Apple announced the two most powerful chips M1 Pro and M1 Max today for the Mac. M1 Pro and M1 Max offer amazing performance with industry-leading power efficiency, especially for graphic designers and video editors. Apple M1 chipset was the first chip in Apple Silicon but M1 Pro and M1 Max are much more efficient than M1. The CPU in M1 Pro and M1 Max delivers up to 70 percent faster CPU performance than M1. The GPU in M1 Pro is up to 2x faster than M1, while GPU in M1 Max is up to 4x faster than M1.
Apple introduces M1 Pro and M1 Max, a computer-focused ARM-based system-on-a-chip (SoC) architecture to pro systems for the first time. The CPU and GPU can share a single memory pool. Apple calls it Unified Memory that improves the speed of the Mac. Both the M1 Pro and M1 Max are based on the 5nm architecture. Both the chipsets feature a 10-core CPU, which is a combination of 8 high-performance cores and 2 power-efficient cores.
The M1 Pro chip features up to 32Gb fast unified memory with up to 200GB/s of memory bandwidth that helps 3D artists and game developers to do more on the go than ever before. M1 Pro packs in 33.7 billion transistors that is more than 2x the amount in the M1 chip. It has up to 10 core CPUs including eight high-performance cores and two high-efficiency cores that make it 70% faster than the M1 chip. The M1 Pro has up to 16 core GPU that make it up to 2x faster than M1 and up to 7x faster than the integrated graphics on the latest 8-core PC laptop chip.
The M1 Max is the largest chip Apple has ever built with 57 billion transistors. It has up to 64GB of unified memory. It features a 10-core CPU and a massive 32-core GPU for up to 4x faster graphics performance than M1. M1 Max converts graphics-intensive workflows, including up to 13x faster complex timeline rendering in Final Cut Pro compared to the previous-generation 13-inch MacBook Pro. M1 Max offers a higher bandwidth up to 400GB/s on-chip fabric that is double in comparison with M1 Pro.
Apple-designed media engine is built in both M1 Pro and M1 Max that accelerates video processing while maximizing battery life. M1 Pro includes dedicated acceleration for the ProRes professional video codec that allows playback of multiple streams of high-quality 4K and 8K ProRes video while using very little power. M1 Max delivers up to 2x faster video encoding than M1 Pro and it also features two ProRes accelerators. The new MacBook Pro with M1 Max can transcode ProRes video in Compressor up to 10x faster in comparison to the previous-generation 16-inch MacBook Pro.
Both the chips M1 Pro and M1 Max include an Apple-designed media engine, 16-core Neural Engine, support for Thunderbolt 4, Secure Enclave, and ProRes video format. You can connect up to two external Pro XDR displays with the M1 Pro chip while the M1 Max variant supports up to four external monitors.
Both the chips include Apple’s latest Secure Enclave, hardware-verified secure boot, and runtime anti-exploitation technologies, and fast, in-line encryption for files that give Best-in-class security.
