Apple’s newest computer is the ‘Mac Studio,’ which looks to be a taller, more powerful Mac mini.
Unveiled during Apple’s ‘Peek Performance’ event on March 8th, Apple compared the Mac Studio to its old cheese grater-styled Mac Pro. Apple claimed the Mac Studio with M1 Max was up to 50 percent faster than the Mac Pro.
As for the M1 Ultra variant, Apple says it’s up to 90 percent faster than Mac Pro.
The tech giant called the Mac Studio the “high-performance machine” customers have been waiting for.
The M1 Max offers up to 64GB of unified memory while the M1 Ultra variant has up to 128GB of unified memory.
The Mac Studio offers a bunch of ports, including six USB-C ports (four Thunderbolt 4 on the back and two USB-C on the front for the M1 Max variant, and all six Thunderbolt for M1 Ultra variants.
Apple announced its latest chip during its ‘Peek Performance’ event on March 8th: the M1 Ultra chip.
In short, the new chipset uses Apple’s ‘UltraFusion’ architecture to connect two M1 Max chips to boost performance. Apple claims UltraFusion offers four times more bandwidth than other leading chip interconnect technologies.
The M1 Ultra appears as one chip to software despite effectively being two separate chips.
M1 Ultra also supports up to 128GB of RAM, has a 20-core CPU with 16 high-performance and four high-efficiency cores, plus a 64-core GPU. Apple says M1 Ultra is nearly eight times faster than Apple’s M1 chip.
Moreover, Apple claims that M1 Ultra delivers higher performance than leading 16-core PC desktop chips while using significantly less power. The company claims Ultra used 1/3rd the power of the leader “popular discrete GPU,” although Apple didn’t specify what that GPU was.
Apple also boasted about the tight integration between its M1 silicon and macOS, which brings performance and security benefits.
Apple unveiled highly anticipated new MacBooks at its ‘Unleashed’ event on October 18th. One of the key components behind the new computers is the company’s new, more powerful M1 chips.
Dubbed the ‘M1 Pro,’ the first new chip scales up the M1 architecture with support for up to 32GB of memory at three times faster speed than M1. Additionally, M1 Pro boasts two times more transistors than M1 and is available in up to 10-core CPU and 16-core GPU versions.
Overall, the new M1 Pro boasts two times faster graphics performance than M1 and can handle two streams of 4K video at once through the new ‘Display Engine’ for handling output to multiple displays.
Along with the new M1 Pro, Apple unveiled the M1 Max chip, boasting an insane two times performance uplift over the M1 Pro and six times uplift over the M1.
M1 Max can support up to 64GB of unified memory, boasts a 32-core CPU and two times faster video encoding. Apple says the M1 Max supports output to up to four external displays. In typical Apple fashion, the company also showed off several charts comparing performance between M1, M1 Pro and M1 Max compared to PCs.
The charts are somewhat vague, but showcase the company’s bold claims. For example, Apple claims the M1 Pro and Max chips boast 1.7x more performance than an “8-core PC laptop chip” while using significantly less power. Similarly, Apple claims the GPU in the M1 Pro offers similar performance to “discrete PC laptop graphics” while using 70 percent less power.
Moreover, some of these benefits come from how Apple adapts macOS to work with its in-house silicon. For example, Apple says that macOS can take advantage of the performance and efficiency cores by targeting different tasks to them to ensure performance or save power when necessary. Similarly, macOS can make use of the M1 chips’ unified memory, which can improve performance by avoiding the need to copy data between memory for discrete components.
However, it remains to be seen how well the new M1 Pro and Max perform in real-world testing. I’m especially curious to see how professional users feel about the new chips since they appear to target that market.
Finally, Apple also provided an update on its transition to universal apps made for the company’s M1 chips. There are now over 10,000 universal apps.
Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger is hoping to win back Apple’s business.
In an interview with Ina Fried, Axios’ chief technology correspondent, on Axios on HBO, Gelsinger discussed his ‘plan’ for getting Apple back. You can basically sum up the plan as ‘make better chips than Apple.’
Watch the clip in the video embedded below, or check out the transcription for Gelsinger’s full answer:
“Fried: Recently Apple said they’re moving from Intel chips on the Mac to homegrown processors. Have you given up on the idea of the Mac running on Intel chips?
Gelsinger: I never give up on the idea of anything not running on Intel chips. And, you know, hey, you know, our stumbles, you know, Apple decided they could do a better chip themselves than we could. And, you know, they did a pretty good job. So what I have to do is create a better chip than they can do themselves. I would hope to win back this piece of their business, as well as many other pieces of business, over time. And in the meantime, I got to make sure that our products are better than theirs, that my ecosystem is more open and vibrant than theirs, and we create more compelling reason for developers and users to land on Intel-based products. So, I’m going to fight hard to win Tim’s business in this area.”
For some added context, Apple began to transition its computers away from Intel’s chips in June 2020. In place of Intel chips, Apple started developing and using its own processors based on ARM designs, similar to what’s used in smartphones and tablets (including Apple’s iPhone and iPad). The first such chip, dubbed the ‘M1,’ has appeared in MacBooks, iMacs, Mac minis and the iPad Pro line. Further, the company is expected to unveil new computers at an event on October 18th featuring a new version of the chip, possibly called ‘M1X’ or ‘M2.’
The thing is, making a better chip is easier said than done — and even if Intel manages to do it, I’m not sure that’ll be enough to win back Apple. Aside from the performance and battery life benefits of the switch to its own ARM-based silicon, Apple is also able to more tightly control its hardware and software stack by using its own chips. I don’t see Apple giving that up just because Intel’s chips manage to pull ahead in performance.
Plus, Intel has been pumping out some pretty terrible, desperate-feeling ads that try to dunk on Apple by touting the “benefits” of Intel chips — benefits that often have little to do with Intel’s chips.
The one upside to Gelsinger’s comment is that hopefully in Intel’s effort to win Apple back, it creates some truly excellent products for Windows users. Intel’s started to lag behind the competition and with AMD’s CPU division firing on all cylinders, Intel’s going to have to step up its game to keep its CPU crown.
