Apple promises improved graphics performance on newer MacBook Air models, 13-inch MacBook Pro and Mac mini models. The company claims to have the fastest integrated graphics on the M1 chip in the world, compared to Intel’s integrated graphics.
With eight cores of graphics and inspiring performance data provided by Apple, the new M1 SoC sounds promising. Video editing, complex games, 3D graphics – all of this should no longer be a problem for Macs with Apple Silicon.
Learn more about the M1 chip. Apple Silicon: All the news about Apple’s M1 chipset.
According to Apple, the graphics of the M1 on the new Mac mini is six times faster than the Intel UHD 630’s in the previous model. What The Barefeats have tried, the old Mac mini gave 15.7 frames per second in a resolution of 1344 x 768 pixels in the now five-year-old Rise of the Tomb Raider game.
Six times that is 94.2 decent frames per second, but the resolution is still low. Apple is at least confident about this.
The company believes that integrated graphics on the new MacBook Air, 13-inch MacBook Pro and Mac mini are enough, as the company has confirmed that the new Mac M1s do not support external GPUs also known as eGPUs.
Professional users, and other game enthusiasts, have for a few years been able to opt for Apple’s basic Macs and increase graphics performance with a powerful external graphics card.
This may now be gone: AppleInsider confirmed that the M1 processor does not support the eGPU, and Apple has removed references regarding BlackMagic product support for the GPU.
BlackMagic GPUs, which Apple has temporarily sold in its stores, are not registered as Mac M1s in Apple’s store. Of course, they are still available with Intel Macs.
See exclusive on the best external graphics cards for Mac computers with Intel Core chip.
Log-level Macs are only the first step in the long-term conversion to Apple Silicon, and in the long run it seems unlikely that Apple will allow Macs to support external or internal solutions with multiple graphics features from high performance.
However, the next SoC, called A14T, may change its position with respect to current charts.