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After Apple held an Apple press conference at 2am on Double 11 Taiwan time, this is a major milestone in meticulously planning to redefine the Mac computer and change the direction of the future. One More Thing’s focus isn’t on three new Mac computers, the star of Apple’s All Research press conferenceApple M1The chip will be a revolutionary product that will subvert the computer and also become the latest benchmark in the ARM industry in the future.
In the past, Apple’s Mac computers have always used Intel processors. The collaboration between them has lasted for 15 years, until 2020 does not stop. Apple has decided to launch the first M1 chip on its own. Why abandon Intel? For details, see the previous article “Apple Why abandon Intel and switch to self-developed ARM processors”.
As for the M1 chip, it is actually the A12Z / A14 series of extended products based on the iPad tablet. M1 can also be considered an improved version of the A14X chip. Whether it’s the hardware or software level, it also brings a new twist and it is more certain that the Mac The future development trend will make the macOS, iOS, iPadOS and tvOS ecosystems closer and cross-platform.
On M1 computers, you can run the iPadOS app or games directly. It is no longer a problem. That’s why Apple doesn’t allow it “IOS virtual machine“Appeared, and with the Apple Silicon series processors, all this has become easier to explain.
How powerful is the first M1 chip of the Apple Silicon processor?
Apple M1 It is Apple’s first Mac-specific chip. It is a System-on-Chip (SoC) built with the latest 5nm process technology pioneered by foundry leader TSMC. M1 package reaches 16 billion transistors, compared to A14 There are more than 11.8 billion transistors and the number of transistors has increased by 35%, which is more than current x86 desktop processors on the market, delivering powerful performance of processing.
The Apple M1 chip includes an 8-core CPU processor, an 8-core GPU graphics chip, a 16-core neural network engine, DRAM4 memory, and a cache controller. All are integrated via Fabric high-speed interconnect architecture to improve core performance, broadband and communication efficiency.
Each core can run single-task or threaded or multi-threaded jobs, so it will run at full capacity when performance is required. During normal operation, it will only run with low power consumption, achieving effective performance and high endurance.
Apple M1 uses an 8-core CPU. The number of cores is currently Apple’s most powerful ARM processor. Its architecture is similar to that of the iPhone / iPad. The number of cores is also divided into large and small cores, which are 4 high-performance cores and 4 high-efficiency cores, which are more than A14 There are two cores. Although both MacBooks use M1, the entry-level Air has one less core than the Pro.
Apple’s MacBook Air is compared to Intel’s 10th Generation Ice Lake. It consumes only 10W and low power consumption, but its performance can be twice as fast as Ice Lake notebooks. Even when it only consumes a quarter of the power, it is enough. Hit the opponent under pressure.
In terms of graphics chips, Apple has not indicated who to compare with – it may not be the Intel or AMD nuclear display, but the MX or GTX series graphics chips in the notebook, which can see a clear advantage.
In order to achieve highly efficient graphics performance, most graphics chips require the use of discrete graphics chips to solve this problem. On the contrary, the energy consumption will become very serious. However, the eight-core GPU built into Apple M1 can run 25,000 threads every time Comparing the graphics chips of the laptop’s GPU, the M1 GPU can achieve 2x higher graphics performance with just 10W, and the average power is only a third to have. high performance performance, easily coping with 4K video streaming or 3D scenes Drawing and other work.
At the moment, Apple Silicon is currently ARM’s fastest CPU and GPU chips, all using Apple’s custom packaging technology. It also brings the latest 16-core neural network engine, capable of 11 trillion operations per second, which can increase machine learning (ML) speed by 15 times. The ML accelerator in the CPU and the powerful GPU complement each other for video analysis and voice The image recognition and processing work has been greatly improved and also supports USB 4 Thunderbolt 3 (up to 40 Gb / s) , PCI 4.0 and NVMe standard.
Apple uses MacBook as the M1 test device
The Apple M1 chip is Apple’s first Apple Silicon chip, and it’s also an unexplored area that Apple is exploring. Many problems will surely be encountered during these phases and processes.
Since the iPad Pro is equipped with A12X / A12Z processors, it can compete with x86 processors in terms of performance. Now Apple has also dedicated 10 years of cumulative design capability to mobile devices. This eliminates the design capabilities accumulated by the Intel office since 2016. It has begun to expand and the A12Z processor on the iPad Pro is now dominating the mobile device market.
