Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “Apple M1 Chip: Let’s Talk!”.
Ridiculous ridiculous transitions: okay: what’s up mkbhd here, so let’s talk max with apple silicon. I have some thoughts, so there’s been a ton of tech events, especially apple events in the last couple months. Lately today was the final one of 2020, the one more thing event, and this is where we all were expecting to see the first mac with apple silicon, and i know right off the top. That’S actually kind of niche as far as like who might be interested in that specifically, but for me – and maybe it’s just a nerd inside me, this was actually the one i was most excited for. Most people would probably pick the iphone events, but this is one i don’t know. I was just very curious about. I mean i’m already, mostly a mac user.
I edit in final cut pro i’ve, seen the struggles of what apple’s had to deal with working with intel and the limitations of intel’s chips and their laptops and desktops. So i’m trying to figure out what what are they actually going to do? How good can the apple silicon mac be versus what we already have so actually leading up to the event i thought – and this i talked about this on the waveform podcast. I thought it would be either a massive jump in efficiency or a massive jump in performance. Now, you might say all right: efficiency works because you could have the same laptop with the same form, factor and size, the same power, but twice the battery life like that would be an amazing benefit of apple silicon, or maybe they do performance.
Maybe they do same battery life same size, same laptop, but it’s twice as fast. I was curious which one they would pick and then we saw it and it turns out they did both, so they unveiled. The first apple made chip for max. It’S called the m1 chip, i figure.
The m stands for mac, but then again the apple watch has the s6 chip, but the w chip is in the headphones, w1 and w2 and then the iphone has the a14 bionics. So i don’t know, maybe m doesn’t stand for mac, but it’s the m1 chip here and this chip is super impressive, now, of course asterisk. All we have right now is claims. We don’t have an actual m1 chip mac sitting in front of us. So all we can go by is what they said on stage apple’s, usually pretty good about delivering what they say on stage, but just listen to these claims. So the m1 is a five nanometer chip with eight total cores, four high performance cores and then four high efficiency cores.
So it’s kind of similar to what we’ve seen on ipad and iphone a series chips. But it’s not just the cpu. It’S a bunch of things. All put together on the same, what we’ll call system on a chip and they’re all integrated together.
So there’s the eight core cpu we talked about, but there’s also an integrated gpu, there’s the neural engine 16 core neural engine and the ram is also built in. So it’s this tightly integrated soc, where all the pieces talk to each other quickly and efficiently as possible and where the controllers and processes between them are built inside so right away. If you think like me, you can already see the upside and the downside. The downside, really just being the ram, is built in to the m1 chip now, so you don’t have any more user upgradeable ram at all in any new mac with an m1 chip. But now, of course the upside is you don’t have a separate, cpu and gpu and ram all asking for power? You have one very tightly integrated chip which can create those gains in like i was saying, either efficiency or power, and then i got to the first graph. So look at this graph. This is a graph of cpu power per watt. So if the macbook air was operating at 10, watts dropping an m1 chip in there, it just got at two times faster cpu. Is that what this means this? This chart is kind of weird? They didn’t really label the axes and it’s kind of arbitrary there’s not really too many useful numbers in here. It feels very marketing and like what even is the latest pc laptop chip we’re talking about here? It doesn’t say so i don’t know, but it seems to be suggesting that this new macbook air with an m1 chip will be twice as fast as something and then they kept going with all the rest of the benefits of the gpu, the 16 core neural engine. All this stuff – i guess you could say, got my attention and then they started unveiling the actual max so sure enough. The first one up is the new macbook air.
This super thin 13-inch laptop with a new m1 chip in there now just hold up one. Second, if you recall the new macbook air refresh just happened like six seven months ago, i reviewed it and the consensus was great little machine. It’S no wonder it’s. The most popular laptop apple makes as long as you don’t need to do anything too power intensive. It’S pretty great, so along comes this new m1 macbook air and immediately their claims are huge, faster launching apps, buttery, smooth, animations instant, wake up from sleep thanks for that craig, a 3.5 x times faster, cpu, five times faster graphics performance. The storage is up to twice as fast thanks to a better controller in the m1. They showed it gaming. They showed it editing. Multiple streams of 4k prores video, wow wow, a macbook air huh, okay sounds like they want.
The performance route sounds like they just went straight for more power, but then they also got to the battery of this macbook pro, which they say will have 15 hours of wireless web browsing and 18 hours of video playback, which is apparently six more hours than the Last macbook air, so they did both so okay, that’s a pretty impressive set of claims for macbook air 13-inch it’ll still start at 9.99. Maybe it’s not the machine for me, but that seems to address a lot of those little. Maybe it’s not quite powerful enough for extra stuff and then you just get that and you’re good, but then they moved on to the 13-inch macbook pro. So again it’s the same design, but basically just replaces the guts inside with the m1 and watch it fly. So 2.8 times faster, cpu performance, five times faster, graphics, performance, again, tough to say what they’re comparing it to.
