Newly Announced M1 CPU

Lovelight-sargeras · November 16, 2020, 4:25am

https://www.apple.com/mac/m1/

Fine print from the bottom of the webpage:

Testing conducted by Apple in October 2020 using preproduction MacBook Air systems with Apple M1 chip and 8-core GPU, as well as production 1.2GHz quad-core Intel Core i7-based MacBook Air systems, all configured with 16GB RAM and 2TB SSD. Tested with prerelease Final Cut Pro 10.5 using a 55-second clip with 4K Apple ProRes RAW media, at 4096x2160 resolution and 59.94 frames per second, transcoded to Apple ProRes 422. Performance tests are conducted using specific computer systems and reflect the approximate performance of MacBook Air.

Testing conducted by Apple in October 2020 using preproduction Mac mini systems with Apple M1 chip, and production 3.6GHz quad-core Intel Core i3-based Mac mini systems, all configured with 16GB of RAM and 2TB SSD. Prerelease Adobe Lightroom 4.1 tested using a 28MB image. Performance tests are conducted using specific computer systems and reflect the approximate performance of Mac mini.

Testing conducted by Apple in October 2020 using preproduction 13‑inch MacBook Pro systems with Apple M1 chip and 16GB of RAM measuring peak single-thread performance of workloads taken from select industry-standard benchmarks, commercial applications, and open source applications. Comparison made against the highest-performing CPUs for notebooks commercially available at the time of testing. Performance tests are conducted using specific computer systems and reflect the approximate performance of MacBook Pro.

Testing conducted by Apple in October 2020 using preproduction 13‑inch MacBook Pro systems with Apple M1 chip and 16GB of RAM. Multithreaded performance measured using select industry‑standard benchmarks. Comparison made against latest‑generation high‑performance notebooks commercially available at the time of testing. Performance tests are conducted using specific computer systems and reflect the approximate performance of MacBook Pro.

Testing conducted by Apple in October 2020 using preproduction 13‑inch MacBook Pro systems with Apple M1 chip and 16GB of RAM, as well as previous‑generation Mac notebooks. Performance measured using select industry‑standard benchmarks. Performance tests are conducted using specific computer systems and reflect the approximate performance of MacBook Pro.

Testing conducted by Apple in October 2020 using preproduction 13‑inch MacBook Pro systems with Apple M1 chip and 16GB of RAM using select industry-standard benchmarks. Comparison made against the highest-performing integrated GPUs for notebooks and desktops commercially available at the time of testing. Integrated GPU is defined as a GPU located on a monolithic silicon die along with a CPU and memory controller, behind a unified memory subsystem. Performance tests are conducted using specific computer systems and reflect the approximate performance of MacBook Pro.

Testing conducted by Apple in October 2020 using preproduction 13‑inch MacBook Pro systems with Apple M1 chip and 16GB of RAM. Performance measured using select industry‑standard benchmarks. Comparison made against latest‑generation high‑performance notebooks commercially available at the time of testing. Performance tests are conducted using specific computer systems and reflect the approximate performance of MacBook Pro.

Testing conducted by Apple in October 2020 using preproduction Mac mini systems with Apple M1 chip, and production 3.6GHz quad-core Intel Core i3-based Mac mini systems, all configured with 16GB of RAM and 2TB SSD. Prerelease Pixelmator Pro 2.0 Lynx tested using a 216KB image. Performance tests are conducted using specific computer systems and reflect the approximate performance of Mac mini.

Testing conducted by Apple in October 2020 using preproduction 13‑inch MacBook Pro systems with Apple M1 chip, 8GB of RAM, and 512GB SSD. The wireless web test measures battery life by wirelessly browsing 25 popular websites with display brightness set to 8 clicks from bottom. The Apple TV app movie playback test measures battery life by playing back HD 1080p content with display brightness set to 8 clicks from bottom. Battery life varies by use and configuration. See apple.com/batteries for more information.

Testing conducted by Apple in October 2020 using preproduction MacBook Air systems with Apple M1 chip and 8-core GPU, configured with 8GB of RAM and 512GB SSD. The wireless web test measures battery life by wirelessly browsing 25 popular websites with display brightness set to 8 clicks from bottom. The Apple TV app movie playback test measures battery life by playing back HD 1080p content with display brightness set to 8 clicks from bottom. Battery life varies by use and configuration. See apple.com/batteries for more information.

Testing conducted by Apple in October 2020 using preproduction Mac mini systems with Apple M1 chip, and production 3.6GHz quad-core Intel Core i3-based Mac mini systems, all configured with 16GB of RAM and 2TB SSD. Tested with prerelease Logic Pro 10.6.0 with project consisting of multiple tracks, each with an Amp Designer plug-in instance applied. Individual tracks were added during playback until CPU became overloaded. Performance tests are conducted using specific computer systems and reflect the approximate performance of Mac mini.

