Mark Gurman has just given us an absolutely massive amount of new information on a variety
of Apple Silicon Macs, including the 14 and 16” MacBook Pros, which he says are coming
this SUMMER!
So yeh.. If you watched my video where I bet my goatee once again on a WWDC reveal of these
new M1X Macbook Pros, you’ll know why I’m so excited about it!
But it doesn’t stop there because he gave us info on the new Macbook Air redesign, the
Apple Silicon Mac Pro, the new Mac Mini and apparently the new 10-core M1X chip, which
is definitely a huge surprise, but I’ve actually figured out why this new chip layout
makes so much sense for Apple to do, so let’s get right into that first.
For many months, we believed that the M1X chip would come with 12 CPU cores, based on
information from Mark Gurman who claimed we would be getting 8 high performance cores
in the next Apple Silicon chip.
So we rightfully assumed that those 8 cores would combine with the existing four efficiency
cores that we already have to give us a 12-core M1X chip.. Which would end up BLOWING everyone’s
mind.
But we were WRONG! The new 10-core chip is actually gonna be BETTER than what we thought,
and if you think that’s absolutely crazy.. Let me explain!
The bulk of the performance is gonna be coming from those 8 performance cores, so losing
2 efficiency cores isn’t gonna be that big of a deal.. Especially since Apple is planning
to use the now freed up space for something even better..
Apple’s M1 SOC package comes with various components like the processing cores, the
graphics cores, the neural engine, unified memory and everything else.
If Apple plans to add four more performance cores, they’re gonna likely need to make
the entire silicon die larger, regardless of whether they get rid of those two efficiency
cores, since I’m expecting them to reuse the same exact M1 cores from their current
Macs.
And the issue is that making the entire die size larger becomes more expensive and harder
to manufacture, so it seems like Apple is ditching two of those efficiency cores to
make room for some higher-performance components.
Specifically, Mark Gurman says that we’ll be getting up to 64GB of memory, an improved
Neural Engine, and either a 16 or 32 core GPU, so let me break all of that down and
explain what it’s gonna mean for you.
First off, a maximum of 64GB of RAM makes sense because that’s the current limit on
the 16” Intel-based MacBook Pro, so Apple seems to want to match it with the new 16”
M1X MacBook Pro.
And as you guys already know from our videos, Apple’s unified memory is incredibly efficient
compared to regular old x86 RAM which more easily bottlenecks the performance of the
system.
So in my opinion, the base 16GB of RAM variant on the M1X is gonna be enough for almost everyone
out there.
As far as the neural engine, an upgraded model makes sense, and it’s gonna be a huge deal
in the future, especially looking at how much it helped the M1 MacBook Air in an AI-based
Super-resolution test compared to Samsung’s new Galaxy Book Pro.
One little tidbit Mark added was that we’d get more Thunderbolt ports, probably either
3 or 4 of them according to leaked schematics, and I’m sure it’s gonna support the same
number of displays as the current Intel MacBook Pros.
And now moving onto the graphics, this is what’s gonna truly blow all of you away.
Gurman says that there will be two separate chips, code-named Jade c-chop and C-die. One
with 16GPU cores and one with 32.
Now I know some of the people online think this means that the GPU will be discrete and
separated from the main chip, but that’s wrong. The M1X will be combined into one package,
and here’s how Apple is gonna do it.
If you take a look at the current M1 chip, the unified memory is actually off to the
side, allowing Apple to configure it with either 8GB of 16GB of RAM, and there were
some people who actually were able to unsolder the RAM and upgrade it themselves.
So to solve the GPU option issue on the M1X, there are two ways that Apple can handle this.
The first way is by doing exactly what they did with the RAM, by attaching the graphics
onto the other side of the chip in the same manner, allowing Apple to configure the M1X
with either a 16 or 32 core GPU.
However, if Apple uses the same GPU cores from the M1 chip, then they wouldn’t be
able to fit 32 cores in the same area as 16 cores, so the actual package would undoubtedly
have to be larger for the 32-core variant.
Because of this, I think the 2nd way makes more sense.
Just like Mark Gurman said, there will be two separate chips, one with 16 graphics cores
that supports up to 32GB of RAM, and another physically larger chip with 32 cores that
supports up to 64GB of RAM, forcing you to upgrade to the larger chip if you want all
of that RAM.
