Apple Introduces the M1 Chip to Power its new Macs
Apple has introduced the M1, its new chip that will be powering its Mac lineup, saying it is designed specifically for the Mac.
The tech giant says the M1 is optimised for Mac systems in which small size and power efficiency are critically important.
Apple says the M1 is the first personal computer chip built using cutting-edge 5-nanometre process technology and is packed with 16 billion transistors, the most Apple has ever put into a chip.
The M1 delivers up to 3.5x faster CPU performance, up to 6x faster GPU performance and up to 15x faster machine learning, all while enabling battery life up to 2x longer than previous-generation Macs.
Johny Srouji, Apple’s senior vice president of Hardware Technologies says there has never been a chip like M1.
“It builds on more than a decade of designing industry-leading chips for iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch, and ushers in a whole new era for the Mac.”
M1 features an 8-core CPU consisting of four high-performance cores and four high-efficiency cores with Apple saying they deliver similar performance to the current-generation dual-core MacBook Air at much lower power.
The M1 chip brings the Apple Neural Engine to the Mac, greatly accelerating machine learning (ML) tasks. Featuring Apple’s 16-core architecture capable of 11 trillion operations per second, the Neural Engine in M1 enables up to 15x faster machine learning performance.
Apple says the M1 chip is packed with a number of powerful custom technologies, including:
Apple’s latest image signal processor (ISP) for higher-quality video with better noise reduction, greater dynamic range and improved auto white balance.
Apple claims the chip allows a Mac to instantly wake from sleep mode, similar to iPhones and iPads and offer good performance even when running 3D programs or editing 4K video files.
Apple says it’s optimized macOS Big Sur as well as all of its apps for the new processors. Final Cut Pro is up to six times faster and Logic Pro can handle up to three times the amount of audio tracks.
It says apps from third-party providers like Adobe are also coming while Lightroom will launch later this year and Photoshop following next year.
The M1 powers the new MacBook Air, 13-inch MacBook Pro and Mac mini.
Apple says the introduction of the M1 is the beginning of a transition to a new family of chips designed specifically for the Mac adding that the transition to Apple silicon will take about two years to complete.
