| General information | |
|---|---|
| Launched |
|
| Designed by | Apple |
| Common manufacturer | |
| Physical specifications | |
| Transistors |
|
| Cores |
|
| Memory (RAM) | |
| GPUs |
|
| Co-processor | NPU: 38 TOPS |
| Architecture and classification | |
| Application |
|
| Technology node | 3 nm (N3E) |
| Microarchitecture | Donan/BravaChop/Brava |
| Instruction set | ARMv9.2-A[2] |
| Products, models, variants | |
| Variant |
|
| History | |
| Predecessor | Apple M3 |
| Successor | Apple M5 |
Apple M4 is a series of ARM-based system on a chip (SoC) designed by Apple Inc., part of the Apple silicon series, including a central processing unit (CPU), a graphics processing unit (GPU), a neural processing unit (NPU), and a digital signal processor (DSP). The M4 SoC was introduced in May 2024 for the iPad Pro (7th generation), and is the fourth generation of the M series Apple silicon architecture, succeeding the Apple M3. This chip was succeeded by the Apple M5 chip in 2025. [3][4][5]
Design
The M4 series is built upon TSMC's second-generation 3-nanometer process and contains 28 billion transistors.[6]
It is Apple's first SoC to reportedly use the ARMv9 CPU architecture. The M4 is based on ARMv9.2a. It supports the Scalable Matrix Extension (SME) but not the Scalable Vector Extension (SVE). Because of the lack of SVE support, the LLVM compiler officially flags the M4 as supporting ARMv8.7a.[7]
CPU
The base M4 features an 8, 9 or 10-core design made up of three or four performance cores and four or six efficiency cores (with one performance core disabled on binned models)
The M4 Pro features a 12 or 14-core CPU, with eight or ten performance cores and four efficiency cores. Meanwhile, the M4 Max features a 14 or 16-core CPU, with an optional two more performance cores than the M4 Pro.[8]
GPU
The base M4 includes an 8 or 10-core GPU, with hardware-accelerated ray tracing, dynamic caching, and mesh shading introduced with the M3.[9] The M4 Pro has a 16 or 20-core GPU, while the M4 Max contains a 32 or 40-core GPU.
Apple claims that the ray tracing engine of the M4 family of GPUs is twice as fast as the M3.[8]
NPU
The M4 Neural Engine has been significantly improved compared to its predecessor, with the advertised capability to perform up to 38 trillion operations per second, claimed to be more than double the advertised performance of the M3. The M4 NPU performs over 60× faster than the A11 Bionic, and is approximately 3× faster than the original M1.[9][10]
Memory
The M4 is packaged with LPDDR5X unified memory, supporting 120GB/sec of memory bandwidth. The SoC is offered in 8GB, 16GB, 24GB, and 32GB configurations, with the 8GB configuration only being available on the iPad. [3]
The M4 Pro is available with up to 64GB unified memory (Mac Mini) with a theoretical maximum bandwidth of 273GB/sec.[11] The M4 Max is capable of addressing up to 128GB unified memory, with over half a terabyte per second (546GB/sec) of memory bandwidth, with a slightly reduced bandwidth (410GB/sec) for the binned 32-core M4 Max.[12]
Performance
Apple claims up to 50% more CPU performance and 4× more GPU performance on the M4 compared to the M2. The M4 competes for the highest-scoring consumer SoC for single-core benchmarks according to various sources such as the Geekbench benchmarking suite[13] and Passmark Software's CPU benchmarks.[14] In doing so, M4's single-core performance[15][16] competes with AMD's Ryzen 7 9700X[17][18] and Intel's Core i9-14900K.[19][20][21][22]
Meanwhile, in multithreaded performance, the M4 performs similarly to the M3 Pro and the product line as a whole competes with similar consumer level processors from Intel and AMD, such as the Intel Core Ultra and AMD Ryzen series.[23][24]
Additional features
The M4 is the first iPad SoC to support hardware-accelerated AV1 decoding, as well as hardware-accelerated mesh shading and ray tracing introduced to MacBooks in the M3. A new display controller has also been implemented to support the iPad Pro (7th generation)'s Tandem OLED display.[9][25]
Products that use the Apple M4 series
M4
- iPad Pro (7th generation)[9]
- iMac (2024)
- Mac Mini (2024)[26]
- MacBook Pro (14-inch, 2024)
- MacBook Air (2025)
M4 Pro
M4 Max
Variants
- The table below shows the SoCs in the Apple M4 product family and their applications.
