- cross-posted to:
- technology@beehaw.org
- cross-posted to:
- technology@beehaw.org
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…
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.
"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."
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.