Monday, October 18th 2021
Apple Introduces M1 Pro and M1 Max: the Most Powerful Chips Apple Has Ever Built
Apple today announced M1 Pro and M1 Max, the next breakthrough chips for the Mac. Scaling up M1's transformational architecture, M1 Pro offers amazing performance with industry-leading power efficiency, while M1 Max takes these capabilities to new heights. The CPU in M1 Pro and M1 Max delivers up to 70 percent faster CPU performance than M1, so tasks like compiling projects in Xcode are faster than ever. The GPU in M1 Pro is up to 2x faster than M1, while M1 Max is up to an astonishing 4x faster than M1, allowing pro users to fly through the most demanding graphics workflows.
M1 Pro and M1 Max introduce a system-on-a-chip (SoC) architecture to pro systems for the first time. The chips feature fast unified memory, industry-leading performance per watt, and incredible power efficiency, along with increased memory bandwidth and capacity. M1 Pro offers up to 200 GB/s of memory bandwidth with support for up to 32 GB of unified memory. M1 Max delivers up to 400 GB/s of memory bandwidth—2x that of M1 Pro and nearly 6x that of M1—and support for up to 64 GB of unified memory. And while the latest PC laptops top out at 16 GB of graphics memory, having this huge amount of memory enables graphics-intensive workflows previously unimaginable on a notebook. The efficient architecture of M1 Pro and M1 Max means they deliver the same level of performance whether MacBook Pro is plugged in or using the battery. M1 Pro and M1 Max also feature enhanced media engines with dedicated ProRes accelerators specifically for pro video processing. M1 Pro and M1 Max are by far the most powerful chips Apple has ever built.
"M1 has transformed our most popular systems with incredible performance, custom technologies, and industry-leading power efficiency. No one has ever applied a system-on-a-chip design to a pro system until today with M1 Pro and M1 Max," said Johny Srouji, Apple's senior vice president of Hardware Technologies. "With massive gains in CPU and GPU performance, up to six times the memory bandwidth, a new media engine with ProRes accelerators, and other advanced technologies, M1 Pro and M1 Max take Apple silicon even further, and are unlike anything else in a pro notebook."
M1 Pro: A Whole New Level of Performance and Capability
Utilizing the industry-leading 5-nanometer process technology, M1 Pro packs in 33.7 billion transistors, more than 2x the amount in M1. A new 10-core CPU, including eight high-performance cores and two high-efficiency cores, is up to 70 percent faster than M1, resulting in unbelievable pro CPU performance. Compared with the latest 8-core PC laptop chip, M1 Pro delivers up to 1.7x more CPU performance at the same power level and achieves the PC chip's peak performance using up to 70 percent less power. Even the most demanding tasks, like high-resolution photo editing, are handled with ease by M1 Pro.
M1 Pro has an up-to-16-core GPU that is up to 2x faster than M1 and up to 7x faster than the integrated graphics on the latest 8-core PC laptop chip. Compared to a powerful discrete GPU for PC notebooks, M1 Pro delivers more performance while using up to 70 percent less power. And M1 Pro can be configured with up to 32 GB of fast unified memory, with up to 200 GB/s of memory bandwidth, enabling creatives like 3D artists and game developers to do more on the go than ever before.
M1 Max: The World's Most Powerful Chip for a Pro Notebook
M1 Max features the same powerful 10-core CPU as M1 Pro and adds a massive 32-core GPU for up to 4x faster graphics performance than M1. With 57 billion transistors—70 percent more than M1 Pro and 3.5x more than M1—M1 Max is the largest chip Apple has ever built. In addition, the GPU delivers performance comparable to a high-end GPU in a compact pro PC laptop while consuming up to 40 percent less power, and performance similar to that of the highest-end GPU in the largest PC laptops while using up to 100 watts less power. This means less heat is generated, fans run quietly and less often, and battery life is amazing in the new MacBook Pro. M1 Max transforms graphics-intensive workflows, including up to 13x faster complex timeline rendering in Final Cut Pro compared to the previous-generation 13-inch MacBook Pro.
M1 Max also offers a higher-bandwidth on-chip fabric, and doubles the memory interface compared with M1 Pro for up to 400 GB/s, or nearly 6x the memory bandwidth of M1. This allows M1 Max to be configured with up to 64 GB of fast unified memory. With its unparalleled performance, M1 Max is the most powerful chip ever built for a pro notebook.
