Fast, fast, very fast. Apple returns to surprise with a new concept that nobody had dared with. The Intel era, with the x86 architecture, is over. The era of ARM architecture processors in Macs begins. The first is a prodigious chip, it's called M1 and it's going to put more than one in the industry in trouble. The models that start with the new M1 are the MacBook Air , the Mac mini and the 13-inch MacBook Pro .
The concept of the M1 is that of an integrated chip, which includes not only the central processor (CPU), but also the graphics (GPU), memory and the neural network. The result of all this, built with the highest miniaturization achieved by the microchip industry, 5 nanometers, provides the new Apple computers with not only a blazing speed, which surpasses practically everything on the market , but also lower energy consumption and very little heating.
The M1 has an 8-core CPU with 16 billion transistors , a 16-core neural motor capable of 11 trillion operations per second. According to Apple, this processor has the world's fastest CPU core and the world's fastest integrated graphics — 2.6 teraflops — in a personal computer. The best example of this is the MacBook Air. With the new M1, he says, it is faster than 98% of PCs on the market, but heats up so little that Apple has decided to manufacture it without a fan. It's completely silent even when performing compute-intensive tasks like video editing. They do have fans, and even higher performance, both the Mac mini and the MacBook Pro.
But if the temperature is surprising, its efficiency is much more so, which lengthens the battery in the case of the two laptops to extremes never seen before. A MacBook Air battery charge reaches 15 hours for web browsing and 18 hours for video playback. In the case of the MacBook, it reaches 17 hours of web browsing and 20 hours of video . That figure means not having to be aware of a plug almost never.
All of that is combined with the new macOS Big Sur operating system , which will be available for download as a free update starting this Thursday, November 12. Big Sur is designed for this new generation of Macs and works on x86 architecture as well. For those who use Apple Silicon computers, it contains Rosetta 2, a kind of translator that makes an app developed only for the x86 architecture also work on ARM.
The new Macs with M1s are available for order now and will begin shipping next week. The MacBook Air starts from 1,129 euros , the MacBook Pro 13 - inch from 1.449 euros and the new Mac mini from 799 euros . And this is only the beginning. The M1 has started on the smaller Macs. We will have to see what the 16-inch MacBook Pro, iMac and iMac Pro and, of course, Mac Pro have in store.