'M1 Pro' and 'M1 Max' Chip Names Appear in App Log Ahead of Monday's Apple Event

[4jasontv]

Very common terms

For home decoration, maybe. For electronics primary and secondary display is far more common than internal and external…

Besides, an internal screen wouldn’t be visible in regular device use. The display on a laptop is still external. I would consider the led codes on a motherboard and example of an internal display.

I’ll concede some people might use it, but it’s not common. It’s the equivalent of calling your appetizer fried pickle discs. You could make an argument for it, but you will likely get weird looks.

 

[Boil]

M1 Wormhole X-Treme!

 

[chucker23n1]

For home decoration, maybe. For electronics primary and secondary display is far more common than internal and external…

A primary display is something different. (E.g., the one with the Dock on it.)

Apple goes with built-in vs. external.

 

[Premium1]

A Macbook Pro with a M1 Pro Chip? That's a lot of pro.

Can't forget that "pro webcam" they will implement since they are finally moving to 1080p.

 

[svish]

I think Apple may use some other name for the chip.

 

[4jasontv]

A primary display is something different. (E.g., the one with the Dock on it.)

Apple goes with built-in vs. external.

Built-in sounds reasonable. External still seems like bad nomenclature.

 

[ratspg]

In one year from now Apple will be commander of its own ship. No more relying on Intel for CPUs. That’s SUCH a huge deal! Complete software and hardware integration. Microsoft still stuck with Wintel even on their new product lines. It’s a great time to be around and to be able to use Apple products!

 

[ToomeyND]

There are 2 reasons this doesn’t make sense to me. 1. These are higher end computers, people care more about specs than naming. It’s not as consumer focused as the iPhone where the guts matter less than the experience. Obviously the experience still matters, but specs tell more of the story here. 2. There is currently a MacBook Pro with an M1 chip. Unless they also upgrade the base model, it seems really strange that a MacBook Pro comes without a “Pro” chip.

 

[Falhófnir]

Looks increasingly likely. Sigh.



As a one-off, OK, but I sure hope this doesn't mean we'll see the M2 in spring, the A16 in September, and then the A15-derived M2X in fall.

I guess one could argue this is how it works with Intel as well (especially on their Xeon products), but, bummer.



If it's called M1 Pro, surely that means Firestorm/Icestorm. We'll likely see a lot more cores, and maybe a slight clock increase (3.5 GHz?). Bonus points if they add some features, like support for a third monitor or eGPU.



I think the rumor of an M2 Air in spring, with a new design, makes more sense now. At that point, I expect the M1 Air to continue to sell, at $200 off.

It might be even worse than this, Kuo seems to think the next Air will be landing around this time next year, which implies all macs going on a 2 year update cycle. I suppose at least that will make buying later in the cycle less painful (I prefer to wait for production to bed in, personally) and hopefully the M2 will still be based on up to date A16 architecture. I think that's where things might otherwise get tricky on an ~18 month cycle, matching up the yearly A series architectures to computer updates that will be all over the place by comparison. If the A15 based M2 launches in say, April, in the Air, Pro and mini, then an M2 iMac in October will be a full year behind already, and if they want to base an M2 Pro chip on the same architecture as the M2, it'll be a year and a half out of date by the time it launches unless they skip to an M3.

 

[chucker23n1]

It might be even worse than this, Kuo seems to think the next Air will be landing around this time next year, which implies all macs going on a 2 year update cycle.

Ew.

 

[nquinn]

Assuming 12P+4E will be 3x power of M1, the MBP clearly does not have enough cooling (current cooling can barely handle 100W, but M1 CPU x3 will match 45-50W, let alone the hungry 32c GPU).
I honestly think that iMac 30'' and Mac Pro can have >8P+2E chip (maybe M1 Pro Max or M1 Extreme?) like 12P+4E, 16P+4E, or even more P cores. Also, 64c or even 128c GPU can be anticipated in a large cooling enclave like iMac.

Ya generally agree that I think Apple is simply going to run out of thermal room for cpu+igpu at some point here. Keep in mind though that the 100w is total output of the entire machine, not just the cpu/igpu.

For comparison:
- 2019 16" macbook pro: I9-9980HK: 45w TDP
- 2020 13" M1 macbook pro/M1: Considered 10w TDP for the air. I think some estimates say 20-24w for the MBP models though?

