Apple Silicon

Posted by Raymond Alvin on 12/2/20

Apple has been making its own chips for their iPhones, iPads, watches, and headphones for quite a while now. However, they have been using Intel’s processors in their Macbooks for a long time as well. Recently, Apple announced their transition to Apple Silicon. They would begin using chips made in-house, by Apple, in Macbooks. Many people have been criticizing Intel for their expensive prices and underperforming processors. AMD has been greatly profiting as their chips are much cheaper and seem to perform much better as well. About a month ago, Apple introduced the M1 chip and are now selling Macbook Air and Pro models with this chip. Customers do still have the option of buying the same models with Intel chips but that is not a very good idea. Since Apple makes the processors in-house, the chips are much cheaper than buying them from Intel. The starting price of the new Macbook Pro, 13” with the M1 chip, is $500 cheaper than the cheapest Intel Macbook Pro that Apple still sells. In addition to the lower price, the Apple Silicon chips can be optimized for Mac OS and they are much more efficient. The M1 chip vastly outperforms the Intel Core i5 in the more expensive 13” Macbook Pro. Apple claims that the M1’s CPU is 3.5x faster than the Core i5 and the GPU speeds are up to 6x faster than Intel’s integrated graphics. The battery life of the M1 Macbook Pro is also twice the life of the computer it replaces. This is only the first generation of the new Apple Silicon chips and I am excited to see how much better they will get for the next generation of 16” laptops, replacing the Intel Core i7 and i9.