Apple’s chips are on the table

Apple's transition to its own processors is nearly complete. The most powerful piece of Silicon yet, the M1 Ultra processor, was introduced at the company's recent spring event. It showed what the future of Apple's computers could look like.

For the first time, all of Apple's chips are on the table.

If it wasn't already, Apple is now a force to be reckoned with when it comes to chips. The success of the M1 Pro and M1 Max-powered MacBook Pro laptops last year, along with the positive reception for the first wave of M1 computers, established the company. The M1 Ultra is Apple's most powerful chip for a personal computer.

These chips are being used in computers. Buying a Mac isn't just about getting Apple's software or aesthetic design anymore, it's about getting the kind of performance and battery life no one else is offering.

Apple claimed that the Core i9-12900K was 90 percent better than the M1 Ultra in multi-threaded performance at the same power level and the ability to match Intel's best numbers. Apple claimed to beat out the performance of the RTX 3090 by 200W. We will be looking to test those numbers for ourselves in the coming days and weeks. The Apple Silicon transition isn't an experiment anymore, it's Apple's future, and PC manufacturers will have to pay attention to it going forward.

Image: Apple

Apple is building out its chips in a different way. Apple has four different models of Arm-based M1 chips, which blur the line between product form factors in a way that we don't usually see. Instead of building chips for specific devices, Apple has built just one really good chip, the A-series processor. All it has been doing is scaling it up. Apple's secret sauce seems to be doubling the size of each of its chips and throwing in more cooling at each step, from a phone to a laptop. It is remarkable because it allows Apple to create an entire portfolio of computers from $430 to $8,000 in a single point, which is something that has never been done before.

The M1 in a MacBook Air or iPad is the same chip as in Apple's iMac and Mac Mini desktops, running at roughly the same speeds and efficiency. The M1 Max is a MacBook Pro laptop that can be used with the Mac Studio. The company's M1 Ultra isn't a purely desktop-focused design, given that it's only two M1 Max processors in a trench coat. Devices are not just how powerful they are.

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Mark Gurman reports that Apple's upcoming Mac Pro will come later this year with up to 40 CPU cores and 128 graphics cores. Adding in even more cooling is likely to compensate for another doubling.

In the same way that Apple distinguishes the Mac Studio from the Macbook Pro with different form factors, ports, and feature sets, we will likely see a similar shift to help the new Mac Pro stand out from the Mac Studio. The current Mac Pro is Apple's most powerful (and most expensive) product, and it fits a very different niche than some of its other computers, and has no small share of missteps by the company over the years.

A Mac Pro powered by the M1 needs more than just a doubling of the core count to satisfy professionals. The same factors that made the recent refresh a success were present in the 2016 model. None of Apple's Arm-based designs have offered those things, and it's still unclear if Apple is interested in offering them.

Image: Apple

The sheer power of Apple's processor and graphics cards could mean that it can beat an RTX 3090 today, and a 128-core Mac Pro would offer an even bigger cushion for a longer period of time. Without user-upgradable parts, Apple would force a future Mac Pro buyer to anticipate all their needs from the beginning. We will have to wait for a more official announcement to see if Apple can avoid leaning too heavily on non-upgradable systems again.

While the core counts and split between efficient and performance are different from model to model, the core itself is the same: a Firestorm performance. The M1's Firestorm cores are the same as the ones in the A14 in an iPhone 12.

Intel's latest 12th Gen processors are built using a scaled approach, with a mixture of performance and efficient cores from its most powerful desktop chips to its most battery-friendly models for lightweight laptops. The scale of Intel's chips doesn't match that of Apple, with products still broken down more traditionally in multiple buckets for different laptop classes and desktop models. Apple's move to laptops and tablets is not the same as Intel's move to desktop chips.

The M2 question

There is a future for Apple's processors. At this time, Apple sells just a pair of Intel-based machines: a legacy Mac Mini with severely outdated hardware and the soon-to-be-replaced Mac Pro. This means that we will see the next wave of processors at some point this year or the year after that.

The Intel to M1 switch has been a huge leap forward in technology, but the next generation of Apple chips won't be the same. It will likely be a more gradual, incremental upgrade similar to the changes from one generation of A-series iPhone processors to the next.

There are two ways to upgrade processors. You can either use a new architecture that introduces more powerful or efficient cores, or you can move to a smaller manufacturing location, which will allow you to pack in more transistors in a similar space or shrink down similar hardware even further.

Image; Apple

We know Apple has a better chip design than Firestorm and Icestorm, which is why they replaced them with the more advanced A15 chip. The dividends tend to be smaller from year to year, as Apple tends to focus on improving its individual core designs with its A-series chips.

Apple's chip lineup could be refreshed with the same gains in performance and efficiency as the iPhone 12 to 13 upgrade, if a future iteration of the M2 chip lineup is anything to go by. According to a rumor from 9to5Mac, Apple is looking to add more graphics cards to some of its chip models.

Several rumors suggest that Apple could make a more modest upgrade and take the existing M1 designs and move them to a more advanced production location. There are reports that Apple may use TSMC's 4 th generation 4 th generation chip, instead of the 5 th generation 5 th generation chip, for a new MacBook Air, which may happen as soon as this year.

It is clear that Apple has succeeded in pulling off its first generation of computer hardware with a bang. Intel is finally shipping its own next-generation laptop chips, and the products are better than ever. It's not even counting Arm-based competition, like the one that will come to Apple with its Nuvia-designed chips in 2023.

Apple Silicon was a new start for the company and its computers catapulted them ahead of their competition. With the transition nearly complete, Apple needs to do more than just impress once, it needs to keep that going for future products as well.