It’s been almost a year since Apple launched its first special chip for Mac, arm-based M1. As we see in our reviews about the latest MacBook Air, MacBook Pro and iMac colorful, M1 is a miracle, proven faster than the Intel and AMD X86 processor, while also less power. Now, in a follow-up step, Apple takes a two-branch approach with M1 Pro and M1 Max, two chips that underlie the Pro MacBook 14 and 16 inches new companies.
The two chips have a 5NM 10-core processor, consisting of eight high-performance core and two high efficiency units. What separates them is the GPU and their memory skills: Pro M1 has a 16-core GPU while Max has come out on 32 graphic core. In comparison, M1 last year was the maximum eight core chip with eight GPU cores. Pro M1 comes with up to 32GB of RAM with 200 GB / s bandwidth, while M1 Max doubles these two numbers, supports up to 64GB of RAM.
Based on this specification, the user power will see a much larger performance increase by going for MacBook Pro. MacBook Pro 13-inch last year is not much faster than M1 air; Pro basically adds a fan for a more sustainable workload, while the air is without magical without a fan. It is a strange situation for Apple: it is proof of the power of Apple Silicon, and a sign that the company needs to devote more time for powerful machines.
Given that the 16-inch MacBook Pro is practically forgotten for the past year, M1 Pro and M1 Max are exactly what creative professionals are waiting for. And it’s before you get to all the other updates that come to a new notebook (more ports! SD card slot!). Apple said the chip offers up to 1.7x performance faster than competitive eight core PC chips, which makes it very interesting for people who do heavy duty 3D rendering.