Processors/Apple M1
Apple · Apple M1 · Laptop
Apple M1
The Apple M1 is Apple’s Apple M1 mobile processor with 8 cores and a boost clock of 3.2 GHz.
Drawn from this part’s own specifications. No openly-licensed photograph of the Apple M1 exists, so this is an illustration rather than a photograph.
Overview
The Apple M1 is Apple’s Apple M1 mobile processor with 8 cores and a boost clock of 3.2 GHz. These are the manufacturer’s published figures. They describe what the chip is designed to do, not what your particular machine does with it, and the gap between those two is usually cooling. A boost clock is a ceiling rather than a promise, and how long a processor holds it under continuous load is the one thing no specification sheet can tell you.
Specifications
- Cores
- 8
- Threads
- 8
- Base clock
- Not published by Apple
- Boost clock
- 3.2 GHz
- L3 cache
- Not published by Apple
- TDP
- Not published by Apple
- Socket
- Not published by Apple
- Process
- 5 nm
- Integrated graphics
- Apple GPU, 8-core
- Launched
- 2020-11
Physical cores. More helps sustained multi-threaded work, not single-task responsiveness.
The floor the vendor guarantees under load. Often closer to reality than boost.
A ceiling, not a promise. How long a chip holds it is the thing a spec sheet cannot tell you.
Design power, not measured draw. Where a range is shown, the manufacturer allows the laptop maker to choose within it, and the choice materially changes sustained performance.
Sources
These figures were recorded before each one carried its own source. Together they come from en.wikipedia.org.
Measured on SystemCheck: not enough runs yet. Run the test to add yours.
What these numbers mean
Every figure on this sheet is a design target. None of it is a measurement.
Nothing above describes how a processor behaves twenty minutes into a sustained workload, which is where two chips with nearly identical specifications routinely diverge. A boost clock is a ceiling the vendor permits, not a rate the chip sustains, and whether it holds depends on the cooling, the case, the power profile and the room. None of those appear on a specification sheet.
We deliberately do not reduce these figures to a single score. A composite invented from specifications would look authoritative and measure nothing, and choosing the weights would be choosing the winner.