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When Apple announced that it was ditching Intel in favor of its own ARM-based laptop processors, the big question was how fast computers with these new chips would be. In the last episode of our explainer show, Upscaled, we took a look at how Apple’s new M1-powered Macbook Pro performed compared to an Intel-powered 16-inch Macbook Pro and the Windows ARM-based Surface Pro X. crazy fast.
The next question is how did the engineers at Apple do this? Processors are not magic. Each design is a balance between a dozen variables. A larger cache can hold more data, but it is slower to access. Higher clock speeds improve performance, but reduce battery life. This is further complicated by the fact that designing a chip can take years, but despite all the modeling and simulations available to engineers, it can be difficult to predict exactly how a chip will perform until you make it. Actually.
The key to Apple’s success seems to be the M1’s incredibly “wide” design. This refers to the number of instructions the chip can process in each cycle. Although the M1 is single-threaded, which means each core can only process one instruction stream at a time (unlike the multithreaded design of Intel and AMD), it can process up to 8 instructions. per cycle. That’s almost twice as much as most modern designs. This allows it to still do a ton of work, even when running at a lower clock speed, which can help save power.
This is just one of a series of smart decisions made by Apple that add up to an impressive processor. Some see the M1 advantage as being an ARM chip, as opposed to x86 like Intel or AMD, but many of Apple’s design decisions are things rival companies could adopt (and are starting to do). Add to the fact that the M1 is built on top of TSMC’s cutting edge 5nm design, and Apple’s success isn’t magic.
Watch the full video for even more details on Apple’s M1 design and how other companies are struggling to catch up.
You can see our list of sources for this piece here.
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