Widely touted for its performance and low power consumption, the M1 processor is now being directly compared to older Intel Core processors.
Announced on November 10, 2020 and presented in the wake of machines such as the MacBook Air, the Mac Mini and the MacBook Pro 13″, the M1 processor is what is called a SoC for system on a chip: in other words, it is a virtually complete system that fits within a single chip. More importantly, it is a chip designed internally by Apple, which aims to free itself from its dependence on Intel.
The M1 is a processor that uses an ARM architecture and is considerably more energy efficient than Intel alternatives. On paper, its performance may not be the best - yet - but the power consumption of the M1-powered Mac Mini is remarkably low. Apple staged a comparison between its 2020 Mac Mini, with the M1, and a 2018 Mac Mini, with an Intel Core i7 with 6 cores.
The whole machine goes from a consumption of 19.9 Watts at rest to only 6.6 Watts, but it is obviously under full load that the difference is even more eloquent: there, the Mac Mini M1 consumes only 39 Watts when the Mac Mini Core i7 climbs to 122 Watts. Impressive. Apple obviously doesn't intend to stop there and aims to further develop its SoC to achieve higher performance without really increasing consumption. To be continued.
