Apple ramps up testing M3 chips, may feature 12 CPU cores

Image credit : Medium According to Mark Gurman of Bloomberg, Apple is testing an M3 chipset with a 12-core processor and an 18-core GPU. Gurman claims in his most recent Power On email that a source supplied him App Store developer logs showing the chip operating on an upcoming MacBook Pro running macOS 14. He surmises that the M3 model Apple is testing is the entry-level M3 Pro that the company intends to market at some point in 2019. In particular, the M3 series is anticipated to benefit from TSMC's upcoming 3nm node process. The decrease in core density would seem to be caused by the switch from 5nm to 3nm. Recall that the M1 Pro and M2 Pro have 14 and 16-core GPUs in addition to eight and 10-core processors. In other words, the M3 Pro is said to have 50% more CPU cores than its first-generation forerunner. [caption id="attachment_173260" align="aligncenter" width="1024"] Image credit : Macworld[/caption] Gurman claims that Apple chose to have an equal number of high-performance and efficient cores on the new silMicon. He claims that the chip was discovered with 36GB of RAM installed. To put things in perspective, the M2 Pro comes standard with 16GB of memory, but you can upgrade it to have up to 32GB. Also read : Gurman predicts New MacBook Pro models to come in 2023 Naturally, Apple must first release the M3 processor in its normal form before announcing the M3 Pro. According to Gurman, "I think the first Macs with M3 chips will start showing up towards the end of the year or early next year." The long-rumored 15-inch MacBook Air is anticipated to be unveiled by Apple at WWDC 2023 in the interim.