You probably have heard Apple is moving away from Intel chipset for its Mac lineup. Well, move away it did. Apple had, earlier today, announced the next generation of Mac powered by Apple M1 chips – the first non-Intel Mac lineup since PowerPC in 2006.
M1 is a system on a chip (SoC) fabricated using 5 nm process and optimized for Mac systems and it is small and power efficient. Why, but of course! Why else would they make their own chips, right?
Anyways… the M1 is said to pack a staggering 16 billion transistors and it is touted as the world’s fastest CPU core in low-power silicon. It also stake claimed as the world’s best CPU performance per watt, the world’s fastest integrated graphics in a personal computer, and “breakthrough” machine learning performance with the Apple Neural Engine.
In short, it is up to 3.5x faster in CPU performance, up to 6x faster in graphics performance, and up to 15x faster in machine learning – all while affordable up to 2x longer battery life over previous generation Macs.
The first Macs to take advantage of this new silicon includes MacBook Air, 13-inch MacBook Pro, and Mac mini. We shall spare you the technical mix marketing mambo jambo. You can learn more about the new M1 SoC HERE. More information on the M1-equipped MacBook Air can be found HERE, the M1-equipped 13-inch MacBook Pro HERE and Mac mini HERE.
The new MacBook Air has a starting price of US$999, the new 13-inch MacBook starts at US$1,299 while the new Mac mini starts at US$699. They will be available to order today and available at Apple Store locations as well as Apple Authorized Resellers starting next week.
All images courtesy of Apple Inc..
