Is the new M1 chip, launched by Apple, better than Intel ?

Every launch event by Apple is considered to be a milestone and a benchmarking event. Be it the ridiculously overpriced Apple Stand at $1000 or the most recent iPhone 12 launch. But the first quarter of 2020 saw a new benchmark being set by Apple when they released the MacBook Air, MacBook Pro and the Mac Mini. So what did these devices have in common ? It wasn’t just the new features that took the silicon valley by storm, it was the release of the very own, indigenous chip manufactured by Apple, the MI chip.

What is the M1 chip ?

The M1 chip is the first Apple designed System on a Chip (SoC) and it marks the transition away from the Apple laptops using the Intel chips since 2006. Apple claimed that the new M1 chip is powerful, fast, less noisy and even interestingly mentioned that it can give a decent Gaming Experience. But are these features enough to convince a customer to make a leap from the Intel chips ?

What does this mean for Intel ?

Intel has been an industry leader in manufacturing chips for computers. The M1 is the first non-x86 CPU architecture to challenge companies like AMD and Intel in well over a decade.

But this does not mean that the M1 chip threatens the market dominance over Intel and AMD. Intel’s main worry will not be that there are millions of laptops in the market that are utilizing the M1 chip, but if Apple manages to maintain or even increase it’s reputation of the M1 chip, then it will have an impact on the companies like AMD, Nvidia and even possibly Intel.

Is the M1 chip really better than the Intel chip ?

Apple has consistently maintained that it will produce its own line of Apple silicone processors by 2022. We have also seen that Apple prefers to have a greater battery life over the performance offered. This is something that is probably against the industry standard of preferring performance over battery life. Time will tell us if this strategy plays out well for Apple.

Coming to the downsides of the M1 chip, the RAM is inbuilt in the M1 chip and this means that you cannot manually increase your RAM capacity while the upsides being that you don’t need to have a separate CPU, GPU and RAM. The M1 chip comes fully integrated that provides better efficiency.

Summing up….

Although the M1 has been in the market for a year now, we don’t know how high it can clock and how this compares to the Intel chips. But one thing is for certain, Apple certainly has the capacity to produce its own chips and it does not have to depend on Intel for it’s processors. As of now, we can say that the Apple M1 would give a significant challenge to the AMD chip. But whether it is ready to take on the Big brother Intel ? only time will tell…