Apple’s M3 Ultra chip may be a unique design, not just two M3 Max chips bolted together – MacDailyNews
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Apple’s M3 Ultra chip may be designed as a unique standalone chip, rather than two M3 Max chips joined together via Apple’s groundbreaking UltraFusion connection technology as in the M1 Ultra and M2 Ultra.
Hartley Charlton for MacRumors:
The theory comes from Max Tech’s Vadim Yuryev, who outlined his thinking in a post on X earlier today. Citing a post from @techanalye1 which suggests the M3 Max chip no longer features the UltraFusion interconnect, Yuryev postulated that the as-yet-unreleased “M3 Ultra” chip will not be able to comprise two Max chips in a single package. This means that the M3 Ultra is likely to be a standalone chip for the first time.
This would enable Apple to make specific customizations to the M3 Ultra to make it more suitable for intense workflows. For example, the company could omit efficiency cores entirely in favor of an all-performance core design, as well as add even more GPU cores. At minimum, a single M3 Ultra chip designed in this way would be almost certain to offer better performance scaling than the M2 Ultra did compared to the M2 Max, since there would no longer be efficiency losses over the UltraFusion interconnect.
Furthermore, Yuryev speculated that the M3 Ultra could feature its own UltraFusion interconnect, allowing two M3 Ultra dies to be combined in a single package for double the performance in a hypothetical “M3 Extreme” chip.
配線層あり
（配線層剥離はXには載せないけど） pic.twitter.com/saSXMYGXSw
— テカナリエ清水 (@techanalye1) December 27, 2023
Apple's in the process of restructuring their Apple Silicon lineup. M3 Max no longer comes with the UltraFusion interconnect (see image)
This means that the M3 Ultra chip will be redesigned as its own standalone chip, no longer being made up of 2x Max dies.
What this means:
1.… pic.twitter.com/o4J2hpEGaI
— Vadim Yuryev (@VadimYuryev) March 27, 2024
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The achievement could prove huge. We’ll never know what Apple had cooking (maybe this tech) for their own Car CPU’s and controllers…
The amount of savings Apple stood to save on it’s own internal chips and tech design for it’s own car, it could have been huge.
Hopefully, once Cook retires (within 12 months I am hoping) we’ll get a new CEO that can take a small team, take the vehicle, and have a platform that can build out a 3-row, 2-row SUV/Cross-over solutions, and work with Toyota on Hydrogen engines.
EV’s have a niche, but due to the materials required across the globe, the child slave labor in Africa, that amount of strip mining, it’s horrible. The amount of materials for all vehicles to go EV and the amount of coal burning and power needed for that – none of it calculates – not even close.
In short, it can be a niche luxury market solution for commuting and such, but it’s not a long-term mass market solution. That’s a pure pipe dream – reality – and Toyota’s been trying to kindly communicate this for roughly 2-years now.
Hydrogen, however, is a completely different story. Whether designed like an ICE engine, or fuel-cell (again, an electric motor car), the output is water droplets. All good.
Apple could leapfrog and Purple Cow the industry with a hydrogen line of vehicles.
Apple could further take the lead by pulling a Tesla 2.0, with building out their own fueling stations, and partnering with a player like Costco to dominate.
A well thought out, feasible and practical solution and exactly the polar opposite of what Apple are likely to do as they don’t appear to have a shred of innovation left.
The car project has rightfully been abandoned, though years later than it should have. While these solutions may be effective for another company, Apple has no business becoming a car manufacturer.
Cook isn’t the only problem. There are legions of enablers and bloated bureaucrats that have stifled the company. The current cast of characters doesn’t even have the capacity to envision let alone implement such things. They thought they’d launch a car without pedals and a steering wheel! You’d need to bring in someone like Musk and fire half the employees. They’re better off sticking to iPhones, Macs and their derivatives without DEI insanity.
The best rumor I’ve heard in a while.
Two M3 Ultras fused into a workable M3 Extreme that is not hobbled by a bad UltraFusion implementation would be a great chip for a real, next generation Mac Pro. Couple that with at least six PCIe 6 slots (at least 3 being 16 bit slots and at least 2 being 8 bit slots) and at least a half dozen Thunderbolt 5 ports and it could revive the Mac Pro line.
I can dream; can’t I?
While the current, top end Mac Pro is OK, it gets toasted by the very top end Intel and Nvidia combination.
Such a theoretical M3 Extreme with the option to put in additional graphics or co-processing boards would take the Mac Pro back to being worthwhile for the processing power hungry people that prefer Macs.
to look for leadership in silicon performance design look at Nvidia Blackwell platform. It terms of raw speed Apple silicon is year behind. It seems Apple priorities are energy efficient chips which is good for mobile devices. But in term of professional speed Apple is no even considered in Workstation/Data center performance. Im afraid Apple is so driven by profit margins they will stay with the CPU/GPU single chip which provides a great cost reduction benefit. But Nvidia has shown us there is still an almost limitless need for raw performance. Apple uses TSMC 3nm process to create a balance of power usage and performance at the most profitable production cost. Nvidia is using TSMC 4nm to release break neck speed. The market need for speed is rewarding Nvidia in their stock price. It’s kinda unthinkable that the GPU maker (Nvidia) the Apple once upon a time kicked to the curve with most likely blow by Apple’s valuation this year.
As long as Apple crams a GPU/CPU on the same chip they will get smoked by Nvida/AMD, intel combo, but apple will win the profit margin / battery usage category. Just like a Prius is more efficient than a fire breathing Rimac Nevera. Apple has the resources to design different chips for different uses. Up to this point they have gone the route of most profit for customer. Hopefully this new design will a chip that puts performance over energy usage and production cost.
thus far in 2024 this is what bleeding edge chip design looks like.
Apple the balls in your court. Will we get more energy efficient saving the world forced performance reduction or will Apple final put TSMC 3nm to work.
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