The Apple M4 SoC was the big hardware news at the event Release where Apple presented its new generation of electronic tablets, the iPad Air and especially the new iPad Pro, where the new chipset shines.

We can’t say we’re surprised by Apple’s new hardware engine announcement, as we expected it last week. What the leakers could not provide is that its premiere took place so soon. The Cupertino firm must have thought it was a good time given that we are in for the biggest refresh of the tablet line since 2018.

Apple M4 SoC, in detail

There are few manufacturers that work on the ARM architecture like Apple. It demonstrates this with its own line of mobile chipsets that have stood out among the best on the market and also with an exemplary transition to replacing x86 on your Macs.

The Apple M4 SoC is manufactured using 3 nanometer technological processes and has 28 billion transistors. According to Apple, it represents a big leap compared to the M2 used in previous iPads in all sections, performance, efficiency, in the screen engine designed specifically to move the OLED panel and of course in its abilities to accelerate AI processes.

processor

The M4 chip contains a 10 core CPU It consists of four high-performance cores and six efficient cores for less demanding tasks. The next generation cores feature better branch prediction capabilities with enhanced decoding and execution engines on powerful cores and an optimized engine on efficient cores. Note that both types of cores contain state-of-the-art machine learning accelerators.

With all this, the M4 CPU is up to par 1.5 times faster than the M2 chip previous generation iPad Pro. Apple points to examples of professional computing tasks where the M4 boosts performance in workflows, from working on processing complex orchestral music files in Logic Pro to creating advanced 4K video effects with LumaFusion.

GPU

The integrated graphics build on the technical foundations we know from the M3 family of chips, using a dynamic cache to optimize performance, but adding important features that we see in dedicated graphics, such as ray tracing hardware acceleration, which comes to iPad for the first time,

The GPU also integrates hardware-accelerated mesh shading, which increases the capabilities and efficiency of geometry processing and opens the door to more visually complex scenes in graphics-intensive games and applications. Apple says it runs professional rendering applications like Octane up to four times faster than the M2.

Neuron engine

Hardware to accelerate AI processes is key to any type of chip these days, and Apple, which has so far lagged behind in this type of functionality, was expected to mount a truly powerful neural processor. And he complied.

The Apple M4 SoC includes an on-chip PI core designed to accelerate AI processes, which is the most powerful Apple has ever designedcapable of managing 38 billion operations per second and supported by the AI ​​functions of the iPadOS operating system.

Media Engine

Finally, Apple highlighted the M4 chip’s multimedia engine as the most advanced ever made for the iPad. It supports standard video codecs, H.264, HEVC and ProRes, and for the first time on Apple tablets with hardware acceleration for AV1.

We will have time to analyze (in the real world) the performance and efficiency of this M4 chip that Apple has released in the new iPad Pro It looks really good on paper and will be the basis on which the new Max and Ultra Macs will be based.