Fast, Efficient Media Engine, Now with ProRes
M1 Pro and M1 Max include an Apple-designed media engine that accelerates video processing while maximizing battery life. M1 Pro also includes dedicated acceleration for the ProRes professional video codec, allowing playback of multiple streams of high-quality 4K and 8K ProRes video while using very little power. M1 Max goes even further, delivering up to 2x faster video encoding than M1 Pro, and features two ProRes accelerators. With M1 Max, the new MacBook Pro can transcode ProRes video in Compressor up to a remarkable 10x faster compared with the previous-generation 16-inch MacBook Pro.
Advanced Technologies for a Complete Pro System
Both M1 Pro and M1 Max are loaded with advanced custom technologies that help push pro workflows to the next level:
macOS Monterey is engineered to unleash the power of M1 Pro and M1 Max, delivering breakthrough performance, phenomenal pro capabilities, and incredible battery life. By designing Monterey for Apple silicon, the Mac wakes instantly from sleep, and the entire system is fast and incredibly responsive. Developer technologies like Metal let apps take full advantage of the new chips, and optimizations in Core ML utilize the powerful Neural Engine so machine learning models can run even faster. Pro app workload data is used to help optimize how macOS assigns multi-threaded tasks to the CPU cores for maximum performance, and advanced power management features intelligently allocate tasks between the performance and efficiency cores for both incredible speed and battery life.
The combination of macOS with M1, M1 Pro, or M1 Max also delivers industry-leading security protections, including hardware-verified secure boot, runtime anti-exploitation technologies, and fast, in-line encryption for files. All of Apple's Mac apps are optimized for—and run natively on—Apple silicon, and there are over 10,000 Universal apps and plug-ins available. Existing Mac apps that have not yet been updated to Universal will run seamlessly with Apple's Rosetta 2 technology, and users can also run iPhone and iPad apps directly on the Mac, opening a huge new universe of possibilities.
Apple's Commitment to the Environment
Today, Apple is carbon neutral for global corporate operations, and by 2030, plans to have net-zero climate impact across the entire business, which includes manufacturing supply chains and all product life cycles. This also means that every chip Apple creates, from design to manufacturing, will be 100 percent carbon neutral.
M1 Pro and M1 Max introduce a system-on-a-chip (SoC) architecture to pro systems for the first time. The chips feature fast unified memory, industry-leading performance per watt, and incredible power efficiency, along with increased memory bandwidth and capacity. M1 Pro offers up to 200 GB/s of memory bandwidth with support for up to 32 GB of unified memory. M1 Max delivers up to 400 GB/s of memory bandwidth—2x that of M1 Pro and nearly 6x that of M1—and support for up to 64 GB of unified memory. And while the latest PC laptops top out at 16 GB of graphics memory, having this huge amount of memory enables graphics-intensive workflows previously unimaginable on a notebook. The efficient architecture of M1 Pro and M1 Max means they deliver the same level of performance whether MacBook Pro is plugged in or using the battery. M1 Pro and M1 Max also feature enhanced media engines with dedicated ProRes accelerators specifically for pro video processing. M1 Pro and M1 Max are by far the most powerful chips Apple has ever built.
M1 Pro: A Whole New Level of Performance and Capability
Utilizing the industry-leading 5-nanometer process technology, M1 Pro packs in 33.7 billion transistors, more than 2x the amount in M1. A new 10-core CPU, including eight high-performance cores and two high-efficiency cores, is up to 70 percent faster than M1, resulting in unbelievable pro CPU performance. Compared with the latest 8-core PC laptop chip, M1 Pro delivers up to 1.7x more CPU performance at the same power level and achieves the PC chip's peak performance using up to 70 percent less power. Even the most demanding tasks, like high-resolution photo editing, are handled with ease by M1 Pro.
M1 Pro has an up-to-16-core GPU that is up to 2x faster than M1 and up to 7x faster than the integrated graphics on the latest 8-core PC laptop chip. Compared to a powerful discrete GPU for PC notebooks, M1 Pro delivers more performance while using up to 70 percent less power. And M1 Pro can be configured with up to 32 GB of fast unified memory, with up to 200 GB/s of memory bandwidth, enabling creatives like 3D artists and game developers to do more on the go than ever before.
