It's been a while since Apple switched away from Intel chips to its own silicon. That means that we're about to see more powerful and even more mature Apple Silicon chips come out, and the M3 family of chips is set to be the beginning of that. We don't know all too much about the M3 chips yet, but we now have some information on the M3 Pro.
In his latest Power On newsletter, Mark Gurman said that Apple is currently testing an M3 Pro-powered MacBook Pro. This version seems to be considerably beefier than the current M2 Pro you can get in MacBook Pro models.
M3 Pro debuting in the MacBook Pro in 2024
Gurman says that Apple is currently testing a version of the M3, with details coming from an App Store developer. Given the specifications, the version seems to be the base version of the M3 Pro, as it is being tested in a high-end MacBook Pro running macOS 14.0, which is yet to be released.
Gurman noted the specifications of this M3 Pro chip,
"M3 Pro (in testing):
12 CPU cores (six high-performance cores/six power-efficient cores)
18 graphics cores
36GB of memory
If the chip in testing is indeed the base-level M3 Pro, that would mean the increase in core counts compared with the M2 Pro would be similar to the jump from the M1 Pro to the M2 Pro. It would have two more power-efficient CPU cores and two more graphics cores. In this case, the amount of memory is also jumping by 4GB on the top-end configuration. "
The math of the core count seems to add up. The core count would be made possible by the 3nm process Apple is going to use for the M3 chips. Gurman says this version of the M3 is likely to arrive next year, as he expects M3 to debut towards the end of 2023, or in early 2024. Apple's best MacBook Pro currently runs on M2 family chips, following a refresh in early 2023.
