At its much-awaited ‘Unleashed’ hardware event, Apple has introduced us to its next-gen processors. While we had been expecting Apple to unveil the M1X chip today, the company has unveiled two chips as the successors to the first-gen M1 chip. Dubbed as the Apple M1 Pro and M1 Max, these two new chipsets feature a 10-core CPU, up to 32-core GPUs, and are way faster than the first-gen M1 chip.
Apple M1 Pro and M1 Max Chips Unveiled
If you thought the company’s first in-house M1 chip was a huge leap, the M1 Pro and M1 Max take that claim to the next level. These are the next-gen ARM-based chips that will power the upcoming MacBook Pro and Max mini.
As revealed on stage by Apple, both the M1 Pro and M1 Max are based on the 5nm architecture. They both feature a 10-core CPU, which is a combination of 8 high-performance cores and 2 power-efficient cores. The company says that M1 Pro includes 33.7 billion transistors whereas the M1 Max includes 57 billion transistors.
“M1 Max is the largest chip Apple has ever built. M1 Pro and M1 Max are by far the most powerful chips Apple has ever built,” as per the official blog post.
Talking about the GPU, there is where the M1 Pro and M1 Max processors differ. While the M1 Pro comes equipped with up to a 16-core GPU, the M1 Max equips up to a 32-core GPU. Yeah, a 32-core GPU on an ARM-based laptop chip as compared to last year’s 8-core GPU. Moreover, both chips also support different amounts of unified memory (RAM). The Pro supports up to 32GB with 200GB/s bandwidth whereas the Max supports up to 64GB with 400GB/s bandwidth.
“M1 Pro and M1 Max also feature enhanced media engines with dedicated ProRes accelerators specifically for pro video processing,” as per the official blog post. Talking about performance, Apple boasts that the M1 Pro and M1X chips deliver 70% faster performance than the first-gen M1 chip with 70% less power consumption.
Moreover, both the chips include an Apple-designed media engine, 16-core Neural Engine, support for Thunderbolt 4, Secure Enclave, and ProRes video format. You can hook up to two external Pro XDR displays with the Pro variant of the chip while the Max variant supports up to four external monitors.
So yeah, the M1 Pro and M1 Max chips are exactly what creators have been looking forward to, especially with the return of more ports and a miniLED display on the new 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models.