M1 Max features the same powerful 10-core CPU as M1 Pro and adds a massive 32-core GPU for up to 4x faster graphics performance than M1. With 57 billion transistors—70 percent more than M1 Pro and 3.5x more than M1—M1 Max is the largest chip Apple has ever built. In addition, the GPU delivers performance comparable to a high-end GPU in a compact pro PC laptop while consuming up to 40 percent less power, and performance similar to that of the highest-end GPU in the largest PC laptops while using up to 100 watts less power. This means less heat is generated, fans run quietly and less often, and battery life is amazing in the new MacBook Pro. M1 Max transforms graphics-intensive workflows, including up to 13x faster complex timeline rendering in Final Cut Pro compared to the previous-generation 13-inch MacBook Pro.
Fast, Efficient Media Engine, Now with ProRes
M1 Pro and M1 Max include an Apple-designed media engine that accelerates video processing while maximizing battery life. M1 Pro also includes dedicated acceleration for the ProRes professional video codec, allowing playback of multiple streams of high-quality 4K and 8K ProRes video while using very little power. M1 Max goes even further, delivering up to 2x faster video encoding than M1 Pro, and features two ProRes accelerators. With M1 Max, the new MacBook Pro can transcode ProRes video in Compressor up to a remarkable 10x faster compared with the previous-generation 16-inch MacBook Pro.
Both M1 Pro and M1 Max are loaded with advanced custom technologies that help push pro workflows to the next level:
- A 16-core Neural Engine for on-device machine learning acceleration and improved camera performance.
- A new display engine drives multiple external displays.
- Additional integrated Thunderbolt 4 controllers provide even more I/O bandwidth.
- Apple's custom image signal processor, along with the Neural Engine, uses computational video to enhance image quality for sharper video and more natural-looking skin tones on the built-in camera.
- Best-in-class security, including Apple's latest Secure Enclave, hardware-verified secure boot, and runtime anti-exploitation technologies.A Huge Step in the Transition to Apple Silicon
- The Mac is now one year into its two-year transition to Apple silicon, and M1 Pro and M1 Max represent another huge step forward. These are the most powerful and capable chips Apple has ever created, and together with M1, they form a family of chips that lead the industry in performance, custom technologies, and power efficiency.
macOS Monterey is engineered to unleash the power of M1 Pro and M1 Max, delivering breakthrough performance, phenomenal pro capabilities, and incredible battery life. By designing Monterey for Apple silicon, the Mac wakes instantly from sleep, and the entire system is fast and incredibly responsive. Developer technologies like Metal let apps take full advantage of the new chips, and optimizations in Core ML utilize the powerful Neural Engine so machine learning models can run even faster. Pro app workload data is used to help optimize how macOS assigns multi-threaded tasks to the CPU cores for maximum performance, and advanced power management features intelligently allocate tasks between the performance and efficiency cores for both incredible speed and battery life.
The combination of macOS with M1, M1 Pro, or M1 Max also delivers industry-leading security protections, including hardware-verified secure boot, runtime anti-exploitation technologies, and fast, in-line encryption for files. All of Apple's Mac apps are optimized for—and run natively on—Apple silicon, and there are over 10,000 Universal apps and plug-ins available. Existing Mac apps that have not yet been updated to Universal will run seamlessly with Apple's Rosetta 2 technology, and users can also run iPhone and iPad apps directly on the Mac, opening a huge new universe of possibilities.
Today, Apple is carbon neutral for global corporate operations, and by 2030, plans to have net-zero climate impact across the entire business, which includes manufacturing supply chains and all product life cycles. This also means that every chip Apple creates, from design to manufacturing, will be 100 percent carbon neutral.
156 Comments on Apple Introduces M1 Pro and M1 Max: the Most Powerful Chips Apple Has Ever Built
everybody powers up their system of preference just to run benchmarks all day long
laughable, at best. the day we compare pears and knives is not far away.
SPEC? SPEC is not synthetic, nor is it a single workload. SPEC is a very wide-ranging benchmark suite, put together by an industry-spanning consortium, and uses sections of real-world software for its performance measurements. You can read about what each benchmark does and what software it is based on on the SPEC website. The tests range from video compression to code compilation to weather simulations and 3D modelling . Is this a perfectly representative set of tests? Of course not. That is literally impossible. But it's the best and most widely accepted set of performance tests in the computing industry. That does mean it has a bias: it's very much focused towards the types of workloads where heavy computation are useful for professional use. That means no gaming tests, no regular office workloads, etc. Still, it is a good representation of actual CPU performance across a wide range of heavy CPU-focused tasks.
Oh, and if you're still not happy with that, did you even bother to look at the other pages where they test other software? Sure, there isn't a lot of it, but that isn't all that strange given that this was essentially a day 1 test on a brand new hardware+software platform. When AT looks at the new chips, there will absolutely be other software tested.
