Apple M4 Chip - Everything You Want to Know About it

The Apple M4 chip finally debuted on May 7th, 2024. After a long wait, the company introduced the chip in its new iPad Pro. However, people still want answers to questions about the M4. For example, many don't know if the M4 chip will be found in MacBook Pros or MacBook Airs.

That's why we've decided to gather all the information about the Apple M4 chip and share it without you to help you learn what we know so far. We made sure to gather our information from reliable sources close to Apple.

After all, if the chip becomes widely available, you need to know what to expect and understand whether or not you should buy a device with one.

What Is the M4 Chip?

The Apple M4 chip is the latest silicon made by Apple. It's the first time Apple has announced a chip without releasing it first on a Mac. Instead, the Apple M4 was released on an iPad. Since its start, the M chip line has been synonymous with high CPU performance and computing power.

(Image credit: Apple)

• The first Macs with the M4 are expected to arrive at the end of 2024.
• Second generation 3nm production.
• 10 GPU cores.
• 9 or 10 CPU cores.
• 16-core neural engine.
• 16GB of unified maximum memory.
• 120 GB/s memory bandwidth.
• 28 billion transistors.

Apple M4 Chip Release Date

(Image credit: Apple)

In normal circumstances, we would expect Apple to release a new chip around the fall, but the company officially announced the Apple M4 chip on May 7th, 2024, during the "Let Loose" event. However, the M4 chip became available on May 13th, 2024, when the latest iPads entered the stores.

Apple M4 Chip Specs & Performance

M4 Production Process

One of the main reasons the Apple M3 chips were considerably better than the M2 version is that they switched to a 3nm production process from the 5 nm process. The change in the production process meant the CPU could give better output while boosting efficiency. As far as M4 is concerned, Apple has revealed some interesting facts.

The Apple M4 chip is manufactured using the second-generation 3nm process, which is more efficient than its predecessor. At the same time, a new display engine has been added, and the GPU and CPU have been powered up. The CPU has six efficiency and four performance cores.

M4 CPU Performance & Efficiency

Overall, Apple said the M4 CPU is 50% faster than the M2 but didn't compare it to the M3. The GPU has ten cores and includes hardware-accelerated mesh shading, ray tracing, and dynamic caching. It provides a 4X better rendering performance than M2.

Regarding efficiency, the M4 chip provides the same output for half of the power used compared to the M2. Compared to other CPU brands from other laptop manufacturers, Apple says that users can expect the same performance for a quarter of the power used. That is still speculation, and we can't know for sure until we've tested the M4 chips on desktop or laptop computers.

M4 Neural Engine and AI

The 16-core Neural Engine has also been upgraded and can handle around 38 trillion operations per second. The company claims it's the most powerful AI PC neural processing unit. It's a big claim, especially because Apple has slowly developed generative AI technologies.

(Image credit: Apple)

Regarding AI technologies, Apple is expected to focus on this area during the next WWDC, and experts expect the company to introduce various AI features in the latest macOS and iOS 18.

Sources say that Apple is looking to upgrade its products to perform AI tasks on-device in general. If this is the case, the company will need powerful chips to handle the workload. That's where M4 comes into play. However, if Apple is serious about AI, we hope the memory base will increase to 16GB.

M4 Chip Range

When talking about the M4 chip range, potential change is coming along. Unlike its predecessors, the M4 Ultra will probably not have the UltraFusion tech. In the past, Apple used this technology to combine two M2 chips and create the M2 Ultra.

Since the M3 Max doesn't have this feature and the M3 Ultra hasn't even been released, we can't expect that the M4 Ulta will have two chips combined.

Apple M4 Chip Pricing

The only currently available Apple product with an M4 chip is the iPad Pro-Family, which was released in 2024. This iPad Pro comes in two different screen sizes: 11 and 13 inches. These iPads have the Ultra Retina XDR Display with 120Hz and Tandem OLED. However, the smaller one has a resolution of 242.1668, while the larger one has a resolution of 275.2064.

Currently, you can find an iPad Pro with an 11-inch screen and 256GB memory for around $1000, while the 2TB version will cost you around $2000. On the other hand, the lowest version of the iPad Pro with a 13-inch screen will cost you $1300, while the best version can cost around $2500.

Even though M4 MacBook Air products haven't been released, there are some rough price numbers. For example, a 13-inch MacBook Air with the highest possible specs could be priced at around $1500, while a 15-inch MacBook Pro with an M4 chip will cost around $1700.

Apple M4 Chip Positioning

Here's a quick compression table of all M series chips, including the current information about the M4 chip.

Remember that this is all the general data for the base models. There are many variations available on the market. Overall, each M chip generation has better upgrades with advanced models.

Bonus: Best Data Recovery Tool for Apple Devices

The latest Apple M4 chip promises many great things. However, we still don't know how it will affect device operation and consistency, including how common crashes or data loss issues will be. After all, we still haven't had the opportunity to use them for more powerful tasks.

In other words, just because you have the latest M4 chip in your device doesn't mean your system is foolproof of data loss. Apart from crashes and errors, many people accidentally delete their data and end up regretting it.

That's why you should consider getting data recovery software like Wondershare Recoverit. Wondershare Recoerit relies on sophisticated AI technology to perform professional data recovery from different loss scenarios, including viruses, crashes, accidental deletion, system issues, etc.

Here's how to use Recoverit on your M4 device:

Step 1: Download the app from the official website and install it.

Step 2: Launch Recoverit, click Hard Drives and Locations, and select the drive from which you want to recover data.

Step 3: Recoverit will automatically start scanning your storage device

Step 4: Filter the files by their type, time, size, or tag in real time. If you know the name of the missing files, you can also use the search bar.

Step 5: Click on the file you want to preview.

Step 6: Click Recover, select the save location, and click Recover to confirm.

Conclusion

The M4 chip certainly promises many exciting things and a fantastic performance increase. This news has been welcomed with a healthy dose of skepticism, and we don't expect that the benchmarks will provide 100% accurate numbers as the marketing pitch.

However, the M4 will offer significant improvements over its predecessor. We just have to wait to see if the company delivers with AI capabilities.