SOComputing Published 2020-11-11 17:04:06
Small chip. Giant leap
Apple's new chip M1 designed specifically for Mac, it delivers incredible performance, custom technologies, and revolutionary power efficiency. And it was designed from the very start to work with the most advanced desktop operating system in the world, macOS Big Sur. With a giant leap in performance per watt, every Mac with M1 is transformed into a completely different class of product. This isn’t an upgrade. It’s a breakthrough.
An entire system. On a single chip.
Until now, a Mac needed multiple chips to deliver all of its features — including the processor, I/O, security, and memory. With M1, these technologies are combined into a single system on a chip (SoC), delivering a new level of integration for more simplicity, more efficiency, and amazing performance. And with incredibly small transistors measured at an atomic scale, M1 is remarkably complex — packing the largest number of transistors we’ve ever put into a single chip. It’s also the first personal computer chip built using industry‑leading 5‑nanometer process technology.
Unified memory.
Shared across the entire system.
M1 also features our unified memory architecture, or UMA. M1 unifies its high‑bandwidth, low‑latency memory into a single pool within a custom package. As a result, all of the technologies in the SoC can access the same data without copying it between multiple pools of memory. This dramatically improves performance and power efficiency. Video apps are snappier. Games are richer and more detailed. Image processing is lightning fast. And your entire system is more responsive.
Massive CPU performance.
Using a fraction of the power.
The 8‑core CPU in M1 is by far the highest‑performance CPU we’ve ever built. Designed to crush tasks using the least amount of power, M1 features two types of cores: high performance and high efficiency. So from editing family photos to exporting iMovie videos for the web to managing huge RAW libraries in Lightroom to checking your email, M1 blazes right through it all — without blazing through battery life.
Four high‑performance cores
M1 features four performance cores, each designed to run a single task as efficiently as possible while maximizing performance. Our high‑performance core is the world’s fastest CPU core when it comes to low‑power silicon.3 And because M1 has four of them, multithreaded workloads take a huge leap in performance as well.
Four high‑efficiency cores
M1 has four efficiency cores to handle lighter workloads. They use a tenth of the power while still delivering outstanding performance. These e‑cores are the most efficient place to run lightweight tasks, allowing the performance cores to be used for your most demanding workflows.
2x faster CPU performance
M1 delivers significantly higher performance at every power level when compared with the very latest PC laptop chip. At just 10 watts (the thermal envelope of a MacBook Air), M1 delivers up to 2x the CPU performance of the PC chip. And M1 can match the peak performance of the PC chip while using just a quarter of the power.
CPU performance vs. power
CPU performance per watt
3x higher performance per watt
When we look back at the single‑threaded performance of low‑power silicon in the Mac, gains in performance per watt have been very small from one chip to the next. But when we look at M1, we see a massive 3x improvement in performance per watt.
The world’s fastest integrated graphics in a personal computer.
Typically, PCs have to use a discrete chip to get great graphics performance — which consumes a lot of power. But M1 is different. Its integrated graphics bring the best of both worlds — a huge increase in graphics performance together with low power consumption. The result of years of thorough analysis of Mac applications, the GPU in M1 is the most advanced graphics processor we’ve ever built. With up to eight GPU cores, M1 is capable of executing nearly 25,000 threads at a time. From teraflops to texture bandwidth to fill rate to power efficiency, this GPU is in a class of its own — and brings the world’s fastest integrated graphics in a personal computer.
An OS made for M1,
down to its core.
macOS Big Sur is engineered to take full advantage of all the capability and power of the M1 chip — making everything you love about macOS faster, better, and more secure. It’s our most powerful software ever, running on our most advanced hardware yet.
2x faster graphics performance
At every power level, M1 delivers significantly higher graphics performance than the very latest PC laptop chip — for up to 2x the graphics speed. And M1 can match the peak performance of the PC chip while using just a third of the power.
The next generation of machine learning.
M1 features our latest Neural Engine. Its 16‑core design is capable of executing a massive 11 trillion operations per second. In fact, with a powerful 8‑core GPU, machine learning accelerators, and the Neural Engine, the entire M1 chip is designed to excel at machine learning. Final Cut Pro can intelligently frame a clip in a fraction of the time. Pixelmator Pro can magically increase sharpness and detail at incredible speeds. And every app with ML‑powered features benefits from performance never before seen on Mac.
