This has led to Apple using Intel’s advanced Iris iGPU configurations over most of the last 10 years (often being the only OEM to make significant use of them). Though often rooted in efficiency gains and getting incredibly taxing tasks off of the CPU, these have also pushed up Apple’s GPU performance requirements. GPU-accelerated composition (Quartz Extreme), OpenCL, GPU-accelerated machine learning, and more have all been developed or first implemented by Apple.

With tight control over their ecosystem and little fear over pushing (or pulling) developers forward, Apple has been on the cutting edge of expanding the role of GPUs within a system for nearly the past two decades. Last year Apple proved that it could develop competitive, high-end CPU cores for a laptop now they are taking their same shot on the GPU side of matters.ĭriving this has been one of the biggest needs for Apple – and one of the greatest friction points between Apple and former partner Intel – which is GPU performance.

While Apple doesn’t break down how much of their massive, 57 billion transistor budget on the M1 Max went to the GPU, it and its associated hardware were the only thing to be quadrupled versus the original M1 SoC. Section by Ryan Smith GPU Performance: 2-4x For Productivity, Mixed GamingĪrguably the star of the show for Apple’s latest Mac SoCs is the GPU, as well as the significant resources that go into feeding it.

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