{"id":68729,"date":"2025-03-08T07:47:00","date_gmt":"2025-03-07T23:47:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/?p=68729"},"modified":"2025-03-06T19:49:30","modified_gmt":"2025-03-06T11:49:30","slug":"apple-reveals-m3-ultra","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/2025\/03\/08\/apple-reveals-m3-ultra\/","title":{"rendered":"Apple reveals M3\u00a0Ultra"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Apple announced M3 Ultra, the highest-performing chip it has ever created, offering the most powerful CPU and GPU in a Mac, double the Neural Engine cores, and the most unified memory ever in a personal computer. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

M3 Ultra also features Thunderbolt 5 with more than 2x the bandwidth per port for faster connectivity and robust expansion. M3 Ultra is built using Apple\u2019s innovative UltraFusion packaging architecture, which links two M3 Max dies over 10,000 high-speed connections that offer low latency and high bandwidth. This allows the system to treat the combined dies as a single, unified chip for massive performance while maintaining Apple\u2019s industry-leading power efficiency. UltraFusion brings together a total of 184 billion transistors to take the industry-leading capabilities of the new\u00a0Mac Studio<\/a>\u00a0to new heights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cM3 Ultra is the pinnacle of our scalable system-on-a-chip architecture, aimed specifically at users who run the most heavily threaded and bandwidth-intensive applications,\u201d said Johny Srouji, Apple\u2019s senior vice president of Hardware Technologies. \u201cThanks to its 32-core CPU, massive GPU, support for the most unified memory ever in a personal computer, Thunderbolt 5 connectivity, and industry-leading power efficiency, there\u2019s no other chip like M3 Ultra.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ultra Performance and Efficiency<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

M3 Ultra provides the most performance of any Mac chip, while maintaining the industry-leading power-efficiency of Apple silicon. It features up to a 32-core CPU with 24 performance cores and eight efficiency cores, delivering up to 1.5x the performance of M2 Ultra, and up to 1.8x that of M1 Ultra. It also has the largest GPU in any Apple chip, with up to 80 graphics cores that bring up to 2x faster performance than M2 Ultra, and up to 2.6x faster than M1 Ultra.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The advanced graphics architecture in M3 Ultra features dynamic caching, along with hardware-accelerated mesh shading and ray tracing, so it can fly through the most demanding content creation workloads and games. A powerful 32-core Neural Engine fuels AI and machine learning (ML), and powers Apple Intelligence, the personal intelligence system that puts powerful generative models right at the core of the new Mac Studio. In fact, M3 Ultra is built for AI, including ML accelerators in the CPU, Apple\u2019s most powerful GPU, the Neural Engine, and over 800GB\/s of memory bandwidth. AI professionals can use Mac Studio with M3 Ultra to run large language models (LLMs) with over 600 billion parameters directly on device, making it the ultimate desktop for AI development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Unparalleled Memory<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The unified memory architecture of M3 Ultra integrates the most high-bandwidth, low-latency memory ever available in a personal computer. Starting at 96GB, it can be configured up to 512GB, or over half a terabyte. This outpaces the memory available in today\u2019s most advanced workstation graphics cards, removing limitations for pro workloads that demand large amounts of graphics memory like 3D rendering, visual effects, and AI.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thunderbolt 5 for Next-Generation Connectivity<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

M3 Ultra brings Thunderbolt 5 to Mac Studio for up to 120 Gb\/s data transfer speeds \u2014 more than double that of Thunderbolt 4. Each Thunderbolt 5 port is supported by its own custom-designed controller directly on the chip. This provides dedicated bandwidth for each port on Mac Studio, making it the industry\u2019s most capable implementation of Thunderbolt 5.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thunderbolt 5 ports on Mac Studio are a game changer for pro users who require faster data transfer speeds for external storage, docking, and hub solutions, and want to be ready for the next generation of expansion chassis. Thunderbolt 5 also enables connecting multiple Mac Studio systems together for workflows that push the limits of content creation and computer science exploration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Cutting-Edge Technologies Built In<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In the pursuit of maximizing performance and efficiency, M3 Ultra integrates Apple\u2019s advanced technologies right on the chip:<\/p>\n\n\n\n