My fear is that if the M1 with 4 performance cores is already ~20w running at full load, the M1X 8+2 core variant could hit 40w, putting it VERY close to the old i9 TDP.

Yes, it would be faster, but it wouldn't be cooler unless falling back to efficiency cores.

Am I missing something here? Are M1's in MBP13 pros running less than 20-25w TDP?

 

[nquinn]

It might be even worse than this, Kuo seems to think the next Air will be landing around this time next year, which implies all macs going on a 2 year update cycle. I suppose at least that will make buying later in the cycle less painful (I prefer to wait for production to bed in, personally) and hopefully the M2 will still be based on up to date A16 architecture. I think that's where things might otherwise get tricky on an ~18 month cycle, matching up the yearly A series architectures to computer updates that will be all over the place by comparison. If the A15 based M2 launches in say, April, in the Air, Pro and mini, then an M2 iMac in October will be a full year behind already, and if they want to base an M2 Pro chip on the same architecture as the M2, it'll be a year and a half out of date by the time it launches unless they skip to an M3.

Wow, a 2 year delay on the air would be really annoying. That chassis is really aging with the large screen bezels. Would love to be able to get my mom a new Air next spring/summer before she retires from teaching.

 

[Lounge vibes 05]

Looks increasingly likely. Sigh.



As a one-off, OK, but I sure hope this doesn't mean we'll see the M2 in spring, the A16 in September, and then the A15-derived M2X in fall.

I guess one could argue this is how it works with Intel as well (especially on their Xeon products), but, bummer.



If it's called M1 Pro, surely that means Firestorm/Icestorm. We'll likely see a lot more cores, and maybe a slight clock increase (3.5 GHz?). Bonus points if they add some features, like support for a third monitor or eGPU.



I think the rumor of an M2 Air in spring, with a new design, makes more sense now. At that point, I expect the M1 Air to continue to sell, at $200 off.

I actually think they’re going to do something a little different:
Keep the M1 Silver and gray MacBook Air at $999, maybe bump that down to $899.
Introduce a much thinner, colorful, non-wedge shaped, notched M2 MacBook Air at $1299 to completely replace the current M1 MacBook Pro.
So then the lineup would be:
Silver and gray M1 MacBook Air: $999
colorful, thinner, lighter M2 MacBook Air: $1299
14 inch MacBook Pro: $1999
16 inch MacBook Pro: $2399
So then you have the basic silver and gray computer at 1000 for mostly the education markets and the extreme low end, the colorful MacBook Air for the majority of consumers, and then the two pro machines.
This actually is how it used to be with the $999 MacBook Air, and then the more advanced, thinner 12 inch MacBook at $1299, except this time I think they will do it right, since they won’t be relying on Intel Core M.
And for those who would say that Apple won’t keep around the M1 MacBook Air along side a colorful M2 version, keep in mind that even after introducing the colorful M1 iMac, they are still selling a four year old 1080P 21.5 inch iMac with a clunky old Intel processor on their website, mostly for the education markets.
They kept around the non-retina MacBook Pro for years along side the retina version, which had a spinning hard drive and a CD slot.
This is exactly the kind of thing they would do

 

[leman]

My fear is that if the M1 with 4 performance cores is already ~20w running at full load, the M1X 8+2 core variant could hit 40w, putting it VERY close to the old i9 TDP.

The thing is that Intel TDP is misleading. The i9 can already run at 50W with only two cores doing work, and it can surpass 80W for brief periods of time. This is also the reason why the laptop runs hot - any kind of effort will already push the thermal system. Besides, sustained TDP of 16“ is 60W (I checked it myself).

With the Apple Silicon system, you will get to 40-50W only when truly pushing all the cores (which does not happen too often). In normal use, the power consumption will be much much lower, and it can burst on few cores consuming less power than Intel when bursting in a single core.

Besides, when running full steam an 8-core Apple Silicon machine will be considerably faster than an i9 at the same thermal level.

 

[albertjs]

Tomorrow Apple will present the new iMac Pro. Wait and see…

 

[Falhófnir]

Wow, a 2 year delay on the air would be really annoying. That chassis is really aging with the large screen bezels. Would love to be able to get my mom a new Air next spring/summer before she retires from teaching.