But those are some massive numbers either way. Then they said it’s three times faster than the best-selling windows laptop in its class, but like what? What even is the best wind? What’S the best-selling windows laptop, we all know the best selling ones, aren’t the best performing ones. So what do you compare? That’S kind of that’s kind of a weird slide, but then again they got to battery and they dropped 17 hours of web browsing or 20 hours of video playback, which is apparently twice what they were, quoting before twice the battery in the new macbook pro i’m just Imagining like some of the cross-country flights, i’ve been on where you’re kind of checking on your battery as the movie plays to make sure you’re not draining too fast, 20 hours of video playback. What that so, they they crush battery and they have big performance gains. Some pretty big claims, so that will start at 12.99 and they also did refresh the mac mini as well, which makes sense because there’s no uh dedicated gpus in those integrated gpu as well, so that’ll start at 6.99. So there’s three new macs with the m1 chip.
So my take is, i am very curious how these huge new performance gain claims will actually translate to real life and also how that lineup will sort of mesh itself out. I know again, the macbook air is the most popular laptop they make for a reason. It’S also the cheapest, but also now it seems like it’s even more eating into any reason to buy the 13-inch macbook pro. If it’s so powerful, they have the same chip, they seem like they’ll, be roughly equal in terms of performance, but anyway it’s not all sunshine and rainbows.
These machines are actually already up on apple.com to spec and buy like right now, if you want to check them out and there’s some things to keep an eye on, one is no user. Upgradable ram, like i said on any of these machines, so not only does apple, have insane control over the hardware components talking to each other for perfect optimization, but they also have insane control over how much you will pay for a ram upgrade. And since you can never upgrade the ram yourself, you got ta buy the ram from apple, then number two there’s no new webcams on any of these laptops. Really, the hardware is mostly unchanged. I believe the air got a slightly improved display with p3 color, but generally when they were talking about the m1 chip, giving the laptops better webcam quality.
They were just talking about the image signal: processor, not an actual 1080p webcam. Sadly, they’re all still listed with a 720p webcam and then i also noticed only two thunderbolt usbc ports on the m1 macbook pro see, there’s always been two tiers of the 13-inch macbook pro one baseline version, which has two thunderbolt ports and then the higher spec version, Which has two on each side, so four, the new one with the m1 chip for some reason, has two which is odd and fun fact you can actually still buy the intel macbook pro. If you want, you can go to apple’s website, go to the new macbook pro and scroll down.
The intel ones are still here and the higher end. One still has four ports, so you get the upside of control and you get the downside of control. Apple’S just decided, you only need two ports for that macbook pro, even though you’re a pro and then really, i believe, most of the biggest numbers we’re seeing as far as performance improvements will come from the best most well optimized apps and the ones that apple makes Kind of reminds me of the new consoles actually, so there is still broad app compatibility because old apps all still work, and you can actually also now use mac, apps and ipad and iphone apps all in mac, os, big sur, but the biggest performance improvements. Those two three four five x improvements will come from apps that are actually really well optimized and that’s gon na take time for developers to work in.
So it’s not gon na be instant it’ll be developing over time, but you’ll see stuff. Like you know, the adobe suite is gon na be working on stuff in the coming months and there’s new version of photoshop uh that’ll be early next year. So that’s good.
So i think the most important quote of this event was near the end when they said the 13-inch macbook pro is the ultimate expression of what the m1 chip can do, which yeah. I believe that that makes a lot of sense. We were looking forward to what they could do with a much bigger body and thermal envelope with apple silicon and their promising huge performance, literally insane sounding battery life together, m1 chip – great.
But you know what i’m most excited for. I am most excited for the rest of the lineup, the desktops because see with the laptops and the mac mini. You still are optimizing for a lower wattage and a smaller thermal envelope, and you still need those high efficiency cores to kick in at the right times. To actually achieve that amazing battery life and energy efficiency, but in the desktops like when they eventually get to imac and imac pro and mac pro, eventually in the m2 or whatever they call it that ship doesn’t have to have so many efficiency cores right.
That ship doesn’t have to have the ram built in. I hope i don’t think so, so really what they can just optimize for is power, power power and so for me, as someone who’s been very impressed with the mac pro’s performance throughout this whole year. I cannot wait to see what types of numbers you would get just optimizing for power and the whole rest of that lineup could be sick. It’S going to take some time. It’S going to be a process, we’re not going to see it right away, but when we do that could be sick.
All i can do is cross my fingers. That apple doesn’t take the control thing too far like i said they didn’t have to build in the ram, but it made sense for the laptops and i kind of wonder what they’re going to do with the rest of the lineup in other chips. But that’s what we know so far.
I we, i definitely got to get my hands on these laptops and figure out how well the numbers translate to real life, but there you go for all the people who are asking me hey. Should i get a new macbook? This year, i’m thinking about a new laptop, and i told you to wait. I told you there was new macbooks coming now they’re here, you can literally get them like by the time you see this video you’re welcome, but definitely stay tuned for the reviews and we’ll see how good they actually are so either way.
That’S my thoughts. That’S been it thanks for watching catch, you guys very soon in the next one peace .