Apple M3 Macs in-the-works, launch likely by end of 2023, says Mark Gurman

When almost everyone is expecting the launch of the first 15 inch MacBook Air with an M2 Chip in June 2023 at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), it is now being stated that the company can launch Macs with M3 chip by the end of this year or early 2024. Notably, Apple's WWDC event is scheduled to take place from June 5 to June 9, 2023. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman via his latest Power On Newsletter, informed that Apple is already working on M3-based iMacs, high-end and low-end MacBook Pros, and MacBook Airs.

Gurman added that he believes that the first Macs with the M3 chips will begin arriving toward the end of the year or early next year. "My belief is the first Macs with M3 chips will begin arriving toward the end of the year or early next year. While the first 15-inch MacBook Air with an M2 chip is set to arrive this summer, the company is already working on M3-based iMacs, high-end and low-end MacBook Pros, and MacBook Airs, I’m told," the newsletter stated.

Gurman also compared the M3 chip with M2 and MI and found that it has more CPU cores, graphics cores and memory. Check the comparison details below:

M1 Pro: Released in October 2021, it gets eight CPU cores (six high-performance cores/two power-efficient cores); 14 graphics cores; and 32GB of memory.

M2 Pro: Released in January 2023, it gets 10 CPU cores (six high-performance cores/four power-efficient cores); 16 graphics cores; and 32GB of memory.

M3 Pro: It is currently in testing and will get 12 CPU cores (six high-performance cores/six power-efficient cores); 18 graphics cores; and 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," Gurman said.

He further added that, "If the M3 Max were to get a similar gain as the M2 Max (compared with the M1 Max), that would mean Apple’s next high-end MacBook Pro chip could come with up to 14 CPU cores and more than a whopping 40 graphics cores. Speculating even further, that would mean the M3 Ultra chip could top out at 28 CPU cores and sport more than 80 graphics cores, up from a 64-core limit on the M1 Ultra."

Notably, the M3 chip itself in this particular test is running in a future high-end MacBook Pro with the upcoming macOS 14.0 and likely is the base-level version of what will be the M3 Pro coming next year.