The first generation Apple M1 successfully hit the market when it was first released, and now Apple is releasing its successor. What is its performance like compared to its competitors?
The M1's successors are called M1 Pro and M1 Max, which are used in the newly released MacBook Pro 14 and 16. So far, the performance is still limited to Apple's claims because no one has reviewed the two laptops yet, and Apple's promise about the performance of the M1 Pro and Max is still very sweet.
First in terms of specifications, the M1 Pro and Max are both equipped with 10 core CPUs, up from the M1 which only has eight cores. Not only does the number of cores increase, the distribution is also different.
If the M1 CPU is divided into four fast cores and four energy efficient cores, the M1 Pro and Max have eight fast cores and only 2 energy efficient cores. According to Apple, the performance is 70% higher than the M1.
Then when compared to the processors used in PCs (Apple compared to the Intel Core i7-11800H), the M1 Pro's performance is 1.7x faster with the same power level, and at peak performance it can be as much power efficient as 70%.
This claim, if true, is certainly impressive. Especially in terms of power consumption which is much more efficient. But there is still another sweet promise from Apple from the M1 Pro and Max, namely from the GPU sector.
According to Apple, the M1 Pro GPU is 2x faster than the M1, while the M1 Max is 4x faster than the M1. This is achieved from a higher number of cores, which is up to 16 cores for the M1 Pro and 32 cores for the M1 Max, while the M1 only has an 8-core GPU (7 cores in the cheapest MacBook Air).
But how does it compare to GPUs for PCs? From the graph presented by Apple, the M1 Max is described as having performance close to the RTX 3080 on the MSI GE76 laptop, but with a much lower power consumption, reaching 100W the difference.
Meanwhile, when compared to the same GPU on a thin laptop, in this case the Razer Blade 15, the GPU on the M1 Max has equivalent performance and is up to 40% more power efficient.
"This means less heat is generated, fans can run slowly and quietly and run less frequently," Apple wrote in a statement.
The M1 Pro and Max are made using 5nm manufacturing, the number of transistors is 33.7 billion in the M1 Pro (more than 2x more than the M1) and 58 billion in the M1 Max (the largest chip Apple has ever made).
"The M1 has transformed our most popular systems with outstanding performance, specialized technology, and industry-leading power efficiency. No one has ever applied a system-on-a-chip design to a pro system to this day with the M1 Pro and M1 Max, " said Johny Srouji, Apple's Senior Vice President of Hardware Technologies.
