【Secret Confessions (2025) Week 7 Highlights 40】

Apple's M1 processor,Secret Confessions (2025) Week 7 Highlights 40 launched in new MacBooks and a Mac mini in November, is just a taste of what's to come.

The M1 processor surprised reviewers with its performance, especially given its low power expenditure. But according to a Bloomberg report, Apple is working on 32-core chips, which will be far more powerful.

The fact that Apple is working on more advanced chips is hardly a surprise, given the company's intention to completely switch to Apple silicon over the next two years. But Bloomberg cites people familiar with the matter as saying that the new chips will "significantly outpace the performance of the latest machines running Intel chips."

Apple's ARM-based M1 processor was launched in the new Mac mini, MacBook Air, and 13-inch MacBook Pro — all computers aimed at home or semi-professional use (Apple's "Pro" moniker hasn't exactly meant "professional" for a while now). And yes, it performed well, but the question is whether computers aimed at more demanding users, such as the iMac, iMac Pro, and Mac Pro, will see a similar performance bump.

To meet expectations from professionals, Apple is going to need more cores. The new report says Apple is working on a chip with 16 power cores and 4 efficiency cores (up from four and four on the M1 chip). However, Apple could first launch a variant with only 12 power cores enabled. The company is also reportedly testing a chip with as many as 32 high-performance cores.

Apple plans to launch some of the new chips in the spring and some in the fall of next year. They'll likely be built into new MacBook Pros, iMacs, and eventually a new Mac Pro.

Apple is also testing chips with 16 and 32 graphics-dedicated cores, up from 7 or 8 on the current M1 chip. And for its most powerful machines, Apple is working on 64 and 128 graphics-dedicated cores; such chips might see the light of day in late 2021 or 2022. The report says these chips would be "several times faster" than the current graphics modules from Nvidia and AMD that Apple uses today.

There's no word on how much RAM memory Apple's new chips will pack. Some kind of bump will definitely be needed, given the M1 chips are currently limited to a maximum of 16GB of RAM.

Given M1's stellar performance, it's exciting to think about Apple hardware getting such a big performance increase next year. Coupled with other upgrades, most importantly mini-LED displays and new designs for some Macs, it could be a very interesting 2021 for fans of Apple hardware.

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