The desktop-focused nature of the chip means that, if they desire, Apple can push clockspeeds a bit higher than they did on the M1 Max, but they would need to leave their energy efficiency sweet spot to do it. Still, as we’ve seen they’re fairly potent cores on their own, and will help add to the CPU throughput of the chip in heavily threaded scenarios.Īs is typical for an Apple product announcement, the company isn’t disclosing clockspeeds here. Given that M1 Ultra is aimed solely at desktops (unlike M1 Max) the efficiency cores don’t have quite as big of a role to play here since Apple doesn’t need to conserve energy down to the last joule. This is comprised of 16 of their performance-focused Firestorm cores, and 4 of their efficiency-focused Icestorm cores. On the CPU front, this means Apple now offers a total of 20 CPU cores. This means twice as many CPU cores, twice as many GPU cores, twice as many neural engine cores, twice as many LPDDR5 memory channels, and twice as much I/O for peripherals. Starting with speeds and feeds, by placing two M1 Max dies on a single package, Apple has doubled the amount of hardware at their disposal in virtually every fashion.

M1 Ultra isn’t introducing anything new in teams of end-user features in that respect, and instead the chip is all about scaling up Apple’s M1 architecture one step further by placing a second silicon die on a single chip. Specifically, Apple is using two M1 Max dies here, and then bonding them together to form a massive amalgamation of 114B transistors.Īs M1 Max itself has been shipping for the last 5 months, the basic architecture of the chip (and its underlying blocks) is at this point a known quantity. By enabling the M1 Ultra’s two dies to transparently present themselves as a single GPU, Apple has kicked off a new technology race for placing multi-die GPUs in high-end consumer and workstation hardware.Īt the heart of the new M1 Ultra is something a bit older: the M1 Max. And while double die strategy benefits sprawling multi-threaded CPU and GPU workloads far more than it does more single-threaded tasks – an area where Apple is already starting to fall behind – in the process they re breaking new ground on the GPU front. As we’ll touch upon in our analysis, the M1 Ultra is not quite like any other consumer chip currently on the market. The net result is a chip that, without a doubt, manages to be one of the most interesting designs I’ve ever seen for a consumer SoC. As for the company’s final and ultimate M1 chip design, the M1 Ultra, Apple has bonded two M1 Max dies together on to a single chip, with all of the performance benefits doubling their hardware would entail. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say twice as better.

After all, how would you even top a single 432mm2 chip that’s already pushing the limits of manufacturability on TSMC’s N5 process? Well, as the answer turns out to be, Apple can do one better. And in the process, Apple has thrown the industry a fresh curveball by not just combining two M1 Max dies into a single chip package, but by making the two dies present themselves as a single, monolithic GPU, marking yet another first for the chipmaking industry.īack when Apple announced the M1 Pro and the ridiculously powerful M1 Max last fall, we figured Apple was done with M1 chips. Aimed squarely at desktops – specifically, Apple’s new Mac Studio – the M1 Ultra finds Apple once again upping the ante in terms of SoC performance for both CPU and GPU workloads. As part of Apple’s spring “Peek Performance” product event this morning, Apple unveiled the fourth and final member of the M1 family of Apple Silicon SoCs, the M1 Ultra.

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