Apple’s M1 chip: Making desktop computing cool again
By: Erik Christiansen
Tags: Applesilicon, Arm, Intel, M1, Mac

This change is also significant because it puts traditional desktop computing centre stage for the first time in a decade. Devindra Hardawar from Engadget sums it up perfectly.

“ …over the last decade, it seemed like Apple has paid less attention to Macs as it focused all of its energy on the iPhone and iPad. The TouchBar remains incredibly divisive; the company stubbornly stuck with shallow, error-prone keyboards; and the less said about the “trash can” Mac Pro, the better. You can think of the M1 as a course correction: Now Apple has a way to genuinely innovate with every aspect of its Macs, right down to the design of its CPU. ” — Devindra Hardware, Engadget

What is the M1 chip?

“M1” is the name of Apple’s new in-house Mac chip. This ARM-based CPU is being used in Apple’s ‘entry-level’ Macs, including the MacBook Air, Mac Mini, and MacBook Pro. Once again, Apple is blurring the line between consumer and ‘pro’ devices.

All chips have tradeoffs. Typically, it comes down to performance vs efficiency. Low power Intel chips might provide better battery life, but performance takes a hit. The previous Intel MacBook Air was a perfect example. M1 delivers a considerable performance advantage and outstanding battery life. As noted by Are Technica, M1 stays cooler than Intel, even when under load.

“Apple’s new M1 system-on-a-chip (SoC) is decidedly not one of those low-performance, low-cost efforts. The M1 is designed from the ground up to be powerful and rather compromise-free competition for traditional PC architecture.” — Ars Technica

Apple opted for a fanless design in the MacBook Air. As my podcast co-host Kris Hans notes, the MacBook Air is essentially an “iPad in a clamshell design” running macOS. The fan in the MacBook Pro and Mac Mini allows the M1 chip to run faster and longer, before having to throttle down due to heat. However, it’s worth noting that the difference is minimal. The MacBook Air still delivers incredible performance, and a casual user probably wouldn’t even notice.

So many benchmarks

A constant among the reviews so far is that the M1 chip outclasses almost all Intel x86 chips on the market — with a few exceptions.

According to Apple Insider, Apple “has never put a strong emphasis on the gigahertz race.” The M1 has one configuration in all three machines, meaning the user can only change the RAM and SSD configurations when purchasing a new computer. I’m confident future pro machines will allow for more configurations, but for consumer machines, this is a return to form for Apple. The simpler options remind me of Steve Jobs’ four-by-four matrix which was intended to simplify Apple’s confusing product line. Consumers don’t care about gigahertz so why not make it simple for them?

In terms of raw performance, the M1 chip is incredible. According to Apple Insider, it outperforms pretty much every Intel competitor.

“In terms of single-core performance, the M1 MacBook Pro outshines all of the Macs on test, with a score that is a clear 54% better than its nearest rival, the 16-inch MacBook Pro. This makes it faster than a relatively-recent Intel Core i9, and even the Mac Pro’s Xeon, a chip family generally considered to be a workhorse of processing.” — Apple Insider

For the full M1 benchmarks, Six Colors and Ars Technica have the most detailed breakdowns.

Benchmarks courtesy of Six Colors

Benchmarks courtesy of Ars Technica

Battery life is also improved thanks to M1. At this point, I’ve read reviews by veteran Mac users such as John Gruber, as well as several professional video editors and photographers. Jason Snell from Six Colors reports nine and a half hours of battery life for the new Air and a bit more for the new 13-inch Pro. Colin Smith from Photoshop Cafe reported little battery drain even during the initial setup of the computer which involved downloading and installing gigabytes of apps. Office workers can expect to get a full workday out of the battery.

Perhaps what most incredible about the M1 chip is its ability to remain cool under load. As a happy MacBook Pro 16-inch owner, I can report that this laptop generally runs cool but certainly heads up when exporting audio or video, or when working in photoshop. John Gruber notes that M1 never really heats up during regular use, and barely so during multi-core benchmarking.

How the M1 uses memory has also changed. With the Unified Memory Architecture, M1 (like Intel chips) has a CPU and integrated graphics. The computer memory is “shared by both processor cores and graphics cores,” according to Jason Snell. But, this is where the similarity ends.

“But in shifting its terminology to describe a unified memory architecture, Apple’s trying to point out that the M1’s approach is a bit different. The biggest difference is that in the M1, the memory is a part of the M1 architecture itself. There’s no memory slot or slots on the motherboard of an M1 Mac, nor is there an area where a memory chip has been permanently soldered on. Instead, the memory is integrated into the same package that contains the M1 itself.” — Jason Snell, Six Colors

This means that the Mac configuration you choose is final. Mac laptops have had soldered memory for a long time, making upgrades difficult (or impossible) except for the most proficient computer technicians. Now, the prospect of upgrading memory is gone because everything lives on a single chip.

In terms of day-to-day performance, there is nothing to indicate that the average user would even know these Macs run on a new architecture. Rosetta 2, Apple’s translation software, allows Apple Silicon Macs to run x86 apps. All indications point to roughly equivalent, or slightly slower, performance while running x86 apps on the M1. Six Colors reported x86 apps running at about 80 percent as fast as native code. Keep in mind this 80 percent was still faster than many Intel Macs. Apps designed for Apple Silicon run considerably faster, so things will only get better with time. Here is what John Gruber said about Rosetta 2.

“Rosetta performs great and compatibility is seemingly seamless. This is a technical tour de force, a home run for Apple that will mostly go unheralded by typical users because the entire point is that they shouldn’t notice or care.” — John Gruber, Daring Fireball

One advantage Apple Silicon Macs will have over their Intel brethren is the ability to run iPhone and iPad apps on the desktop. It’s up to the developer if these apps appear on the Mac App Store, but the prospect is interesting.

The big question going into this transition was “can Apple’s ARM-based chips scale for a laptop or desktop computer?” Most definitely yes. It appears that Apple Silicon has no problem scaling up to compete with desktop-class x86 chips. Also, keep in mind that the M1 is the entry-level chip. In his YouTube video, Colin Smith said current Intel Mac owners shouldn’t run out and purchase an M1 device for this reason. Imagine what an “M2” chip would be like? What if the iMac ships with two M1 chips? There’s every reason to suspect that the performance gap between Apple Silicon and Intel will widen with the introduction of professional-grade chips.