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Tag: M1 Max

  • No, the Mac Studio Storage Is Not Upgradeable

    No, the Mac Studio Storage Is Not Upgradeable

    Experts at the venerable teardown site iFixIt have weighed in, and the Mac Studio storage is not upgradeable…with one major caveat.

    The Mac Studio was unveiled at Apple’s Peak Performance event in early March, and finally brought a professional grade Mac powered by the M1 line of chips. In fact, high-end Studios are powered by the M1 Ultra, the fusion of two M1 Max chips. Early adopters quickly noticed a second storage slot, upon disassembly, leading some to believe it might be possible to upgrade the storage. Turns out, that’s not the case.

    iFixIt Mac Studio Teardown

    iFixIt did one of their comprehensive teardowns of the new Mac, and came to the conclusion that upgrading the storage is not possible at this time. Yes, the new machines come with a second storage slot, but that is primarily for configurations that include 4GB or more of internal storage. Simply throwing another SSD into that extra slot doesn’t work and results in DFU restore errors. In fact, the only way to get the Studio to recognize a new SSD was to make sure it was the same capacity as the one that shipped with it.

    No matter the configuration, we haven’t gotten two base model drives to boot simultaneously in a single machine. However, when we swapped the spare Studio’s drive for the one in the teardown unit, and used Configurator to do a DFU restore … it worked! Storage swaps are possible, at least between two drives of the same size. But the jury’s still out on upgrades. Hopefully a software update will make the spare slot worthwhile, but it’s always a bummer to see repair and upgrades at the end of the priority list.

    It’s unfortunate to see the Studio crippled by such an arbitrary limitation, and hopefully a future software update will fix the issue and add some additional longevity to the machine.

    Overall, iFixIt gave the Mac Studio a repairability score of 6 out of 10.

  • Apple’s M3 Chip Nears Production

    Apple’s M3 Chip Nears Production

    Apple may have just released the M1 Pro and Max, but reports indicate the company’s M3 is nearing production.

    According to MacRumors, TSMC has already begun a pilot program for production of 3nm chips. It’s believed volume production will begin in Q4 2022, with the chips reaching Apple and other customers in 2023.

    Moving to 3nm production will provide better performance and/or power efficiency. Apple’s phones, tablets and M1 Macs already lead the industry in performance and power, with the very best Android phones lagging far behind. Even Apple’s M1 Macs rival the best Intel and AMD have to offer, while providing industry-leading battery life.

    According to MacRumors, the new chips could have up to four dies, which could mean as many as 40 cores — four times the number the M1 Pro and Max have.

    If the reports are true, the M3 could be another revolutionary leap forward for Apple’s devices.

  • Apple Unveils M1 Pro & M1 Max Chips to Power New Professional Macs

    Apple Unveils M1 Pro & M1 Max Chips to Power New Professional Macs

    Apple unveiled the next evolution of its M1 custom chip architecture, the M1 Pro and M1 Max, delivering up to six times the performance of the M1.

    The M1 challenged the PC industry when Apple first unveiled it. The custom silicon was able to best most Intel chips, while using a fraction of the energy. Apple has now expanded it’s M1 lineup of chips with the M1 Pro and M1 Max, both which significantly improve on the original’s performance, while still offering best-in-class efficiency.

    M1 Pro offers up to 200GB/s of memory bandwidth with support for up to 32GB of unified memory. M1 Max delivers up to 400GB/s of memory bandwidth — 2x that of M1 Pro and nearly 6x that of M1 — and support for up to 64GB of unified memory. And while the latest PC laptops top out at 16GB of graphics memory, having this huge amount of memory enables graphics-intensive workflows previously unimaginable on a notebook.

     

    Apple M1 Pro M1 Max CPU Performance - Credit Apple
    Apple M1 Pro M1 Max CPU Performance – Credit Apple

     

    Both chips have a 10-core architecture, with 8 high-performance cores and 2 high-efficiency cores. While the M1 Pro has a 16-core GPU, the M1 Max ups that to 32 cores. The M1 Pro can be configured with 32 GB of RAM, while the M1 Max can go to 64 GB.

    “M1 has transformed our most popular systems with incredible performance, custom technologies, and industry-leading power efficiency. No one has ever applied a system-on-a-chip design to a pro system until today with M1 Pro and M1 Max,” said Johny Srouji, Apple’s senior vice president of Hardware Technologies. “With massive gains in CPU and GPU performance, up to six times the memory bandwidth, a new media engine with ProRes accelerators, and other advanced technologies, M1 Pro and M1 Max take Apple silicon even further, and are unlike anything else in a pro notebook.”