Testing conducted by Apple in October 2020 using preproduction Mac mini systems with Apple M1 chip, and production 3.6GHz quad-core Intel Core i3-based Mac mini systems with Intel Iris UHD Graphics 630, all configured with 16GB of RAM and 2TB SSD. Tested with prerelease Final Cut Pro 10.5 using a complex 2-minute project with a variety of media up to 4K resolution. Performance tests are conducted using specific computer systems and reflect the approximate performance of Mac mini.

Epositive-anetheron · November 16, 2020, 7:05am

That’s my summary. Basically, it seems Apple was comparing to its last generation equipments, or to other vendors’ PCs using Intel Iris 630 chips. In other words, they weren’t comparing to high speed graphics boards. Even so, it’s a very nice evolution, especially for a first time graphics chip company.

Chroesire-bleeding-hollow · November 16, 2020, 6:46pm

M1 integrated is apparently benching better than Xe too, which is Intel’s latest and greatest iGPU. No it’s not going to compete with current gen discrete, but it looks like it’s gonna solidly beat all other integrated solutions on a tiny power budget which is more than enough for a lot of people.

Grogun-dragonmaw · November 17, 2020, 1:24am

Ya it’s largely just a recompile now to get it to be compatible for M1 there may be some snags with how math works on an arm. In the end though, this is an easy port for blizzard and the best part it would be very easy to have an IOS version of wow. Now with keyboards and mouse support on IOS the excuses used by the developers against it are now gone.

M1 and IOS versions please.

Epositive-anetheron · November 17, 2020, 2:24am

iPadOS supports keyboards and mice, so all of Blizz’s games could be ported to iPadOS and MacOS. However iOS hasn’t supported mice… until iOS 13 which just came out a few weeks ago and supports BlueTooth Mice. Wow! Combine this news with the COO of Blizzard saying two weeks ago that Blizz’s highest priority was to “port games to mobile,” that suggests that Blizzard will port its games to iOS and iPadOS. And I think I speculated above that this news will arrive at Blizzcon 2021 in February.

Pharazon-thorium-brotherhood · November 17, 2020, 4:33am

https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/mac-support-update-november-16/722775

Hackintosh-darkspear · November 17, 2020, 4:40am

Very cool!

Narunith-area-52 · November 17, 2020, 1:02pm

Color me surprised. I didn’t think they’d have it ready for day one.

I am going to hold off until the 4-port Pros comes out and will likely get one then,.

Klieven-malorne · November 17, 2020, 1:58pm

I’m very excited to see how well WoW will run on Apple silicon.

Lilmage-garrosh · November 17, 2020, 2:20pm

Given the benchmark results posted on AppleInsider, it looks like it beats most of the other Macs hands down. I am pleasantly surprised at the GPU performance, even under Rosetta2, it closely matched existing Intel Mac Laptops with discrete graphics.

Distini-stormrage · November 17, 2020, 2:28pm

Realistically, what are we thinking we will be able to run this at for 60 FPS? High or medium settings?

Epositive-anetheron · November 17, 2020, 3:27pm

I’m not sure, but the UPS tracking that I have shows my new M1 Mini was in Alaska 8.5 hours ago and is now in a truck in my city trying to get to me on the east coast of North America. That’s 7 days before it was scheduled to arrive. I’ve never seen a package move that fast.

Xyn-onyxia · November 17, 2020, 4:30pm

Alright, you are our designated tester. We are waiting for your review!

Oberin-whisperwind · November 17, 2020, 4:30pm

Here is someone playing wow on a high setting! Wish they went more into the details. But had to share 2min 30 second in.

https://youtu.be/BUBYO591Fo8?t=145

Xyn-onyxia · November 17, 2020, 4:31pm

This has to be Rosetta 2 though, after todays maintenance we should see Apple silicon support.

Jourra-wyrmrest-accord · November 17, 2020, 4:59pm

From what I’m able to tell, he’s saying that he’s playing at High settings and the frame rate of his gameplay looks to be at or near 60 frames per second. This was most definitely played during the past week, so I’m really happy to see that kind of performance even when using the Rosetta 2 translation layer.

In every other benchmark and review, the app gaining native ARM support was a huge boon to its performance. I’m really curious to see what that does for WoW here.

Ruminaytion-thrall · November 17, 2020, 5:08pm

Seems we just got our answer! Mac Support Update -- November 16

anon97262685 · November 17, 2020, 6:01pm

Now all we need is someone doing more than just the starter area quests.

Dungeons, raids, hell anything with a serious load behind it.

Unfortunately I don’t know any WoW streamers that even use Macs… they’d really run it through the trenches.

Jourra-wyrmrest-accord · November 17, 2020, 6:06pm

I asked the YouTuber in question on his Discord channel and he said he’s going to revisit this in another video. I also let him know about 9.0.2 adding ARM support. I think we should be seeing a performance difference between the original video using Rosetta 2 translation and the new native client.

Xyn-onyxia · November 17, 2020, 8:21pm

Quote from reddit with latest patch:

I just tested this on my Mini-M1 and honestly the FPS was surprisingly really good, ultrawide 3440x1440 (just what mine hooked up to), preset 5, in Orgimmar getting 45-50 FPS. 1080p getting around 65-70ish.

imgur*com/a/F48C4Xs