After years of rumors that Apple would be making the switch from Intel-based processors to their own for Mac computers, the company has announced that they will be making the switch.
Apple is promising that their own silicon will give Macs a whole new level of power of performance at a lower level of consumption. To show it off, they demoed a Mac computer using the A12Z Bionic chip, which is found in the latest iPad, running an early version of macOS Big Sur.
The demo showed the computer running heavy-duty applications like Adobe Lightroom, where the system was able to auto-tone an image faster than what we’ve seen on an Intel-based system. In Photoshop, the computer had no trouble in rendering a file with hundreds of layers of seagulls. Finally, in Final Cut Pro, the system easily scrubbed through high-resolution footage.
The demo also showed off the computer’s powerful GPU’s, as they showed the Mac running Tomb Raider at at full 1080p HD with a smooth frame rate that looked as if it was up to 60 frames per second. What’s more is that this demo was running through another layer of translation from the Intel-based gameplay to the new ARM-based architecture, so we weren’t even able to see the raw graphical power.
Having the Mac switch over to a common architecture will also allow developers to create software compatible with iPads and iPhones.
Apple says that it has already made some of its apps, like Messages and Photos, to work with the new architecture. For third-party applications, they have released a new Rosetta 2 to help with the transition to the new hardware.
The company says their first systems with the new system will arrive by the end of the year, with the process of moving all Mac’s to the system being a two-year process.
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