The only question that’s left unanswered is if they’ll call both variants the M1X
chip, or if Apple will mix it up by calling them the M1X and the M1Z, but I’m leaning
more toward M1X for both.
But the more important thing is the performance of those GPUs, so let’s quickly discuss
that!
When I estimated the performance of the 16-core M1X a couple of months ago, we basically confirmed
that it would outperform the crazy expensive $800 5600M upgrade on the current 16” MacBook
Pro, which is absolutely insane.
So if the M1X actually gets a 32-core GPU option like Mark Gurman says it will, we’re
looking at graphics performance getting close to as high as the Vega 2 GPU within the Intel-based
Mac Pro, and I have a pretty good feeling that it’s actually gonna be faster in real-world
workflows due to the unified architecture.
But going beyond that, some people are worried that the whole 10-core layout with only two
efficiency cores is gonna be bad for battery life, but let me explain why it’s not gonna
be an issue.
In Linus Tech Tips review of the new M1 MacBooks, the Air lasted about 13 hours in their real-world
battery life test, compared to over 20 hours for the Macbook Pro.
That comes out to around 53% better battery life, which is mind-blowing because the battery
on the MacBook Pro is only around 16% larger than the one on MacBook Air.
So what this proves is that the extra 16% in physical battery size was able to take
the real-world battery life a lot further than expected.
So if we consider the fact that the current 16” MacBook Pro comes with a 100 wH battery,
literally twice as large as the one in the MacBook Air, I think the battery life on the
new M1X 16” model is gonna be totally great, even with only two efficiency cores.
And according to Mark Gurman, the 14 and 16” Pros are both coming this Summer, which points
to Apple revealing them at their WWDC event less than three weeks from today.
So with the MacBook Pros out of the way, let’s move onto the other products, like the new
Mac Mini, which Gurman says will get the same M1X chip options as the MacBook Pros, and
now it makes total sense why Apple went with only two efficiency cores, since the desktop
mini doesn’t really need them.
And that's why I personally believe that Apple will reveal the new Mac mini alongside the
new MacBook for a Summer launch, since that’s exactly what they did last November with the
M1 macs, but I don’t know when it’s gonna ship, especially since Mark said that it could
get delayed.
But based on what he’s saying, I fully expect the M1 Mac mini to stick around at the base
$699 price, and the new M1X mini will directly replace the current Intel-based model, so
you’ll have a choice between the M1 and the M1X.
Based on all of that info and the potential for the M1X chip to get a 32-core GPU, I fully
believe that this same M1X chip is gonna be loaded into the larger 30” iMac when they
reveal that later this year at another event, most likely in October or November.
Now as for the new redesigned MacBook Air that we’ve been discussing for a while,
Mark says that it’s gonna be packed with a chip that’s gonna be a direct successor
to the M1 processor, which obviously means that it’s gonna be called the M2 chip, with
the same number of CPU cores, but they’re gonna be new cores, so they’ll be faster.
The only surprise that Mark gave us was that the graphics cores will increase from 7 or
8 to 9 or 10, so basically 2 more graphics cores based on the model you choose.
Mark also mentioned that the lower-end base $1300 MacBook Pro would be getting the same
chip as the Air, and I personally think that both of them will be revealed at the exact
same time.
Mark says the Air could come as soon as the end of the year, but I think it could end
up getting pushed back into March of 2022 based on rumors from Ming-chi Kuo and Digitimes.
Now as far as the Mac Pro, Mark gave us some more info on that, now claiming that it’s
gonna look like a smaller version of the current Mac Pro design, basically U-turning on his
previous claim that it’ll look like a much taller Mac Mini.
And I think this makes total sense because the design of the Mac Pro has kind of become
iconic and it makes sense to keep it around, but the mind-blowing thing is that he says
it’ll come with either a 20 or 40 core CPU, and either a 64 or 128 core GPU, and I personally
think that it’s coming sometime next year, most likely in December.
But before that, we should be expecting one more Intel-based Mac Pro refresh at the end
of this year in December, using the same exact chassis that we currently have, but packing
new INtel Xeon Ice Lake chips and Big Navi graphics options.
So there you guys go, those are my thoughts on Mark’s latest report, and if you totally
disagree with me, comment your thoughts down below, but if you enjoyed it, click that circle
above to subscribe for more videos like this one. Thanks for watching and we’ll see you
in the next video!