| Variant | CPU | GPU | NPU | Memory | Transistor count |
TDP | Used in | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| P- cores |
E- cores |
Cores[a] | EU | ALU | Cores | Performance | RAM (MT/s) | Control- lers[b] |
Bandwidth | ||||
| A18 | 2 | 4 | 4 | 64 | 512 | 16 | 38 TOPS | LPDDR5X-7500 | 4 | 60 GB/s | 15.2 billion | 8 W | iPhone 16e |
| 5 | 80 | 640 | iPhone 16/Plus | ||||||||||
| A18 Pro | 6 | 96 | 768 | 18 billion | iPhone 16 Pro/Pro Max | ||||||||
| M4 | 3 | 6 | 10 | 160 | 1280 | 8 | 120 GB/s | 28 billion | 22 W | iPad Pro (256–512GB) [27] | |||
| 4 | iPad Pro (1–2TB) [27] iMac (4-port), Mac Mini, MacBook Pro 14", MacBook Air | ||||||||||||
| 4 | 8 | 128 | 1024 | iMac (2-port), MacBook Air | |||||||||
| M4 Pro | 8 | 16 | 256 | 2048 | LPDDR5X-8533 | 16 | 273 GB/s | 38 W | Mac Mini MacBook Pro | ||||
| 10 | 20 | 320 | 2560 | 46 W | |||||||||
| M4 Max | 32 | 512 | 4096 | 24 | 410 GB/s | 62 W | MacBook Pro Mac Studio | ||||||
| 12 | 40 | 640 | 5120 | 32 | 546 GB/s | 70 W | |||||||
Notes
- ^ Each GPU core has 16 execution units (EUs) and 128 arithmetic logic units (ALUs)
- ^ Each LPDDR5 memory controller contains a 16-bit memory channel and can access up to 4 GB of memory.[1]
References
- ^ a b Smith, Ryan (May 7, 2024). "Apple Announces M4 SoC: Latest and Greatest Starts on 2024 iPad Pro". AnandTech. Retrieved June 14, 2024.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link) - ^ "llvm-project/blob/e5e38ddf1b8043324175868831da21e941c00aff/llvm/lib/Target/AArch64/AArch64Processors.td at main · llvm/llvm-project". GitHub. 29 August 2024. Retrieved 12 September 2024.
- ^ a b Leswing, Kif (May 7, 2024). "Apple announces new iPad Pro with M4, new iPad Air tablets". CNBC. NBCUniversal. Retrieved May 8, 2024.
- ^ Warren, Tom (May 7, 2024). "Next-gen M4 chips start arriving in Apple devices this year". The Verge. Vox Media. Retrieved May 8, 2024.
- ^ "Apple introduces M4 chip" (Press release). Cupertino, CA: Apple Inc. May 7, 2024. Retrieved May 8, 2024.
- ^ Sohail, Omar (2024-05-07). "Apple's M4 Is Made Using Second-Generation 3nm Process, Sports Higher Core Count, Upgraded Neural Engine; New GPU Supports Mesh Shading And Other Upgrades". Wccftech. Retrieved 2024-07-11.
- ^ Larabel, Michael (2024-06-15). "Apple M4 Support Added To The LLVM Compiler, Confirming Its ISA Capabilities". phoronix.com. Retrieved 2024-06-16.
- ^ a b "Apple introduces M4 Pro and M4 Max". Apple Newsroom. Retrieved 2025-03-06.
- ^ a b c d "Apple unveils stunning new iPad Pro with the world's most advanced display, M4 chip, and Apple Pencil Pro" (Press release). Cupertino, CA: Apple Inc. May 7, 2024. Retrieved May 8, 2024.
- ^ "Introducing TSMC N3E As Seen In Apple M4 SoC | TechInsights". www.techinsights.com. Retrieved 2024-07-11.
- ^ "Apple introduces M4 Pro and M4 Max" (Press release). Apple Inc. October 30, 2024.
- ^ "Apple's new MacBook Pro features the incredibly powerful M4 family of chips" (Press release). Cupertino, CA: Apple Inc. October 30, 2024. Retrieved November 10, 2024.
- ^ Norem, Josh (May 10, 2024). "The Apple M4 Is the New Geekbench Single-Core Performance Champion". ExtremeTech. Ziff Davis. Retrieved May 12, 2024.
- ^ "Apple M4 10 Core Benchmark". www.cpubenchmark.net. Retrieved 2024-10-20.
- ^ "Mac15,9 - Geekbench". browser.geekbench.com. Retrieved 2024-10-20.
- ^ "Apple M3 Max 16 Core Benchmark". www.cpubenchmark.net. Retrieved 2024-10-20.
- ^ "Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd. X670E AORUS MASTER - Geekbench". browser.geekbench.com. Retrieved 2024-10-20.
- ^ "AMD Ryzen 7 9700X Benchmark". www.cpubenchmark.net. Retrieved 2024-10-20.
- ^ "ASUS System Product Name - Geekbench". browser.geekbench.com. Retrieved 2024-10-20.
- ^ "Intel Core i9-14900K Benchmark". www.cpubenchmark.net. Retrieved 2024-10-20.
- ^ "iPad16,6 - Geekbench". browser.geekbench.com. Retrieved 2024-10-20.
- ^ "Apple M4 10 Core Benchmark". www.cpubenchmark.net. Retrieved 2024-10-20.
- ^ "Apple M4 (10-Core) vs M3 Pro: performance comparison". NanoReview.net. Retrieved 2025-03-08.
- ^ Mayo, Benjamin (May 11, 2024). "iPad Pro with M4 chip boasts impressive performance jump compared to just-released M3 MacBook Air". 9to5Mac. Retrieved May 12, 2024.
- ^ "M4 vs. M3: How much better are Apple's latest chips?". Digital Trends. 2024-05-09. Retrieved 2024-07-11.
- ^ a b "Apple's new Mac mini is more mighty, more mini, and built for Apple Intelligence". Apple Newsroom. Retrieved 2024-10-29.
- ^ a b "iPad Pro - Technical Specifications". Apple. Retrieved 2024-11-09.