It would, though I do see some pros as well as cons. Mainly that buying later in the cycle (say 3-6 months after release) is a better deal. It will also mean when updates do happen they should be pretty meaningful - we're looking at circa 15% year over year with the A series currently, so perhaps 30% gen over gen if the M series skips a year, and even more in graphics terms.

 

[chucker23n1]

It would, though I do see some pros as well as cons. Mainly that buying later in the cycle (say 3-6 months after release) is a better deal. It will also mean when updates do happen they should be pretty meaningful - we're looking at circa 15% year over year with the A series currently, so perhaps 30% gen over gen if the M series skips a year, and even more in graphics terms.

32%

But you could make this argument for any product. Why have an iPhone each year? Why an Apple Watch? Apple could save themselves a lot of "well, that was really just a minor upgrade" whining that way.

Why is the Mac special in that Apple is unwilling to upgrade it on an annual basis? (Some iPads, too.)

 

[bookofxero]

They will rename the chip line "Apple [X]" and the next will be the "Apple II", with the higher end being the "Apple IIe".

 

[Falhófnir]

32%

But you could make this argument for any product. Why have an iPhone each year? Why an Apple Watch? Apple could save themselves a lot of "well, that was really just a minor upgrade" whining that way.

Why is the Mac special in that Apple is unwilling to upgrade it on an annual basis? (Some iPads, too.)

I think, basically this:

It might be even worse than this, Kuo seems to think the next Air will be landing around this time next year, which implies all macs going on a 2 year update cycle. I suppose at least that will make buying later in the cycle less painful (I prefer to wait for production to bed in, personally) and hopefully the M2 will still be based on up to date A16 architecture. I think that's where things might otherwise get tricky on an ~18 month cycle, matching up the yearly A series architectures to computer updates that will be all over the place by comparison. If the A15 based M2 launches in say, April, in the Air, Pro and mini, then an M2 iMac in October will be a full year behind already, and if they want to base an M2 Pro chip on the same architecture as the M2, it'll be a year and a half out of date by the time it launches unless they skip to an M3.

The timing gets very complex with the releases being staggered throughout the year, and needing to have multiple chip SKUs developed and produced in conjunction with the overall product development. That's why I think the M family of chips will be over a 2 year cycle, based on alternating A series architectures. Otherwise they will probably end up developing chips that don't get used in enough stuff unless they update every product every year, which would probably mean dropping some product lines so there's enough resources available. Even the size they are I don't think Apple has the capacity to constantly update such an expansive lineup continuously, at least not economically.

 

[hans1972]

Built-in sounds reasonable. External still seems like bad nomenclature.

Try this in Google search: "external display" site:apple.com

You get approx. 44 600 results. For the whole of Google search it returns about 3.98 million entries.

Often people will replace display with screen or monitor.

 

[Skewlovevism]

Apple is ready to dominate! The sales will be off the roof!

But will it be “off the roof” like this? This is the way to dominate

youtube.com/watch?v=xmxEuQXTHUU

 

[WinterEmerald]

There’s literally already android phones with 12-16 GB of RAM, just as much RAM as you can get on the current M1.
Not that big of a leap to say that in five years we’ll have phones with 32–64 GB of RAM, if not more.
Not saying this person is fully on the money here, I think we’re still far, far away from the reality they speak of, but just a note.

I wasn't responding to the mobile comment which I think is off the mark, as I believe there will be a fundamental divide between the mobile ecosystem and the computer one, in terms of what is designed for what. I was responding to the basis that I've seen, too often, people not understanding that some people need a lot of RAM for their professions.

 

[ttyRazor]

Also… What’s interesting to me is how Max/Macs sound essentially the same lol. ProMotion and promotion too.

Max Macs with M1 Max

 

[ttyRazor]

I know these are just rumours but hate the inconsistency if true:

iPhone 13 Pro
iPhone 13 Pro Max

M1 Pro
M1 Pro Max

Rumor has it there will be two Max phones next year, so having both pro max and max would make sense.

 

[Tagbert]

How about an updated Macbook Air M1 that doesn't throttle and lose 34% performance?

The new Macbook Pro M1 with more CPU and iGPU cores mean more transistors on same 5nm node so it'll require two fans just like Intel.

If the MB Air throttles sometimes, that is fine by me as long as it doesn’t have a fan. I chose that as I don’t need maximum performance and prefer a totally quiet laptop.