If the Apple M1 became a hard jab for Intel, now its successor chip is a warning to AMD and Nvidia. How come?
Between the M1 and M1 Pro/Max, there is a significant difference between the CPU and GPU. For example, in the CPU, the M1 Pro/Max has more fast cores than the M1. Although the single-core performance of the three chips is the same.
The most significant difference is in the number of GPU cores, where the M1 only has 8 cores while the M1 Pro has 16 cores and the M1 Max has 32 cores. Apple also claims that this new chip has performance close to high-end discrete GPUs, but with much lower power consumption.
This claim was later substantiated by Anandtech, who tested the M1 Pro and Max using GFXBench to calculate their performance in productivity. From these tests, the performance of the M1 Max almost beats laptops that use RTX 3080 and Intel Core i9-11980HK.
There's also YouTuber Dave2D, who says the M1 Max is a bit slower than the RTX 3080-based system for Adobe Premiere Pro. It renders a video that takes 10 minutes 17 seconds. However the same video only took 4 minutes 16 seconds when rendered in FINal Cut Pro.
But Dave also compared the performance of the M1 Max with the Nvidia GPU for gaming, which was still inferior to the RTX 3060, whose performance was far less than the RTX 3070, let alone the RTX 3080.
The thing to remember is that the macOS platform was not made for playing games since ancient times. The number of games available on this platform is also very minimal compared to PC.
The games that Dave compares aren't even optimized for the Apple Silicon platform, and the M1 Max GPU can still compete with the RTX 3060. It's really impressive.
Not to mention when discussing power consumption. The fastest MacBook Pro 16 variant with M1 Max is only equipped with a 140W charger. Apple claims the M1 Max consumes 100W less power than a gaming laptop with an RTX 3080.
So what if the power consumption is lower? This means that the heat generated is also lower. So the cooler can be made smaller. In addition, its performance can be maintained even if the laptop is not connected to a charger.
Also keep in mind, if Apple can make chips for laptops with this kind of performance -- which incidentally has limited cooling and low power consumption -- imagine what they could do for a device like the Mac Pro.
This is all part of Apple's planned transition from Intel processors to Apple Silicon in all of its Mac devices, which is planned to happen at the end of 2022.
Mark Gurman from Bloomberg has previously mentioned that Apple is preparing Apple Silicon chips for the Mac Pro desktop device, which will come with at least two variants, namely 2X and 4X. The number of CPU and GPU cores is impressive, namely 40 CPU cores and 128 GPU cores.
For those who think the M1 Pro and M1 Max in the MacBook Pro are impressive, the new Mac Pro desktop is expected to come in at least two variations: 2X and 4X the number of CPU and GPU cores as the M1 Max. That's up to 40 CPU cores and 128 GPU cores on the high-end.
— Mark Gurman (@markgurman) October 18, 2021