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Apple M1

Apple M1

The Apple M1 is a System on a Chip (SoC) from Apple that is found in the late 2020 MacBook Air, MacBook Pro 13, and Mac Mini. It offers 8 cores divided in four performance cores and four power-efficiency cores. The big cores offer 192 KB instruction cache, 128 KB data cache, and 12 MB shared L2 cache. According to Apple the performance of these cores should be better than anything on the market (in late 2020). The four efficiency cores are a lot smaller and offer only 128 KB instruction cache, 64 KB data cache, and 4 MB shared cache. The efficiency cores (E cluster) clock with 600 - 2064 MHz, the performance cores (P cluster) with 600 - 3204 MHz.

The M1 is available in two TDP variants, a passive cooled 10 Watt variant for the MacBook Air and an active cooled faster variant for the MacBook Pro 13 and Mac Mini. Those should offer a better-sustained performance according to Apple.

The integrated graphics card in the M1 offers 8 cores (7 cores in the entry MacBook Air) and a peak performance of 2.6 teraflops. Apple claims that it is faster than any other iGPU at the time of announcement.

Furthermore, the SoC integrates a fast 16 core neural engine with a peak performance of 11 TOPS (for AI hardware acceleration), a secure enclave (e.g., for encryption), a unified memory architecture, Thunderbolt / USB 4 controller, an ISP, and media de- and encoders.

The Apple M1 includes 16 billion transistors (up from the 10 billion of the A12Z Bionic and therefore double the amount of a Tiger Lake-U chip like the i7-1185G7) and is manufactured in 5nm at TSMC.

SeriesApple Apple M-Series

Series: Apple M-Series

Apple M2 Max compare2.42 - 3.7 GHz12 / 12 cores48 MB L3
Apple M2 Pro compare2.42 - 3.5 GHz12 / 12 cores24 MB L3
Apple M1 Max compare2.06 - 3.22 GHz10 / 10 cores48 MB L3
Apple M2 Pro 10-Core compare2.42 - 3.7 GHz10 / 10 cores24 MB L3
Apple M1 Pro compare2.06 - 3.22 GHz10 / 10 cores24 MB L3
Apple M1 Pro 8-Core compare2.06 - 3.22 GHz8 / 8 cores16 MB L3
Apple M2 compare2.42 - 3.48 GHz8 / 8 cores8 MB L3
Apple M1 « 2.06 - 3.22 GHz8 / 8 cores8 MB L3
Clock Rate2064 - 3220 MHz
Level 1 Cache2 MB
Level 2 Cache16 MB
Level 3 Cache8 MB
Number of Cores / Threads8 / 8
Transistor Count16000 Million
Manufacturing Technology5 nm
FeaturesARMv8 Instruction Set
GPUApple M1 8-Core GPU
64 Bit64 Bit support
ArchitectureARM
Announcement Date11/10/2020

Benchmarks

Cinebench R15 - Cinebench R15 CPU Multi 64 Bit
min: 1020     avg: 1063     median: 1072 (11%)     max: 1087 Points
0551101652202753303854404955506056607157708258809359901045Tooltip
AnTuTu v8 - AnTuTu v8 MEM
min: 110874     avg: 111266     median: 111266 (90%)     max: 111658 Points
AnTuTu v8 - AnTuTu v8 GPU
min: 533978     avg: 539206     median: 539206 (99%)     max: 544434 Points
AnTuTu v8 - AnTuTu v8 CPU
min: 267169     avg: 271808     median: 271808 (98%)     max: 276446 Points
AnTuTu v8 - AnTuTu v8 Total Score
min: 1017190     avg: 1027580     median: 1027580 (99%)     max: 1037960 Points
Power Consumption - Geekbench 5.5 Power Consumption 150cd *
min: 8.23     avg: 8.7     median: 8.5 (4%)     max: 9.49 Watt
012345678910111213141516Tooltip
Power Consumption - Idle Power Consumption - external Monitor *
3 Watt (3%)
00.20.40.50.70.91.11.21.41.61.822.12.32.52.72.833.23.4Tooltip
Power Consumption - Idle Power Consumption 150cd 1min *
min: 2.29     avg: 2.9     median: 3.1 (4%)     max: 3.22 Watt
00.20.40.60.811.11.31.51.71.92.12.32.52.72.93.13.33.43.6Tooltip
- Range of benchmark values for this graphics card
- Average benchmark values for this graphics card
* Smaller numbers mean a higher performance

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