iFixit digs into MacBook M1s and finds they haven’t changed much

Now that Apple is installing its own Silicon in the new Macs, what has changed from previous generations? While we can tell you what it’s like to use the new M1 powered MacBook Air, the folks at iFixit specialize in their separation to see what’s inside. In the case of the newly released MacBook Airs and MacBook Pros, it turns out the answer isn’t much.

As explained, the 13-inch MacBook Pro is almost identical to its Intel predecessor, while the big change in the new MacBook Air is the particularly missing fan. On the MacBook Pro, it appears to have the same fan as the Intel 2020 revision, so any difference in noise boils down to M1 hardware requiring less cooling under load. The T2 security chip is also gone, with Secure Enclave technology residing inside Apple’s new PC processor. Even on the M1 chip, iFixit points out that the SOC memory setup has two built-in SK hynix LPDDR4X chips, similar to recent iPads.