At this point in time it’s safe to say that Apple’s M1 chip has been a huge success. It’s also the time when computer nerds like myself start to wonder what comes next – even though it’s been just five months since we got our hands on the first M1-based Macs.
Quick recap
There were speculations already a few years ago that Apple was considering ditching the Intel-based chips in Macs in favor of new Arm-based chips. After all, the custom designed A-series chips in iPhones and iPads had been a home run. On top of that, there were all the headaches in the Mac roadmap caused by Intel falling behind in their chip design.
Finally, in the WWDC 2020 keynote, Apple CEO Tim Cook announced a two-year transition plan towards Arm-based custom designed Apple chips. Just five months later, in the “One More Thing" event, Apple released three new Macs featuring the brand new Arm-based and Apple-designed system on a chip (SoC) dubbed M1. The three M1 Macs released were: MacBook Air, MacBook Pro 13”, and Mac Mini.
Same M1 chip across the board
With the new iMac that was released in last week’s “Spring Loaded” event, we now have four Macs that run on the one and same M1 chip. Interestingly, even the latest iPad Pro (also release last week) is now running on the same M1 chip.
That’s actually a pretty interesting thing, because back in the Intel era, there were always lots of different versions of the processor, and the basic rule was that if you pay more, you get more performance. Now, it’s the same M1 chip across the entire Mac lineup.
Not much to see on the outside. It’s what inside the M1 chip that matters. Public domain image.
The only differentiation when it comes to the M1 chip is the number of GPU cores, but that’s probably just a “binning” thing, i.e. some chips that come out from TSMC’s fabs have a defect GPU core. Instead of trashing those chips, they’re put in the low-end iMac and MacBook Air models (which subsequently have only 7 GPU cores vs. 8 GPU cores in the higher priced models).
Otherwise, when you look at the different M1 Macs, they all have more or less the same processor specs: an 8-core CPU with 4 performance cores and 4 efficiency cores, an 8-core GPU, and a 16-core Neural Engine.
What’s next?
The M1 Macs we’ve seen so far are mainly targeted towards consumer grade customers. We still haven’t seen a “real” new MacBook Pro, a Mac Pro, or an iMac Pro with an M-series chip. This raises the question: what’s to be expected in the next M-series chip?
Here’s my wish list for the next iteration, and specifically for the one which will be targeted towards pro users:
It’s safe to assume that the next iteration will be based on the same 5nm architecture as the current M1, which is totally fine, but it sure would be awesome if the rumors about a new 4nm architecture would be true.
More CPU cores. The M1 chip with 4 performance cores and 4 efficiency cores is great for casual usage and occasional 4K video editing, but as soon as you invoke heavy lifting with parallel processing, additional cores would do wonders. I’m hoping for 20 CPU cores in the chips that would go to the new MacBook Pro’s, and about 30 CPU cores in the chips that would go into pro-grade desktop Macs.
Even more GPU cores. When it comes to graphics processing, we know that performance goes up in a linear fashion, so let’s just hope that the new chip delivers say 3X or 4X better graphics performance thanks to corresponding additional GPU cores.
Support for much more RAM. The current M1 chip can only handle up to 16GB of RAM, which is nothing when you run several memory hungry apps at the same time. Furthermore, remember that the memory is unified memory, meaning that the GPU will also consume that same memory. The new iteration needs to be able to handle up to 128GB, preferably even more, of RAM.
Support for additional I/O. At least we would expect to see support for more than two Thunderbolt ports as well as the possibility to drive two external displays. The fact that you can only drive one external display with an M1 laptop is a significant drawback.
Similar thermals as the M1, despite improved performance. Okay, I know this is a tall order, but worth considering especially in the new MacBook Pro’s, where constantly spinning fans would be an issue.
Oh, and finally, it really doesn’t matter what they call the next iteration of the chip, but for what it’s worth, I’m hoping for “M2” instead of “M1X” for the sake of clarity and differentiation.