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08:09PM EDT – Hardware AV1 decode support (yay!)
08:09PM EDT – And, of course, Apple’s media engine block
08:09PM EDT – M3 also has a faster 16 core neural engine. 15% faster than M2’s
08:08PM EDT – About half the power for the same level of performance for both GPU and CPU
08:08PM EDT – Apple is prefering to focus on M3 vs. M1
08:08PM EDT – And the M3 effiiciency cores are up to 30% faster than M2 efficiency
08:08PM EDT – Performance cores are up to 15% faster than the M2 perf cores
08:07PM EDT – Now on to CPU cores
08:07PM EDT – Up to 1.8x faster rendering performance than the M2 (and 2.5x over the M1)
08:07PM EDT – So this brings the M3 up to par with the A17. And in PC terms, would be roughly DirectX12 Ultimate (feature level 12_2)
08:06PM EDT – New rendering features as well, such as mesh shading and ray tracing
08:06PM EDT – Which also apparently improves GPU utilization
08:06PM EDT – Local memory is dynamically allocated in hardware in real time – so only the amount of memory needed is allocated
08:06PM EDT – Offering a new dynamic memory caching and allocation system
08:05PM EDT – New GPU microarchitecture
08:05PM EDT – (Presumably the same TSMC N3B as the A17 SoC)
08:05PM EDT – All three are built using 3nm tech
08:04PM EDT – M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max
08:04PM EDT – 3 new chips at the same time!
08:04PM EDT – Recapping the various strengths of the M series chips thus far
08:03PM EDT – Now over ot Johny Srouji
08:03PM EDT – “Tonight we’re introducing a new family of breakthrough chips” for the MacBook Pro lineup
08:03PM EDT – Apple Silicon has given Apple’s Macs great battery life and performance
08:02PM EDT – “We continue to push the Mac forward. It has been completely transformed by Apple Silicon”
08:02PM EDT – And tonight is all about the Mac
08:02PM EDT – And here’s dracula himself, Tim Cook
08:02PM EDT – (Fitting for the company that owns the broadcast rights to “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown”)
08:01PM EDT – Apple is going all-in with the Halloween theming here
08:01PM EDT – “But you’re on a Mac. How hard can it be?”
08:00PM EDT – (And a special shout out to Gavin “it’s at *what* time?!” Bonshor for helping out with tonight’s live blog)
08:00PM EDT – And starting with a MacBook Pro-centric video about working hard
07:59PM EDT – (If nothing else, these pre-recorded presentations mean that things are very punctual)
07:59PM EDT – And here we go
07:59PM EDT – And, whatever hardware they do announce, there won’t be an immediate post-event hands-on
07:58PM EDT – In any case, Apple’s event is entirely pre-recorded. There isn’t a press gathering at Apple Park or the like. So expect Apple’s presentation to fly by rather quickly
07:57PM EDT – The bigger surprise is the short heads – just 6 days – and the evening presentation. So from a press perspective, we’re curious to see if this is the start of a larger trend
07:56PM EDT – The company has done a fall Mac-related event in most years, so this year’s event is pretty typical in that regard
07:56PM EDT – Welcome to our live blog coverage of Apple’s latest event
Join us here at 5pm Pacific/8pm Eastern/00:00 UTC for what should prove to be an interesting event from Apple. The Cupertino, California company is holding an unusual, evening broadcast event that they’re calling “Scary Fast”, an apt name for a product launch taking place the night before Halloween.
In typical Apple fashion, the company is tight-lipped ahead of this evening’s presentation. But based on some recent regulatory filings, it looks like we’re in store for some new MacBook Pros and other products – and almost certainly based on a new Apple Silicon SoC, which would be the M3 family. Apple just launched the M2 MacBook Pro family back in January, so this would be a quick turnaround for a new generation of Macs, but it’s not without precident.
More interesting, at least in advance, is Apple’s decision to host this event in the evening. While this makes for prime-time viewing on the US east coast, it’s during commuter hours in the west coast, and Europe is outright asleep. So it will be interesting to see if this is going to become a trend from Apple to try to more directly reach consumers in the evening, or if this is a one-off event due to everything else going on today.