Interestingly, both the high-end MacBook Air and the 13-inch MacBook Pro use the same 8-core CPU (equipped with 4 high-performance cores and 4 power-saving cores), with the result that the Pro series is not Pro at all. The only difference between the two is the brightness. , Battery life, touch panel, high dynamic speakers, microphone, thickness and heat dissipation (active cooling system), as for the actual performance difference, you need to wait for the follow-up run points to be confirmed up.
Apple deliberately closed the GPU core numbering code. In fact, it ran once in the first iPad Pro. The A12Z in the 2020 iPad Pro is exactly the same as the A12X in the 2018 iPad Pro. It has been confirmed that both are indeed available.8 core graphics processor，Only one of the A12X’s graphics processor units is hiddenIt wasn’t released until the iPad Pro 2020 model. It was a performance issue when it sounded good, and it was a performance issue when it sounded bad. Apple plans to schedule the M1 chip routine! Disable the number of GPU cores according to different product tiers.
Mr. Crazy seems to expect Apple to allow the market to test the heat dissipation capability of the Apple M1 chip. After all, it is impossible to know in the laboratory whether the heat generated by the M1 chip in different environments can be used in a fanless environment and whether it will cause low frequency operation. After all, Apple’s first product will have uncertain factors and can even be considered an experimental product. All answers will need to be confirmed after long-term use by multiple users after sale.
Apple Apple M1 has the advantages of integration, energy saving and high performance
Simply put, the Apple M1 chip is more capable than current mainstream processors.High efficiency, low power consumption, integration“Advantages, it is very difficult to achieve this. After all, if the x86 processor wants to achieve high performance, it must provide more power to fill it. Only in M1 can handle and handheld have both.
Nowadays, battery technology has not undergone revolutionary changes. Additionally, laptops need to take battery life and performance into account. After the advent of low-power ARM processors, it will also become the future direction of development of x86 processors towards large and small cores. Intel is unable to do this. Before power consumption is reduced, it will continue to be under heavy pressure from Apple Silicon series processors, which will also allow more manufacturers to start developing towards ARM.
With years of experience and development in ARM mobile processors, Apple has integrated many traditional x86 processors which cannot achieve basic integration, such as Neural Engine, NPU (Neural Processing Unit), Apple T2 security control chip and HEVC The decoder / encoder, SSD master control and encryption all directly call the T2 chip as the second accelerated processing chip in the system.
After successfully invoking T2 chip capabilities on Mac computers, the initial lack of CPU and GPU processors allowed Apple to decide to put together mobile devices in recent years and accelerate the maturity of the A series bionic chips. Now Apple has integrated the two chips into one. On an Apple M1 chip.
After the Mac computer switched to the ARM chip, Universal, Catalyst and other technologies were implemented in advance, which can immediately solve the conversion problem between x86 and ARM. This time around, Apple M1 will allow you to install and run mobile and tablet apps directly on your computer. It will also bring another new ecology to Mac computers.
Has the x86 processor lost?
At the moment, the Apple M1 chip wins with its advantages of low power consumption and high performance. These benefits are easily seen on iPhones and iPads. Apple uses the ARM architecture of the mobile device in an attempt to apply it to laptops and desktop products, but don’t forget that M1 is only one In the future, the 16-inch MacBook Pro, iMac, iMac Pro and Mac Pro products will also bring updates.
Apple is expected to have already developed products with follow-up M1 chips, and subsequent high-end Mac products will also appear with even more amazing processors that can compete with the Intel i7 and i9.
Replacing the entire Mac product line will take approximately two years. For professional users who still use Adobe film and television, it could be a final split in five years. Adobe’s official website shows:
Adobe applications currently do not support ARM processors. But to ensure complete compatibility and performance, we are testing and optimizing our applications for these new processors.
When does Adobe expect to support ARM devices? Will it continue to support Intel or AMD systems?
We are working hard to ensure that our application is compatible with computers using ARM processors, but we have not yet set a release date; Yup. We do not plan to stop supporting Intel or AMD systems.
At the WWDC developer conference, Apple first demonstrated that Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom are running on the ARM system. As for Adobe Premiere and After Effects film and television software to support ARM architecture, it will take more than two years. It will take a short time. It looks like Intel still has an edge, unless Adobe and other professional software start supporting ARM, it might be rocked again.
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