Apple Announces Next-Generation M1 Pro and M1 Max Chips

[sweetchaos]

Apple just released M1 Pro and M1 Max processors to power the next generation of Macs.

Full presentation is here (1hr):

Spoiler

M1 Pro chip:

Spoiler

M1 Max chip:

Spoiler

Of course, new generation of Macbook Pro's that include M1 Pro and M1 Max were announced as well:

Spoiler

Order today, available next week.

Prices:
+US$1999 for 14" (If you click on order the 14" version, then customize the order, you can select "M1 Max" in the dropdown for extra US$500)
+US$2499 for 16" (If you click on order the 16" version, then customize the order, you can select "M1 Max" in the dropdown for extra US$200).

UPDATE: If you're thinking of buying "M1 Max", read my updated post first.

Official link to purchase (USA):

MacBook Pro 14-inch and MacBook Pro 16-inch

MacBook Pro — our powerful pro laptop — is supercharged by M2 Pro or M2 Max. With all-day battery life and a stunning Liquid Retina XDR display.

www.apple.com

Comparison between original Macbook Air M1 2020 and today's Macbook Pro 14/16":

Mac - Compare Models

See what makes each Mac laptop and desktop different. And find the one that’s perfect for your life, your work, and your budget.

www.apple.com

Discuss!

 

[_theLaughingman]

The performance numbers of this silicon are mind boggling but not independently verified. Apple gaining that much performance on a small thermal envelope is ingenuity.

A small tidbit of info i found in presentation was that the headphone jack now supports high impedance headphones. Wonder if they have incorporated a specific DAC/AMP architecture into the board to support that.

 

[MZKM]

Interesting how they got rid of the Touch Bar, guess they found the cost of that touch screen wasn‘t worth it.

I think they also mentioned the keyboard keys have more travel, which is nice.

I laughed out loud when I saw that the screens now have a notch! The iPhone 13 was already getting laughed at for that as most 2021 flagships have the front facing camera behind the screen. However, besides looking at photos and vertical videos, not a bad move, the task/tool bar usually are there and it’s wider than 16x9 so most videos won’t be affected.

 

[abdo123]

It really surprises me how Apple can be so ahead of the curve sometimes but still have jackshit completely bonkers practices regarding repair-ability.

Sure 5nm transistors wold put them on top of the game, but my device becoming e-waste once a connector becomes loose inside is not worth it.

 

[_theLaughingman]

Interesting how they got rid of the TouchBar, guess they found the cost of that touch screen wasn‘t worth it.

When I worked as a Genius at Apple, that was the most hated piece of gear on MBP. It had to be replaced many times.

 

[Blumlein 88]

Was looking for the Macbook Pro in 14 inch. Not sure about the notch, but otherwise looks good with multiple ports. Of course the pricing was more over the top than I wanted.

 

[sweetchaos]

I hate my 2017 Macbook Pro's touchbar with the fiery passion!

I like that MagSafe is back, since I feel much safer with it. I don't have to worry about turning a $3K laptop into a flying projectile.

 

[_theLaughingman]

It really surprises me how Apple can be so ahead of the curve sometimes but still have jackshit completely bonkers practices regarding repair-ability.

Sure 5nm transistors wold put them on top of the game, but my device becoming e-waste once a connector becomes loose inside is not worth it.

It’s truly tragic at how much more and more technology companies are driving consumer habits towards throw away and buy new. Apple really dislikes the right to repair.

 

[blueone]

Very impressive, especially the memory bandwidth (which is really the data rate, but whatever). It would take a lot of DDR5 DIMMs to equal what Apple is doing in-package. 64GB of DRAM isn't especially impressive, but it should cover most home and office MAC users. Since Apple discontinued the iMac Pro (the one based on an Intel Xeon workstation CPU), I'm wondering what they're going to offer their Pro market in the meantime. Multi-media content creation apps are often memory hogs, and 64GB may not cut it.

 

[_theLaughingman]

Very impressive, especially the memory bandwidth (which is really the data rate, but whatever). It would take a lot of DDR5 DIMMs to equal what Apple is doing in-package. 64GB of DRAM isn't especially impressive, but it should cover most home and office MAC users. Since Apple discontinued the iMac Pro (the one based on an Intel Xeon workstation CPU), I'm wondering what they're going to offer their Pro market in the meantime. Multi-media content creation apps are often memory hogs, and 64GB may not cut it.

Wonder if they'll segue into a Chiplet methodology ala HBM architecture to incorporate high amount of RAM on SOC to cater to iMac Pro crowd.

 

[blueone]

Wonder if they'll segue into a Chiplet methodology ala HBM architecture to incorporate high amount of RAM on SOC to cater to iMac Pro crowd.

I'm just guessing that Apple didn't move to chiplets because they didn't need the flexibility that AMD and Intel do for their client CPUs, and that TSMC allowed them to design a single-die SoC and stay within their cost target. HBM is almost certainly a supercomputing technology for the foreseeable future. I can't believe that Apple will do a separate, larger SoC package for an M1-based iMac Pro (the volumes can't be high enough to justify that strategy), but I also can't believe they'll design another Intel Xeon-W based product either. And I can't quite believe Apple will forsake the high revenue and margin iMac Pro market. Hmmm... it'll be interesting to see what they do.

