Macworld - UK (2022-01)

34 Macworld • January 2022

MAC

So if you’re wondering whether

you should wait for the M2 instead of

investing in an M1 MacBook Air or M1

Pro MacBook Pro, we’re here to help.

M1, M1 PRO & M1 MAX

Apple’s first three Mac chips are all

built on the same architecture, but

they’re quite different:

M1

CPU core (performance): 4

CPU core (efficiency): 4

GPU cores: 7/8

NPU cores: 16

Memory: 8GB/16GB

M1 Pro

CPU core (performance): 6/8

CPU core (efficiency): 2

GPU cores: 16

NPU cores: 16

Memory: 16GB/32GB

M1 Max

CPU core (performance): 8

CPU core (efficiency): 2

GPU cores: 24/32

NPU cores: 16

Memory: 32GB/64GB

As you can see the chips are quite

different. While they’re all built on

the same 5nm die process, the M1

Pro has much more power, especially

when using apps that take advantage

of more than one core. The M1 is a

very good chip, but the M1 Pro is a

great one with mind-blowing speeds

and excellent upgrade options. As

you can see in the CPU benchmarks

below, the extra cores go a long way

and that’s before you take graphics

and RAM into account. Apple has

delivered a chip that’s great for pros

but might be too fast for casual users.

Geekbench 5 (multi-core)

14in MacBook Pro M1 Max 10-core

(2021): 12,590

14in MacBook Pro M1 Pro 10-core

(2021): 12,544

16in MacBook Pro 2.4GHz 8-core

(2021): 7,383

13in MacBook Pro M1 8-core (2020):

7,569

24in iMac M1 8-core (2021): 7,708

Geekbench 5 (single-core)

14in MacBook Pro M1 Max 10-core

(2021): 1,774

14in MacBook Pro M1 Pro 10-core

(2021): 1,778

16in MacBook Pro 2.4GHz 8-core

(2021): 1,277

13in MacBook Pro M1 8-core (2020):

1,724

24in iMac M1 8-core (2021): 1,742