3 ms·

The M1 is their entry level CPU and it's compiling software as fast as a fast i7 or i9. They don't have very far to go to catch ThreadRippers, 24 Firestorm core

• joakleaf 6y ago
  The current M1 has 4 firestorms. Geekbench gives a score of ~7400 for the M1s. Assuming the firestorms represent some 80% of the CPU power and multiplying by 6 (6x4=24), we would get a Geekbench score around 35000. That would place it between a 32- and 64-core threadripper. I know, that's a lot of handwaving! I must admit, while I have a lot of doubts that Apple can simply scale up to 24+ core M1s while having acceptable yield, what they have going for them is low amount of heat with current core count and clock speed. So I think, they might also be able to increase the clock speed significantly from here. But, I have been wondering if their plan is instead to create an m1x (4+8 core), and then combine up-to 3-4 m1xs in the Mac Pro and iMac Pro machines to get up-to 24-32 total cores. That way they might still have high yield and only a few lines of chips (keeping the supply chain tight, which seems like Apple / Tim Cook's MO).