Apple M1 Pro and M1 Max

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Apple M1 Pro, M1 Max and M1 Ultra
Illustration of an M1 Max processor
Apple M1 Max chip
General information
LaunchedOctober 18, 2021
Designed byApple Inc.
Common manufacturer(s)
  • TSMC
Product codeAPL1103 (M1 Pro)
APL1104 (M1 Max)
Performance
Max. CPU clock rate2064 MHz (high-efficiency cores) GHz to 3228 MHz (high-performance cores) GHz
Data width200GB/s (M1 Pro), 400 GB/s (M1 Max) memory bandwidth
Cache
L2 cache28MB (24MB for performance cores & 4MB for efficiency)
L3 cache24MB (M1 Pro), 48MB (M1 Max)
Architecture and classification
ApplicationLaptop (MacBook Pro family)
Desktop (Mac Studio, M1 Max)
Technology node5 nm
Microarchitecture"Firestorm" and "Icestorm"[1]
Instruction setARMv8.4-A[2]
Physical specifications
Transistors
  • 33.7 billion (M1 Pro)
    57 billion (M1 Max)[3]
Cores
  • 10 (8× high-performance + 2× high-efficiency)
    (6× performance cores in lower-binned variants of M1 Pro)
GPU(s)Apple-designed integrated graphics, up to 16 cores (M1 Pro) or 32 cores (M1 Max)
Products, models, variants
Variant(s)
  • Apple M1
    M1 Ultra
History
PredecessorIntel Core and Apple T2 chip (Mac)
Mac transition to
Apple silicon
Processor designed by Apple (M1)
  • Apple silicon
  • ARM architecture
  • Universal 2 binary
  • Rosetta 2
  • Developer Transition Kit
  • v
  • t

The Apple M1 Pro and M1 Max are systems-on-chip (SoC) designed by Apple Inc. for the MacBook Pro laptop and the lower-end Mac Studio desktop, based on the licensed ARM architecture, and manufactured on TSMC's N5 process.[1] They were announced at an Apple event on October 18, 2021.

Based on the Apple M1, the M1 Pro and M1 Max are Apple's first professional-focused systems-on-a-chip for the Mac. The M1 Max is a higher-powered version of the M1 Pro, with more GPU cores and memory bandwidth and a larger die size.[4]

On March 8, 2022, the M1 Ultra, a variant using two M1 Max chips, was announced. It is initially available exclusively in the highest-end variants of the Mac Studio.

Design[]

CPU[]

The M1 Pro and M1 Max use the ARM big.LITTLE design with eight high-performance "Firestorm" (six in the lower-binned variants of the M1 Pro) and two energy-efficient "Icestorm" cores, providing a total of ten cores (eight in the lower-binned variants of the M1 Pro).[1] The high-performance cores are clocked at 3228 MHz, and the high-efficiency cores are clocked at 2064 MHz. The eight high-performance cores are split into two clusters. Each high-performance cluster shares 12MB of L2 cache. The two high-efficiency cores share 4MB of L2 cache. The M1 Pro and M1 Max have 24MB and 48MB respectively of system level cache (SLC).[5]

GPU[]

The M1 Pro integrates an Apple-designed 16-core (14 in some base models) graphics processing unit (GPU), while the M1 Max integrates a 32-core (24 in some base models) GPU. Each GPU core is split into 16 Execution Units, which each contain eight arithmetic logic units (ALUs). In total, the M1 Max GPU contains up to 512 execution units or 4096 ALUs, which have a maximum floating point (FP32) performance of 10.4 TFLOPs.

They have the same 16-core Neural Engine, Secure Enclave, and two media engines as the Apple A14 Bionic. Each SoC has three Thunderbolt 4 controllers, one for each of the Thunderbolt 4 ports on the 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros.[6] The M1 Pro includes a media engine supporting ProRes encoding and decoding, while the M1 Max includes two engines.[7]

Memory[]

The M1 Pro and M1 Max have a unified memory architecture, meaning that all components on the chip, such as the CPU and GPU, share the same memory addressing. The M1 Pro has 256-bit LPDDR5-6400 SDRAM memory, and the M1 Max has 512-bit LPDDR5-6400 memory. While the M1 SoC has 68GB/s memory bandwidth, the M1 Pro has 204GB/s bandwidth and the M1 Max has a 408GB/s bandwidth.[5] The M1 Pro comes in memory configurations of 16 GB and 32 GB, while the M1 Max comes in configurations of 32 GB and 64 GB.[6]

Other features[]

The M1 Max supports High Power Mode on the 16-inch MacBook Pro for intensive tasks.[8] The M1 Pro supports two 6K displays at 60Hz over Thunderbolt, while the M1 Max supports a third 6K display over Thunderbolt and a 4K monitor over HDMI 2.0.[6] All parameters of the M1 Max processors are doubled in M1 Ultra processors, as they're essentially two M1 Max processors operating parallelly.

Variants[]

The table below shows the various SoCs based on the "Firestorm" and "Icestorm" microarchitectures.

Variant CPU

cores (P+E)

GPU
cores 		GPU
EU 		Graphics
ALU 		Memory (GB) Transistor
count
A14 6 (2+4) 4 64 512 4 - 6 11.8 billion
M1 8 (4+4) 7 112 896 8 - 16 16 billion
M1 8 128 1024
M1 Pro 8 (6+2) 14 224 1792 16 - 32 34 billion
M1 Pro 10 (8+2)
M1 Pro 16 256 2048
M1 Max[Note 1] 10 (8+2) 24 384 3072 32 - 64 57 billion
M1 Max[Note 1] 32 512 4096
  1. ^ a b If M1 Max's technical parameters are doubled, they are becoming M1 Ultra processors.

Products that use the M1 Pro and M1 Max[]

See also[]

  • Apple M1
  • Apple A14
  • Rosetta 2
  • Apple silicon
  • Universal 2 binary

References[]

  1. ^ a b c "Introducing M1 Pro and M1 Max: the most powerful chips Apple has ever built". Apple Newsroom. Retrieved 2021-10-22.
  2. ^ "M1 - Apple". WikiChip. Retrieved 12 February 2022.
  3. ^ Shankland, Stephen. "M1 Pro and M1 Max: Here's how Apple is kicking Intel out of the Mac computer". CNET. Retrieved 2021-10-26.
  4. ^ "Apple unveils game-changing MacBook Pro". Apple Newsroom. Retrieved 2021-10-22.
  5. ^ a b Frumusanu, Andrei. "Apple's M1 Pro, M1 Max SoCs Investigated: New Performance and Efficiency Heights". www.anandtech.com. Retrieved 2022-01-29.
  6. ^ a b c "MacBook Pro 14- and 16-inch - Technical Specifications". Apple. Retrieved 2022-01-29.
  7. ^ "Compared: M1 vs M1 Pro and M1 Max". AppleInsider. Retrieved 2021-12-15.
  8. ^ "16-Inch MacBook Pro With M1 Max Has a 'High Power Mode'". PCMAG. Retrieved 2021-10-25.
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