitor already... (also the iMac M3 curiously doesn’t even have a Pro option.)