M4 Max chip leaked by Apple itself – CPU is likely to power new MacBook Pro laptops that are about to be revealed

M4 Pro in the Mac mini not powerful enough for you? M4 Max is imminent, apparently

News By Darren Allan published 30 October 2024

Apple’s week of Mac-related announcements should build to a crescendo today with the launch of the MacBook Pro M4, and these laptops will carry not just the vanilla M4 and M4 Pro chips, but also the M4 Max, according to a freshly spotted clue.

Developer Charlie Joseph posted on X to highlight the presence of an image asset showing the ‘M4 Max’ chip which was briefly on Apple’s website – as you might expect, it was quickly removed.

So, it looks like someone at Apple was a bit careless here, and Joseph managed to spot the asset that’d been sneaked up in the background, with well-known leaker Mark Gurman subsequently flagging this up.

It’s a strong clue that we are about to see the M4 Max, as noted, which is rumored to be offered with higher-end MacBook Pro models.

Analysis: Another strong hope – unified RAM loadouts

What else can we say about the incoming MacBook Pro M4, aside from the likelihood it will offer options on the base M4 chip, plus M4 Pro (already seen in the Mac mini, revealed yesterday) and M4 Max (which will be new and exclusive to the Pro laptops)? Well, we’d be amazed if Apple didn’t equip the new MacBook Pro 14-inch with 16GB of RAM at the entry-level (as is already the case with the 16-inch flavor).

That’s because both the iMac M4 (which was revealed first this week, on Monday) and Mac mini M4 have 16GB of Unified Memory at the very minimum, so it would be a ridiculous decision not to equip a laptop aimed at professional users with this amount of RAM (as previously rumored). Especially as it seems to be necessary for Apple Intelligence, the new AI abilities that the M4 is designed around (partly, anyway, with a much peppier NPU on board this time around).

While Apple Intelligence can run with 8GB of RAM (as seen on the iPad Pro), this isn’t ideal, and it may leave you lean for memory when running multiple apps on a Mac – particularly in the future, as AI functionality is doubtless developed further by Apple.

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