Apple’s M4 processor is featured in the new iPad Pro tablet with OLED screen. The chip is manufactured using a 3 nm process technology and consists of 4 productive and 6 energy-efficient cores. According to Apple, it is twice as powerful as the M2 processor in the previous iPad Pro. The 10-core M4 GPU also supports dynamic caching, mesh shading and ray tracing, as well as a new display engine with four times faster visualization.
During the presentation, Apple paid considerable attention to the M4’s capabilities in processing artificial intelligence. According to the company, the new neural chip provides 38 TOPS in AI operations. It is 60 times faster than the NPU in the 2017 A11 processor, but it is still less than the declared 45 TOPS of the Snapdragon X Elite. However, Apple still claims that the M4 can deliver the same performance as the latest PC chips at just a quarter of their power consumption.
Apple did not mention the number of Neural Engine cores in the M4. The M-series chips (except for M1 and M2 Ultra) have had the same number of —16 NPU cores since their debut, but the number of TOPS has gradually increased with each generation, the neural unit has performed better.
The presentation of the M4 processor took place less than two weeks before Microsoft will hold a special Windows and Surface event (in Seattle, May 20), where the new Arm-based hardware is expected to be officially launched. Microsoft is also confident that Windows on Arm will finally be able to beat Apple’s MacBook Air with M3 in terms of both performance and AI acceleration.