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Initial reviews of Apple M1-based Macs are in and the results are good. It’s looking like the M1 will be a truly disruptive piece of hardware. Of course, there are already haters, doubters, and nay-sayers that are questioning everything.
Even with such clear results, there are still people out there that are saying that Apple Silicon is ‘just marketing BS.’ Even worse, people are saying that ‘Raspberry Pi is an ARM computer just like an M1 Mac’.
LMAAAOOOOO
People saying things like that must really have no idea what they are talking about. You know, since the A6, Apple has designed their own custom ARM cores from scratch. Meanwhile, the cores in the Raspberry Pi (and many android phones and tablets) are ARM Cortex reference cores.
Just Add Packaging
The ARM Cortex designs are, more or less, reference designs that demonstrate the latest iteration of the ARM instruction set. Even though these cores are made by ARM themselves, they are in no way the ‘best’ cores you can make with the ARM instruction set.
ARM Cortex cores such as the A57 and A73 can be surprisingly powerful and capable SoCs (System on Chip), but they are really only example processors.
All you really need to do to make your own ARM processor is license an ARM Cortex design and either send the plans off to be manufactured or manufacture it yourself.
There is a Second Option
Or, like Apple, you could custom design a CPU from the ground up. That is what they have done with the M1. They have designed a totally new chip from the ground up. The M1 shares less ‘processor DNA’ with a mobile chip like the one used in the Raspberry Pi than an AMD Ryzen 7 processor shares with an Intel Core i7.
Think about it. Everyone can see a clear difference between an Intel and AMD part. No one in their right mind would ever say that Core i7 is really just a Ryzen, hahahaha.
Yet the Intel and AMD parts are based on the same instruction set and they are built for the same market segment, desktop and laptop computers.
The M1 is The Most Original & Most Innovative CPU to be Released in This Millenium
In the new SoC world, you don’t assemble physical components from different vendors. Instead, you assemble IP (intellectual property) from different vendors…Now you got a big problem, because neither Intel, AMD, or Nvidia are going to license their intellectual property to Dell or HP for them to make an SoC for their machines.
Erik Engheim – Technology & Software Development Educator
The M1 is going to make a major impact on the future of Windows PCs. Apple has proven that the ARM architecture is ready for the desktop. The M1 completely outclasses anything the x86 world has to offer. That’s true clock for clock, watt for watt, and dollar for dollar.
It’s only a matter of time before we start to see ARM-power Windows-running machines from the likes of Dell, HP, and Lenovo.
