March 5, 2025
PRESS RELEASE
Apple Unveils M3 Ultra: Elevating Apple Silicon Performance to New Heights
The latest chip boasts up to 2.6 times the performance of the M1 Ultra, featuring Thunderbolt 5 connectivity and the highest-ever unified memory capacity in a personal computer—exceeding half a terabyte.
CUPERTINO, CALIFORNIA — Apple has today introduced the M3 Ultra, its most powerful chip to date, delivering unmatched CPU and GPU performance in a Mac, alongside double the Neural Engine cores and the most extensive unified memory ever seen in a personal computer. The M3 Ultra integrates Thunderbolt 5, offering more than double the bandwidth per port for enhanced connectivity and extensive expansion options. Built on Apple’s proprietary UltraFusion packaging architecture, it connects two M3 Max chips through over 10,000 high-speed links, ensuring low latency and high bandwidth while enabling the system to function as a single, cohesive unit, maximizing performance while maintaining Apple’s renowned power efficiency. With a staggering total of 184 billion transistors, the M3 Ultra enhances the Mac Studio’s capabilities to unprecedented levels.
“M3 Ultra represents the peak of our scalable system-on-a-chip design, specifically crafted for users engaged in the most demanding threaded and bandwidth-heavy applications,” stated Johny Srouji, Apple’s senior vice president of Hardware Technologies. “With its 32-core CPU, powerful GPU, expansive memory support, Thunderbolt 5 connectivity, and exceptional power efficiency, M3 Ultra stands unrivaled in the market.”
Exceptional Performance and Efficiency
M3 Ultra offers outstanding performance, distinguishing it as the top chip for Mac while upholding the superior power efficiency characteristic of Apple silicon. It features a 32-core CPU composed of 24 performance cores and 8 efficiency cores, providing up to 1.5 times the performance of the M2 Ultra and 1.8 times that of the M1 Ultra. Additionally, it houses the largest GPU in any Apple chip, with up to 80 graphics cores, delivering performance that is up to twice as fast as the M2 Ultra and 2.6 times faster than the M1 Ultra.1
The M3 Ultra’s advanced graphics architecture incorporates dynamic caching, hardware-accelerated mesh shading, and ray tracing capabilities, allowing it to excel in demanding content creation tasks and gaming. Its robust 32-core Neural Engine powers AI and machine learning, driving Apple Intelligence—an integrated personal intelligence system featuring powerful generative models. Notably, the M3 Ultra is tailored for AI applications, including ML accelerators in the CPU, Apple’s most advanced GPU, the Neural Engine, and over 800GB/s of memory bandwidth, enabling AI professionals to deploy large language models (LLMs) with over 600 billion parameters directly on the device, making it an ideal desktop for AI development.
Unmatched Memory Capabilities
The unified memory architecture integrated into M3 Ultra features the highest bandwidth and lowest latency memory ever available in a personal computer. Starting at 96GB and expandable to 512GB, or over half a terabyte, it surpasses the memory capacities of the most advanced workstation graphics cards, removing barriers for professional workloads that require extensive graphics memory for tasks like 3D rendering, visual effects, and AI.
Next-Level Connectivity with Thunderbolt 5
M3 Ultra brings Thunderbolt 5 to the Mac Studio, achieving data transfer speeds of up to 120 Gb/s—more than double that of Thunderbolt 4. Each Thunderbolt 5 port features a dedicated controller on the chip, ensuring dedicated bandwidth for each port on the Mac Studio, marking it as the industry’s most advanced Thunderbolt 5 implementation.
The Thunderbolt 5 ports on Mac Studio revolutionize the experience for professionals requiring faster data transfer rates for external storage, docking, and hub solutions, while preparing users for future expansion chassis. Thunderbolt 5 also facilitates multi-Mac Studio system connections, enhancing workflows that push the boundaries of content creation and scientific exploration.
State-of-the-Art Integrated Technologies
In its quest to optimize performance and efficiency, M3 Ultra comes equipped with Apple’s cutting-edge technologies:
- Apple’s proprietary UltraFusion packaging technology employs an embedded silicon interposer connecting two M3 Max dies through over 10,000 signals, providing more than 2.5TB/s of low-latency interprocessor bandwidth, making M3 Ultra appear as a single cohesive chip to software.
- The media engine within M3 Ultra features twice the resources of M3 Max, enabling significantly enhanced concurrent video processing capabilities with dedicated hardware for H.264, HEVC, and four ProRes encode and decode engines, allowing playback of up to 22 streams of 8K ProRes 422 video.
- The display engine supports driving up to eight Pro Display XDRs, managing over 160 million pixels effectively.
- The Secure Enclave is designed to work with hardware-verified secure boot and runtime anti-exploitation technologies, ensuring top-tier security.
Commitment to Sustainability
The energy-efficient nature of M3 Ultra aligns with Apple’s rigorous standards for energy conservation, minimizing total energy consumption throughout the product’s lifespan. Currently, Apple operates as carbon neutral across global corporate operations and is on track to achieve full carbon neutrality across its entire carbon footprint by the end of this decade, as part of its ambitious Apple 2030 initiative.
About Apple
Apple changed the landscape of personal technology with the launch of the Macintosh in 1984. Today, Apple leads innovation globally with products like the iPhone, iPad, Mac, AirPods, Apple Watch, and Apple Vision Pro. Apple’s six software platforms—iOS, iPadOS, macOS, watchOS, visionOS, and tvOS—deliver seamless experiences across devices, offering groundbreaking services such as the App Store, Apple Music, Apple Pay, iCloud, and Apple TV+. With over 150,000 employees, Apple is dedicated to creating the best products and making a positive impact on the planet.
- Performance claims are based on comparisons with previous-generation Mac Studio systems featuring Apple M1 Ultra, 20-core CPU, 64-core GPU, and 128GB RAM, as well as Mac Studio systems equipped with Apple M2 Ultra, 24-core CPU, 76-core GPU, and 192GB RAM.
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Apple
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Apple
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