Apple Releases M1-Powered Apple Silicon Macs, macOS Big Sur Releasing This Week

As was widely expected for today's Apple event, the Cupertino company just announced their first three Macs powered by Apple Silicon.

Apple announced new MacBook Air, Mac Mini, and MacBook Pro models featuring the M1 -- their first family of desktop/notebook-class chips designed by Apple and based on the ARM architecture.

The Apple M1 features an 8-core ARM CPU, a 16-core Neural Engine, and in-house integrated graphics. The Apple M1 is fabbed on a 5nm processor. Apple claims that the M1 offers "the world's best CPU performance per Watt" and packs in 16 billion transistors.

Of the M1 performance Apple claims, "up to 3.5x faster CPU performance, up to 6x faster GPU performance, and up to 15x faster machine learning, all while enabling battery life up to 2x longer than previous-generation Macs."

More details on Apple's M1 chip via Apple.com. More details on the initial Macs powered by the M1 here with the new MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, and Mac Mini offerings.

MacOS Big Sur meanwhile will begin shipping on Thursday. The new Apple M1 systems will begin shipping next week. In the next week or so we should also be able to present initial Phoronix Test Suite numbers on the Apple M1. Stay tuned.