Discussion Apple Silicon SoC thread

[Eug]

M1
5 nm
Unified memory architecture - LP-DDR4
16 billion transistors

8-core CPU

4 high-performance cores
192 KB instruction cache
128 KB data cache
Shared 12 MB L2 cache

4 high-efficiency cores
128 KB instruction cache
64 KB data cache
Shared 4 MB L2 cache
(Apple claims the 4 high-effiency cores alone perform like a dual-core Intel MacBook Air)

8-core iGPU (but there is a 7-core variant, likely with one inactive core)
128 execution units
Up to 24576 concurrent threads
2.6 Teraflops
82 Gigatexels/s
41 gigapixels/s

16-core neural engine
Secure Enclave
USB 4

Products:
$999 ($899 edu) 13" MacBook Air (fanless) - 18 hour video playback battery life
$699 Mac mini (with fan)
$1299 ($1199 edu) 13" MacBook Pro (with fan) - 20 hour video playback battery life

Memory options 8 GB and 16 GB. No 32 GB option (unless you go Intel).

It should be noted that the M1 chip in these three Macs is the same (aside from GPU core number). Basically, Apple is taking the same approach which these chips as they do the iPhones and iPads. Just one SKU (excluding the X variants), which is the same across all iDevices (aside from maybe slight clock speed differences occasionally).

EDIT:



M1 Pro 8-core CPU (6+2), 14-core GPU
M1 Pro 10-core CPU (8+2), 14-core GPU
M1 Pro 10-core CPU (8+2), 16-core GPU
M1 Max 10-core CPU (8+2), 24-core GPU
M1 Max 10-core CPU (8+2), 32-core GPU

M1 Pro and M1 Max discussion here:

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M1 Ultra discussion here:

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M2 discussion here:

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Second Generation 5 nm
Unified memory architecture - LPDDR5, up to 24 GB and 100 GB/s
20 billion transistors

8-core CPU

4 high-performance cores
192 KB instruction cache
128 KB data cache
Shared 16 MB L2 cache

4 high-efficiency cores
128 KB instruction cache
64 KB data cache
Shared 4 MB L2 cache

10-core iGPU (but there is an 8-core variant)
3.6 Teraflops

16-core neural engine
Secure Enclave
USB 4

Hardware acceleration for 8K h.264, h.264, ProRes

M3 Family discussion here:

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M4 Family discussion here:

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[Eug]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1932919133886419392

Seems like a reasonable guess. And if not M5/A19, then M6/A20. I wonder if Apple will move away from their beloved h.265 HEVC when the chips get hardware AV1 encoding.

As for me at this time, my main concern is AV1 decode, which is one reason I didn't buy a discounted M2 MBA and am waiting for the Back-To-School promotion to buy an M4 MBA, in a few weeks. (The other reason I didn't get M2 is because M2 is old now, so OS support will end sooner for it than I'd hope.) Actually last month I bought an open box M3 which does have AV1 decode, but it didn't come with the full warranty so I returned it.

 

[Mopetar]

Apple has a good history as far as product support goes. I think it'll be a long while yet before any of the M-series chips have to worry about being dropped.

 

[Eug]

Apple has a good history as far as product support goes. I think it'll be a long while yet before any of the M-series chips have to worry about being dropped.

Well, my expectation is that M1 will be dropped in 2027. I think it will go like this:

macOS 26 (fall '25) - Last macOS for Intel Macs. Last new version of macOS in 2026.
macOS 27 (fall '26) - Last macOS for Apple M1. Last new version of macOS in 2027.

(I'm not counting security updates though, which will continue for a couple of years.)

In fact, that's one of the reasons I passed on an uber cheap used M1 for my wife from an acquaintance a couple of months ago.

 

[Mopetar]

They were still selling M1-based products in 2022 so there's no way the end-of-life it in 2027. I can see them having dropped support for all Intel Macs by that point, but unless they make some major architectural changes the M-series SoCs will see support for a while still. I wouldn't be surprised if they give it a full decade.

 

[okoroezenwa]

macOS 27 (fall '26) - Last macOS for Apple M1. Last new version of macOS in 2027.

Makes a lot of sense unfortunately. 8 years of support and 2 years of security sounds right up their wheelhouse.

 

[name99]

Seems like a reasonable guess. And if not M5/A19, then M6/A20. I wonder if Apple will move away from their beloved h.265 HEVC when the chips get hardware AV1 encoding.

As for me at this time, my main concern is AV1 decode, which is one reason I didn't buy a discounted M2 MBA and am waiting for the Back-To-School promotion to buy an M4 MBA, in a few weeks. (The other reason I didn't get M2 is because M2 is old now, so OS support will end sooner for it than I'd hope.) Actually last month I bought an open box M3 which does have AV1 decode, but it didn't come with the full warranty so I returned it.

Makes one wonder if the h.266 team overplayed their hand.

They have been pushing relentlessly through 264 and 265, alienating one potential customer after another. Perhaps with 266 even Apple, the most patient and faithful, figured enough was enough and walked away?

 

[Doug S]

Makes a lot of sense unfortunately. 8 years of support and 2 years of security sounds right up their wheelhouse.

That's basically what it has worked out to be for iPhones, so it wouldn't be a shock if Macs ended up similarly.

Honestly though using a Mac/PC with an obsolete OS is less of an issue than using a phone with an obsolete OS. With a phone you're basically always under potential remote attack via your connection to the cellular network - including reliance on Qualcomm's baseband over which the phone's OEM exercises no control...something I'm happy is going away with Apple bringing that under their control. Yeah yeah I can already hear the objections, how pretty much all the nasty 0 days we hear about are done by nation states (via NSO Group or similar scum) so if you're not a journalist or dissident or others they're likely to target you're safe right? But what about after the 0 day is patched, and non nation state level hackers can look at what changed with the patch and figure out how it worked - then everyone who didn't or can't patch that 0 day is vulnerable and becomes more vulneable over time as that exploit gets passed around to more and more bad guys.

With a PC (assuming you're behind a NAT and haven't disabled the firewall built into your PC) you're not really vulneable to direct remote attack. You're only vulneable to the extent you're initiating connections to the outside world. If you (or a future owner of your PC) have more modest needs you can insure the means you use to make those connections to the outside world remain secure. i.e. if you use a Windows 10 PC but your only connection to the internet is via the web for browsing, webmail, webapps etc. and you use Firefox or Chrome the fact Windows 10 will no longer be patched in a few months doesn't really matter. Firefox and Chrome will be patched for years to come, so you wouldn't be any more or less secure today using that Windows 10 PC than five years from now. Same applies for a Mac.

 

[Eug]

Makes a lot of sense unfortunately. 8 years of support and 2 years of security sounds right up their wheelhouse.

7 years of support (fall 2020 to fall 2027) and 2 years of security updates.

 

[mvprod123]

Steam will finally release an Apple Silicon-optimized client (currently on the Steam Beta update)

 

[poke01]

alex buys a macbook pro with his own money cause of Windows being bad

 

[igor_kavinski]

alex buys a macbook pro with his own money cause of Windows being bad

Sorry but can't believe anything on LTT.

That is the MOST purely profit based channel ever.

 

[poke01]

Sorry but can't believe anything on LTT.

That is the MOST purely profit based channel ever.

okay but it wasn't a sponsored video.