8GB RAM in M3 MacBook Pro Proves the Bottleneck in Real-World Tests::Apple's new MacBook Pro models are powered by cutting-edge M3 Apple silicon, but the base configuration 14-inch model starting at $1,599...

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 6 points 2 years ago (5 children)

Lol, the ram is part of the m3 chip That’s a reason why it is so efficient. The storage in m3 is for RAM and videoRAM.

Wikipedia: The M3's Unified Memory Architecture features up to 24 GB RAM, the M3 Pro up to 36 GB, and the M3 Max up to 128 GB. Like the M2 generation, the M3 SoCs use 6,400 MT/s LPDDR5 SDRAM. As with prior M series SoCs, this serves as both RAM and video RAM.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 5 child comments
  • [–] 7 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (4 children)

    That's literally how Intel integrated GPUs work too

    The RAM being shared with the GPU, that is.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
  • [–] -4 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    With Apple's chips the RAM is all on the CPU die so both CPU and GPU get the performance benefit. With Intel's, none of it is.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

    "What Apple calls “unified memory” is RAM (random-access memory) used as “main memory” (not a CPU or GPU cache and not mass storage either).

    The term “unified” refers to the fact that the memory is shared by the CPU cores and the GPU cores. That’s not novel: “integrated graphics” options in Intel x86 chips (like Iris Xe) do the same, as do just about all modern smartphones."

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago

    I'm not talking about the merits or otherwise of "unified memory", I'm pointing out that because Apple's RAM is physically integrated into the CPU, it can provide more memory bandwidth than regular DDR5 DIMMs.

  • source
  • parent