On June 22, 2020, a historic day for the Mac, Apple announced it would transition the Mac to its world-class custom silicon – Apple Silicon – from Intel processors in order to deliver industry-leading performance and powerful new technologies.
Apple’s M1 and M2 chips, also known as Apple Silicon, offer several advantages over Intel-powered Macs:
- Performance: Apple’s M1 and M2 chips are based on ARM architecture, which is designed for energy efficiency and high performance. This has allowed Apple to create chips that are both fast and energy-efficient, offering improved performance compared to Intel-powered Macs.
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Integration: Apple’s M1 and M2 chips are integrated into the Mac’s mainboard, which helps to reduce power consumption, increase performance, and improve reliability.
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Compatibility: Apple’s M1 and M2 chips are designed to work seamlessly with the Mac’s operating system, macOS. This has led to improved compatibility and stability, as well as faster and more efficient performance.
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Battery Life: The energy efficiency of Apple’s M1 and M2 chips has a direct impact on battery life, allowing Macs to run longer on a single charge compared to Intel-powered Macs.
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Price: Apple’s M1 and M2 chips are manufactured in-house, which has allowed the company to reduce the cost of its Macs compared to Intel-powered Macs.
MacDailyNews Take: Overall, the use of Apple Silicon in Macs has allowed Apple to offer improved performance, compatibility, battery life, and price compared to Intel-handicapped Macs.
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As much as the benefits of Apple silicon are clear, what still makes it a tough proposition at times is the lack of modularity, therefore having to ascertain your needs for the next few years well in advance, potentially overpaying for your needs.
Lots of arguments can and have been made as to why there is no modularity… the question is how true are they?
If you get your needs wrong, it is like having to buy a new car just because you need a roof rack for extra space, AND at a PREMIUM for the same comparable expansion elsewhere.
Guess it depends on your definition of ‘modularity’. For me it’s enough ports for external expansion and I’m guessing for you it’s internal expansion.
Let the market decide or hasn’t it already done that?
There hasn’t been any modularity with the vast majority of Macs except the iMac Pro and Mac Pro (as far as I recall) for well over a decade. You’re referring to Apple Silicon but your asking a question that pertains to Macs in general over the last ~15 years. Sounds confused.
You are right on point here and indeed many PC laptops now are also not upgradable beyond their initial configuration. There was a time when you did need to upgrade frequently but not so much anymore.
One additional advantage is that Apple silicon further differentiates Apple’s products from the rest.
When Apple bought CPUs from other manufacturers, any other company could buy that same chip. Apple doesn’t sell its chips to anybody else, so rivals can’t possibly use those chips.
Apple also has economies from scale. The same chips are used on various devices, other manufacturers simply don’t sell enough of a given product to make custom chips viable for CPUs. Furthermore, Apple can make use of chips which aren’t fully up to the top spec in products which are less demanding, effectively selling a waste product for good money.
You make a solid point here.
I seem to recall some folks wondering why Apple bought PA Semi ages ago. And their long-standing connections with ARM, for that matter.
I think, for me at least it is a double edged sword. Microsoft is a necessary evil in my workplace as both our cabinet design and estimating software are Windows only. Because Microsoft doesn’t retail an ARM version of Windows I had to join the Microsoft Insider Program to get my hands on an ARM version of Windows to run our estimating software with mixed success. The cabinet design software was another issue all together: 2020Design has no intention of EVER publishing an ARM version of it’s software so having a dual boot machine, regardless how great it is as a Mac, will mean I am now forced to either carry two laptops OR buy an i7 (or i9) MacBookPro and be able to use BootCamp
The only thing lacking is GPU performance
…and the CPU performance too or should I say performance in general. Apple silicon was designed as a mobile chip that balanced power draw and performance for mobile apps but in terms of Pro level performance the current apple CPUs and GPUs are slow compared to both AMD and Intel latest offerings. Heck even to this day the fastest rendering (brute force number churching power) Mac ever is the “old” Intel Xeon processor. There is a reason apple hasn’t replaced the old intel server processor because the M1/2 is still slower. Apple pro users are an afterthought only to be fleeced with consumer mobil options.
https://www.check-mac.com/en/benchmark-cinebench_r23-10
Multi Core
Apple Mac Pro 28-Core (2019)
Intel Xeon W-3275M @ 2.50 GHz
28,051
Apple Mac Studio M1 Ultra 48-GPU (2022)Apple M1 Ultra @ 3.20 GHz
23,566
Apple Mac Studio M1 Ultra 64-GPU (2022)
Apple M1 Ultra @ 3.20 GHz
23,566
Apple MacBook Pro 16" M2 Max 38-GPU (2023)
Apple M2 Max @ 3.50 GHz
14,855
Apple Mac mini M2 Pro (2023)
Apple M2 Pro (12 Core) @ 3.50 GHz
14,855
Compare the current mac offerings to the PC offerings and pro Macs are slow.
the article references performance but the real truth is profitability. Apple cutting out the middle man and using a mobile CPUs with an integrated GPU is very profitable for Apple. Why should Apple design and manufacture a Pro CPU/GPU when they can just use smoke and mirrors and the blind loyalty of mac users to sale an inferior yet highly profitable CPU/GPU. Truly Tim Cook’s wheel house.
“Apple’s M1 and M2 chips are manufactured in-house.”
This is unequivocally false. Apple has no semiconductor fab. This is done by TSMC.