TECHNOLOGY

How Close Are We to Peak CPU and What Does That Mean for Apple and Microsoft?

The power of the new Apple chips is far more than most of us need — or is it?

Photo by author

I imagine that a few people at Microsoft and Intel watched Apple’s presentation on the M1 Max and M1 Pro CPUs with sinking stomachs. Both the spiel and the specs felt like one sledgehammer blow after another.

A headline at the very geeky Anandtech site reads “Apple Announces M1 Pro & M1 Max: Giant New Arm SoCs with All-Out Performance” and Rene Ritchie’s Youtube review called it a “Game Changer!” and said, “These are monsters!”

So, extremely fast CPUs with low power consumption. Someone else remarked “This kills the Surface Pro”.

Does it? Does it even threaten the PC market?

I don’t know. Certainly, if you want that much power.How many of us need that? I certainly do not; I don’t even need the power of the M1 MacBook Air I’m typing on right now, though that’s the lowest power…