During Apple’s product launching event in California on October 18, the company announced the M1 PRO AND M1 MAX, as the next breakthrough chips for Mac. The MacBook Pro comes in two sizes: 14-inch and 16-inch.
Technically, the screen sizes are 14.2 inches (with a 3024x 1964 pixel resolution) and 16.2 inches (3456x 2234), each has a starting storage capacity of 512GB. At the top of the display screen is a notch that hosts the 1080p front-facing web camera to support all video conferencing needs with two times better low-light performance.
Mini LED enables local dimming of hundreds or even thousands of dimming zones, so while it’s still an LCD screen, in optimal conditions, you can get similar contrast and black levels to what might see in an OLED screen but with better brightness and no burn-in risk.
Improving on the M1’s build, M1 Pro offers industry-leading performance with incredible power efficiency, while M1 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 Xcode are faster than ever. The GPU in M1 PRO is up to 2x faster than M1, allowing Pro users to fly through the most demanding graphics workflows.
Apple’s system-on-chips (SoC) are produced by long-time foundry partner TSMC, the same source of Apple’s A-series chips. The chips feature fast unified memory, industry-leading performance per watt, and incredible power efficiency, along with increased memory bandwidth and capacity.
The M1 Pro offers up to 200GB/s of memory bandwidth with support for up to 400GB/s of memory bandwidth two times that of M1 Pro and nearly six times that of M1 and support for up to 64GB of unified memory.
And while the latest PC laptops top out at 16GB of graphics memory, having a huge amount of memory enables graphics-intensive workflows previously unimaginable on a notebook.
M1 Pro and MI MAX also feature enhanced media engines with dedicated ProRes accelerators specifically for pro video processing. No doubts M1 and M1 MAX are by far the most powerful chips Apple has ever built.
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M1 Pro
Produced on a 5-nanometer process technology which provides several benefits, this includes reducing the physical space of the chip by itself, which reduces the cost-per-chip for wafers, and in turn, the processor itself. M1 Pro packs in 33.7 billion transistors, more than two times the amount in M1.
A new 10-core CPU, including eight high-performance cores and two high-efficiency cores, is up to 70% faster than M1, resulting in unbelievable pro CPU performance.
Compared with the latest 8 –core PC laptop chip, M1 pro delivers up to 1.7 times 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 two times faster than M1 and up to seven times 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 32GB of fast unified memory, with up to 200GB/s of memory bandwidth, enabling creatives like 3D artists and game developers to do more on the go than ever before and a starting storage of 512GB
M1 MAX
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 13 times 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 400GB/s, or nearly 6x the memory bandwidth of M1.
This allows M1 Max to be configured with up to 64GB of fast unified memory. With its unparalleled performance, M1 Max is the most powerful chip ever built for a pro notebook.
A graph shows that M1 Max and its up-to-32-core GPU delivers the same graphics performance like that in a high-end compact PC pro laptop while using up to 40 percent less power.
A graph shows that M1 Max delivers similar graphics performance as the largest PC laptops while using up to 100 watts less power.
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.
Surprisingly Apple brought back HDMI and SD card ports which were unavailable in the previous MacBooks. The systems come with three Thunderbolt 4 ports, HDMI port, SDXC card slot, MagSafe 3 port, Wi-Fi6, Bluetooth 5.0, headphone jack, and six audio speakers.
Apple replaced the Touch Bar with full height function keys. The M1 Pro and M1 Max will power the new MacBook Pro models and are expected in the upcoming Mac Mini. We are looking at around $1090, and $1999, $2499 for Macbook with these chipsets.
