Apple’s newest chip changes everything.
When Apple released the M1 chip at the end of 2020, we were blown away by the speed improvements over its Intel predecessors. A year later Apple did it again with the M1 Pro and M1 Max, and then in March 2022, Apple revealed the M1 Ultra, filling out the M1 chip lineup. Here’s how the Apple silicon transition has gone so far—and where it’s going.
M1: December 2020
Apple’s current M1 processor is based on the 5nm A14 chip that first arrived in the iPad Air (4th generation) and iPhone 12. It has four high-performance cores with 192 KB of L1 instruction cache and 128 KB of L1 data cache and shared 12 MB L2 cache and four energy-efficient cores with 128 KB of instruction cache, 64 KB of L1 data cache, and shared 4 MB L2 cache. That makes a total of eight cores split evenly among power and efficiency leading to tremendous speed boosts over the prior models. The system-on-a-chip also has an eight-core GPU in most models (the entry-level MacBook Air and 24-inch iMac have a 7-core GPU) with 128 execution units and up to 24576 concurrent threads.
Memory has also changed. With the M1, the LP-DDR4 memory isn’t just soldered to the motherboard, it’s actually part of the chip itself. That means it’s faster and more efficient than before, but it’s also a bit more limited—you can only get 8GB or 16GB in an M1 Mac and there’s no way to upgrade it after purchase. (That won’t be a surprise for MacBook buyers but the same also applies to desktop models, though we’re not sure about the Mac Pro yet.) And finally, the chip has a 16-core Neural Engine, along with the Secure Enclave and USB4/Thunderbolt support.
Read more at MacWorld.com