Apple officially announced its first processor specially designed for the Mac, and named M1. M1 is optimized for Mac systems in which small size and power efficiency are critically important.
Apple first detailed its plan to move away from Intel processors at WWDC event. Apple started using Intel Processors since 2006 and now, the first Apple in-house processor is emerged as M1 and this means Apple will have more control over how well MacOS and Mac can perform. Apple also announces that MacOS Big Sur is also optimized for M1. So we can expect maximum performance with least power usage.
CPU Performance
M1 features an 8-core CPU consisting of four high-performance cores and four high-efficiency cores. Apple says that the four high-efficiency cores deliver “outstanding performance at a tenth of the power.” In fact, the high-efficiency cores are so powerful themselves that they deliver similar performance to the dual-core Intel MacBook Air while being much more efficient. Besides, Apple says that all eight cores can work together to provide incredible compute power for the most demanding tasks and deliver the world’s best CPU performance per watt.
GPU Performance
Like CPU, Apple also features 8 powerful core GPU which is capable of running nearly 25,000 threads simultaneously. And Apple says that the GPU can handle extremely demanding tasks with ease, from smooth playback of multiple 4K video streams to rendering complex 3D scenes. Apple also claims that M1 has the world’s fastest integrated graphics in a personal computer with 2.6 teraflops of throughput.
Neural Engine
M1 chip brings Apple Neural Engine to Mac which helps to optimize Machine Learning (ML) tasks. Neural Engine features Apple’s 16-core architecture capable of 11 trillion operations per second. Apple said that Neural Engine enables up to 15x faster machine learning performance. What kind of Machine Learning tasks? Well, like video analysis, voice recognition, and image processing will have a level of performance never seen before on the Mac.
