Mac Mini Teardown Gives Real-World Glimpse Of M1 Chip On Smaller Motherboard

A teardown of the new Mac mini has surfaced on the eGPU.io forum (via Reddit), giving us a real-world glimpse of Apple’s new M1 chip, which is soldered onto a much smaller logic board than the one found in the 2018 computer model. (Note: At the time of posting, the eGPU.io forum appears to be experiencing some downtime.)

The M1 is the silver chip labeled APL1102, housing the 8-core processor, 8-core GPU, 16-core neural engine, I / O controllers, and more. Unified system memory is also visible on the right side of the chip and takes up much less space than the stand-alone RAM modules used in the previous Mac mini, contributing to the smaller logic board.

As expected, the move to unified system memory also means there is no user-upgradeable RAM like there was with the previous Mac mini, so choose 8GB wisely. or 16 GB of memory when setting up the Mac mini at Apple’s online store. The SSD also remains soldered to the motherboard, so there is also no user-upgradeable storage.

A video teardown of the new Mac mini has also surfaced, revealing that the overall teardown process is similar to that of the 2018 model:

There’s also a video teardown of the new MacBook Air, offering a glimpse into the interior of the laptop, though many components are covered in shielding. We’ll have to wait for iFixit for its more in-depth teardowns of the new Macs for a closer look.