Edit: for those of you speculating in GPU performance (@r9 @billEST @Ravenas): Apparently Apple's comparison GPU in their M1 Pro charts was a 3050 Ti in a Lenovo Legion 5 (82JW0012US). No word on the benchmarks used though. For the M1 Max they were comparing against a mobile 3080 in both a Razer Blade 15 (their "slim laptop" example, 100W GPU TDP) and an MSI GE76 Raider (160W GPU TDP). They're not claiming quite 3080-level performance looking at those (very vague) graphs, but it's pretty close. Of course real-world tests will be extremely dependent on software and driver support, as we can see in AT's M1 testing (where they use both synthetic benchmarks as well as RotTR, and the M1 comes close to a mobile 1650 in synthetics but falls well behind in actual gaming). Apple is undoubtedly most focused on GPGPU tasks like rendering, but this still looks mighty interesting overall. Might we see game developers start to target Apple devices now that some of them can deliver actually good GPU performance? Or will drivers and platform issues hold them back
My 500mm² guess was also a bit off, but even 432mm² is downright insanity for a monolithic laptop SoC. Especially on 5nm. Renoir is ~150mm², for reference. Plugging that into a wafer calculator gives us a total of 124 dice per 300mm wafer, so assuming a ~$10 000 wafer cost (which might be higher with 5nm, especially these days), that's $80 just in pure die costs for these chips assuming all dice can be used (which won't be the case), before packaging and any accounting for engineering/R&D costs. That is a very, very, very, very expensive chip. Though I guess that goes to show the benefits of vertical integration, as that R&D cost integrates into everything else the company is working on, rather than forming the basis for profit margins on something that's sold on to a second company.
:roll:
The exact numbers (assuming both chips maintain peak boost during the entire workload, which they likely do for an ST test):
5950X:
SPECINT2017: 7.29, or 1.4878/GHz
SPECFP2017: 9.79, or 1,9980/GHz
M1:
SPECINT2017: 6.66, or 2,0813/GHz (39.9% higher IPC, or the 5950X has 28.5% lower IPC, depending which way you calculate)
SPECFP2017: 10.37, or 3,2406/GHz (62,2% higher IPC, or the 5950X has 38.3% lower IPC, depending which way you calculate)
As we're talking relative numbers here any percentage will always be somewhat misleading, but the advantage is undeniable and massive.Magic? Not at all. Just an insanely rich company with near unlimited R&D budgets and the funds to hire whatever engineers they want, licence whatever patents they need, and buy oversized, ludicrously expensive silicon on cutting-edge nodes in a way nobody else can. Could Intel or AMD match them if they had the same resources and could sell these chips? Sure. But they don't, and they can't. The M1 Max is the size of Intel's largest monolithic server CPUs, but with a much lower core count, integrated GPU, NPU and a bunch of other stuff. Intel and AMD's laptop chips are mostly in the 150-200mm² range. Nobody has ever made a laptop SoC even remotely like this - in part because nobody has a guaranteed market for $4000+ laptops like Apple does.
So much intelligent discussion to learn from, and of course the odd numbnut thrown in for a laugh.
while you're at it don't forget tu buy apple's 25$ cleaning cloth. there's some "magic story" behind it too :roll:
Apple know their market well, most of the 6,8% buying their computers are doing graphic design, motion design, video editing, music editing, or just "office" like workload. And a lot of those tasks are being more and more accelerated by GPUs and other specialised hardware. I firmly believe that Apple isn't banking on having the most "versatile CPU" arch, but a versatile Soc
why would anyone use faster memory, or add more cache, if it didn’t result in more instructions being executed per clock.
Plus to say that it's a system level thing implies that everything should be measured together, what do we do if we want to measure FLOPS throughput ? Do you count the GPU and all the various other accelerators in as well ? After all it's all on the same SoC, same system, right ?It results in more instruction been executed per clock some of the time, the upper and lower bounds of IPC and it's behavior remain exactly the same.
Just look at AMD. Infinity cache is serving a very important purpose and it's the same purpose as why Apple has a very large cache as well. More cache means better hit ratios which yields better performance. It might seem like an oversimplification, but it's really not.
On this note, I do find it really pathetic that PC manufactures haven't moved to a new configuration that allows for wider interfaces. It's insane that we have to wait for years on end so that we can move to a new DDR standard in order to get more bandwidth. This is really the only concrete area where Intel and AMD can't do jack shit about, not by themselves anyway.