 

[JoetheLion]

Interesting (from MacRumors): "The 3.5mm headphone jack now offers support for high-impedance headphones. High-end headphone options that are high-impedance models from companies like Sennheiser and Beyerdynamic will offer better sound quality on the MacBook Pro models, a boon for professionals who want to use the MacBook Pro with studio quality headphones."

(Because we are in an audio forum here ).

 

[Ata]

Interesting how they got rid of the Touch Bar, guess they found the cost of that touch screen wasn‘t worth it.

I think they also mentioned the keyboard keys have more travel, which is nice.

I laughed out loud when I saw that the screens now have a notch! The iPhone 13 was already getting laughed at for that as most 2021 flagships have the front facing camera behind the screen. However, besides looking at photos and vertical videos, not a bad move, the task/tool bar usually are there and it’s wider than 16x9 so most videos won’t be affected.

The bottom of the notch is at the 16:10 screen area boundary, making the width:height ratio of the whole screen <16:10, something like 16:10.2, thus you are actually getting more screen area with the notch than without it, for a fixed display width.

 

[Rizzle]

I was looking to get one, but they actually put some weight behind the Pro monniker. There is a lot of performance available in such a small package, I want to see it independently tested but I wouldn’t be surprised if they are able to back their claims up given they are not directly comparing to other laptops. The GPU (32-core version) should be slightly more powerful than the PS5. Perhaps one of the best screens in a laptop, speakers too, and class-leading battery life. Not to mention hardware acceleration chips for ProRes and more that they claim work faster than the 28-core Mac Pro with Afterburner card when editing 8K ProRes.

Seems like a great device, not for me.

 

[stevenswall]

While Apple doesn't show the benchmark, they did list the laptops in small print: MSI Raider, Lenovo Legion, Razer Blade, and MSI Leopard something or the other.

Also, once you unplug those notebooks, the performance flops, so even if Apple is off by 50%, the M1 Max would still beat any available GPU when being used as a laptop.

As someone who thinks Apple is the god emperor of stagnation and purposefully shows hate and disgust towards users and their preferences... I ordered a Macbook Pro with the M1 Max, as there is no competitor.

I'd have been willing to pay $6k for a ThinkPad with similar performance and screen capabilities.

When the Mac Pro comes out, unless AMD has something up their sleeves, Apple will have the best hardware for gaming on a laptop, and the best hardware for gaming on a desktop.

Unfortunate that developers seem to stick to what they know and don't discriminate against bad hardware with no reason for existing.

 

[elvisizer]

Apple really dislikes the right to repair.

Apply only dislikes third parties right to repair!
APPLE can still repair basically anything in their current models (though a lot of things require replacing the entire MB), they just don't share the tools to do the work with others.
Still annoying, but it's not actually true that these laptops have to be thrown away if they break.

 

[blueone]

Wonder if they'll segue into a Chiplet methodology ala HBM architecture to incorporate high amount of RAM on SOC to cater to iMac Pro crowd.

It just occurred to me while reading another post, I misread yours. It is my understanding that the DRAM in the M1 variants are off the shelf DRAM chips that are in the SoC package, but are separate from the SoC. This has two big advantages for Apple, both of which accrue to users, but one directly and one indirectly. The first is that an in-package interconnect can be a lot faster than DDR4, as DDR3/4/5 is intended for trace, and is half duplex. I don't know for sure, but I suspect the M1's DRAM interface is full duplex. The better in-package DRAM interconnect probably gives the M1 a significant performance advantage over CPUs with external DIMMs, but I am just guessing.

The second advantage is that Apple can buy DRAM chips directly from the DRAM foundries (e.g. Samsung, Micron, etc.) and not have to pay the mark-up the DIMM manufacturers charge, or the added cost of the DIMM boards, connectors, and added motherboard layers for the DDR traces.

 

[elvisizer]

I'm really torn about these models. I use Logic for recording on MacOS and I"m pretty serious about it. Apogee finally got their drivers updated for apple silicon a few months ago, and I've been using the m1 13" macbook pro since then, and it's JUST AMAZING compared to my old intel 15" MBP. Silent, fans rarely come on at all. It eats logic plugins for breakfast, I stopped trying to make it chug after I got up to 60 tracks with space designer inserted in them- that's more than I'll generally ever use anyway, so there was no point in trying more.
In short- the m1 ALREADY seems to have more power than I actually need! The only thing I've found that can give it issues is Dolphin. I love xenoblade chronicles, and thought the ARM version of Dolphin killls the performance of the intel version on my old laptop, the m1 does still drop some frames and has audio dropouts when the emulator can't keep up.
But that's it. I can't help feeling like the pro or max would just be overkill- the upgraded GPU's would probably help a bit with Dolphin . . . but since games really aren't much of a thing on MacOS anyway and I don't do video or graphic arts work . . . .I don't know. It's an interesting question- I've never really felt like ANY computer was more than enough for my needs before!

 

[elvisizer]

The better in-package DRAM interconnect probably gives the M1 a significant performance advantage over CPUs with external DIMMs, but I am just guessing.

the RAM is setup like you guessed- it's on the SoC package but not part of the SoC itself. This has all the advantages you mentioned plus it's also what allows the 'unified memory' arch that apple's always going on about. That's what allows apple silicon to use less ram for the same work than a mac with an intel chip would.

 

[elvisizer]

64GB of DRAM isn't especially impressive, but it should cover most home and office MAC users.

even using huge sample instruments hasn't been a problem with 16 GB of ram on my m1 mbp. the unified memory model used on apple silicon is a big difference. I had to recalibrate my expectations.