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Apple is known for its state-of-the-art tech offerings like the iPhone, iPads, and Macs. The ecosystem Apple has created is never dependent on other companies when performance matters but there has been one place where Apple has been a little dependent and that is the processors for its Mac computer systems. Apple for the longest time has been using Intel’s processors to give power to its PCs and laptops. But that is going to change as Apple has introduced its first Apple Silicon M1 chips that are going to power the latest MacBook Air and the MacBook Pro.
What is the M1 Chip?
As previously known, Apple has used its A-chips to power iPhones and iPads, S-chips to power its smartwatches, and W-chips to power headphones, now the latest M1 chip will power Apple’s Official Mac PCs. M1 chip is Apple’s latest in-house Apple Silicon-built chip that is based on the ARM architecture. According to Apple, the latest M1 chip is the most powerful chip they have ever built. The next generation of Macs is going to feature this new ultra-fast power-efficient Apple’s M1 chip. Departing from using Intel as their processor, Apple has said Hi to a set of new challenges and possibilities.
Yes, it is not the first time Apple has made a chip in-house, well in fact every year they debut a new and improved A-chip like the latest A14 bionic chip for their iPhones. But it is the first time Apple has debuted an in-house chip in their MacBook and people are pretty stocked. The latest M1 chip is the first PC computing chip built on the 5nm (nanometer) process technology and consists of 16 billion transistors, the greatest number of transistors Apple has ever put in their chips.
The M1 chip is built having the world’s fastest integrated GPU system in a PC processing chip, it is built a low power consuming silicon technology and has advanced machine learning capabilities that its competitors. Hence, making the MacBook powered by an M1 chip having 3.5x improved processing speeds, 6x increased GPU performance, and all this is also done almost doubling the battery times on the latest generation than the previous generations of MacBooks.
Let’s go a little in detail about this breakthrough Apple Mac exclusive Soc that has got the tech-world talking:
M1 is Apple’s First PC chip:
The latest M1 chip is Apple’s first and latest SoC for its range of Mac PCs. The latest MacBook Air and MacBook Pro have debuted with the M1 chip that is a technological marvel from Apple considering it has not only focused on one core improvement rather has focused to improve both performance and efficiency. Apple has built the M1 chip with an integrated design that consists of memory handling, GPU, and T2 security chip in a small package. This results in a more power-efficient and better-performing PC SoC.
Best CPU per-watt Performance:
Apple’s latest M1 chip features 8-core which are divided into 4-cores for high performance and 4-cores for high efficiency. This balance of power and efficiency is a good blend to help you tackle system-intensive tasks for a long amount of time. Considering if you get the new MacBook Pro for professional purposes, the performance will not let you down as the M1 chip is more than capable. This core distribution will help coders to write codes and compile them faster than ever before and photo video editing will be a breeze too with all of this you will be good battery timings too.
The Integrated GPU:
The integrated GPU in the M1 chip is no joke, with 8 cores and a raw output of more than 2.6 teraflops running more than 25,000 single threads single-handedly, this integrated is for sure the best in its class on paper. Even Apple has claimed that M1’s integrated GPU is the world’s fastest integrated graphics processor in a personal computer. This means whether you get the new MacBook Air or Pro graphics performance would not be a problem. Video processing at a staggering 4K resolution and complex 3D rendering is no problem on an M1-powered Mac PC.
Machine Learning Like Never Before:
Apple brings its Neural Engine technology officially to Macs now with its latest M1 SoC. This brings great functionality to the software side of things as an application that does take advantage of machine learning will perform much smoother and efficiently than the other Macs. With Apple’s latest 16-core architecture machine learning tasks will have an overall 16x improvement. Functions like image processing and video analysis will greatly benefit from this as they will be processed at speeds that are better and improved on the newer Mac PCs. This functionality will prove great to all the music producers and photo editors out there who love to make art at blazing speeds but never want to compromise on the quality.
Benefits of ARM-architecture:
Apple’s SoCs for iPhones and iPads are also based on ARM. This expands the possibilities for Apple’s ecosystem as an application made for iOS can now easily run on Macs too considering they have SoC that is the same at the core. Loading apps on cross platforms will now be easier than ever and Apple has acknowledged this possibility and has promised that iOS will applications are officially coming to Macs soon.
Increased Security:
Apple is known for its security features and M1 brings a ton of security improvements over its predecessors. Apple has integrated its Apple Secure Enclave in the M1 Chip giving more security enhancement to the base of the Mac operating system. Also, M1 includes hardware encryption and decryption considering you might need to protect your confidential files on your trusted Mac PC.
Conclusion:
Apple is best at integrating its software with its in-house built hardware. The prime example of Apple’s excellent configuration experience is its iPhones. iPhones have never compromised on user experience and tech enthusiasts do agree that tech made by Apple does perform well when both software and hardware are made in-house by the company.
Considering how Apple was dependent on Intel for the processors for the Apple Macs, it is a great decision by Apple to shift to manufacturing its own SoCs. This shift to making powerful in-house built M1 chip will not only add to the increased performance and improved efficiency of its Mac offerings but will also bring in more revenue as Apple will not comply with Intel lowering prices of their Socs and Apple having more control over how they want to manufacture and sell their Mac PCs.
The Apple M1 chip is by far Apple’s strongest CPU to date and it does stand to the claims that Apple. Apple has just started to test its PC CPU game and they are only going to excel at its game as years progress. One could only wonder what Apple has in its store for the future of Mac PCs.
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