March 8, 2022
PRESS RELEASE
Apple unveils the M1 Ultra, the world’s most powerful personal computer chip
Available in the all-new Mac Studio, M1 Ultra brings unprecedented performance to the desktop
Cupertino, California Apple today announced M1 Ultra, the next giant leap for Apple silicon and the Mac. Featuring UltraFusion – Apple’s innovative packaging architecture that interconnects the die of two M1 Max chips to create a system-on-chip (SoC) with unprecedented levels of performance and capability – M1 Ultra delivers the power of breathtaking computing to the new Mac Studio while maintaining industry-leading performance per watt. The new SoC consists of 114 billion transistors, the most ever recorded in a personal computer chip. M1 Ultra can be configured with up to 128GB of unified high-bandwidth, low-latency memory accessed by the 20-core CPU, 64-core GPU, and 32-core neural engine, delivering amazing performance for developers compiling code, artists working in huge 3D environments that were previously impossible to render, and video professionals who can transcode video to ProRes up to 5.6 times faster than with a 28-core Mac Pro with Afterburner.1
“M1 Ultra is another game changer for Apple silicon that will shock the PC industry yet again. By connecting two M1 Max dies to our UltraFusion packaging architecture, we are able to scale Apple silicon to unprecedented new heights,” said Johny Srouji, senior vice president of hardware technologies at Apple. “With its powerful processor, massive GPU, incredible Neural Engine, ProRes hardware acceleration, and huge amount of unified memory, M1 Ultra completes the M1 family as the world’s most powerful and capable chip for a personal computer.”
Revolutionary UltraFusion Architecture
The basis of M1 Ultra is the extremely powerful and energy-efficient M1 Max. To build M1 Ultra, the dies of two M1 Max are connected using UltraFusion, Apple’s custom packaging architecture. The most common way to increase performance is to connect two chips through a motherboard, which usually results in significant trade-offs including increased latency, reduced bandwidth, and increased power consumption. However, Apple’s innovative UltraFusion uses a silicon interposer that connects the chips across more than 10,000 signals, providing massive low-latency interprocessor bandwidth of 2.5 TB/s, more than 4 times the bandwidth of the leading multi-chip interconnect technology. This allows the M1 Ultra to behave and be recognized by software as a single chip, so developers don’t need to rewrite code to take advantage of its performance. There has never been anything like it.
Unprecedented performance and energy efficiency
The M1 Ultra features an extraordinarily powerful 20-core processor with 16 high-performance cores and four high-efficiency cores. It delivers 90% better multithreaded performance than the fastest 16-core PC desktop chip available in the same power envelope. Additionally, M1 Ultra achieves maximum PC chip performance by using 100 watts less.2 This amazing efficiency means less power is consumed and the fans run quietly, even when applications like Logic Pro are performing demanding workflows, such as processing massive amounts of virtual instruments, audio plug-ins and effects.
For the most graphics-intensive needs, like 3D rendering and complex image processing, M1 Ultra features a 64-core GPU – 8 times the size of M1 – delivering faster performance than even the PC GPU. most premium available while using 200 watts less power.3
Apple’s unified memory architecture has also evolved with M1 Ultra. Memory bandwidth is increased to 800GB/s, more than 10 times the latest PC desktop chip, and M1 Ultra can be configured with 128GB of unified memory. Compared to the most powerful PC graphics cards that max out at 48GB, nothing comes close to M1 Ultra for graphics memory to support massive GPU-intensive workloads like working with extreme 3D geometry and rendering massive scenes.
M1 Ultra’s 32-core neural engine performs up to 22 trillion operations per second, accelerating the toughest machine learning tasks. And, with twice the media engine capabilities of M1 Max, M1 Ultra delivers unprecedented ProRes video encoding and decoding throughput. In fact, the new Mac Studio with M1 Ultra can play back up to 18 streams of 8K ProRes 422 video – a feat no other chip can accomplish.4 M1 Ultra also incorporates custom Apple technologies, such as a display engine capable of driving multiple external displays, built-in Thunderbolt 4 controllers, and best-in-class security, including Apple’s latest Secure Enclave, Secure Boot verified by hardware and runtime anti-exploit. technologies.
macOS and apps scale up to M1 Ultra
Deep integration between hardware and software has always been at the heart of the Mac experience. macOS Monterey was built for Apple Silicon, taking advantage of the massive increases in CPU, GPU, and memory bandwidth from M1 Ultra. Development technologies like Metal allow applications to take full advantage of the new chip, and Core ML optimizations use the new 32-core neural engine, so machine learning models run faster than ever.
Users have access to the largest collection of apps ever made for Mac, including iPhone and iPad apps that can now run on Mac, and Universal apps that unleash the full power of the M1 chip family. Applications that have not yet been updated to Universal will work seamlessly with Apple’s Rosetta 2 technology.
Another leap forward in the transition to Apple Silicon
Apple has introduced Apple Silicon to nearly every Mac in the current lineup, and each new chip – M1, M1 Pro, M1 Max, and now M1 Ultra – unlocks incredible capabilities for the Mac. M1 Ultra completes the M1 family of chips, powering the all-new Mac Studio, a high-performance desktop system with a redesigned compact design made possible by the industry-leading performance per watt of Apple silicon.
Apple silicon and the environment
The energy efficiency of Apple’s custom silicon allows Mac Studio to consume less power throughout its life. In fact, while delivering extraordinary performance, Mac Studio consumes up to 1,000 kilowatt hours less energy than a high-end desktop computer over the course of a year.5
Today, Apple is carbon neutral for the company’s global operations and, by 2030, plans to have net zero climate impact across the entire company, including supply chains. manufacturing and all product life cycles. This means that every chip created by Apple, from design to manufacturing, will be 100% carbon neutral.
About Apple
Apple revolutionized personal technology with the introduction of the Macintosh in 1984. Today, Apple leads the world in innovation with the iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch and Apple TV. Apple’s five software platforms – iOS, iPadOS, macOS, watchOS and tvOS – deliver seamless experiences across all Apple devices and provide users with groundbreaking services including the App Store, Apple Music, Apple Pay and iCloud . Apple’s more than 100,000 employees are dedicated to making the best products on earth and leaving the world a better place than we found it.
- Testing conducted by Apple in February 2022 using pre-production Mac Studio systems with Apple M1 Ultra, 20-core CPU, 64-core GPU, 128GB RAM and 8TB SSD, and a 2.5 GHz 28-core production Intel Xeon W processor. Mac Pro systems with 384GB of RAM and AMD Radeon Pro W6900X graphics with 32GB of GDDR6, configured with Afterburner and 4TB SSD. Prerelease Compressor 4.6.1 tested using a three-minute clip with Apple media ProRes RAW 5K, at 5760 x 3240 resolution and 24 frames per second, transcoded to Apple ProRes 422. Benchmarks tested on specific computer systems and reflect approximate performance of Mac Studio and MacPro.
- Testing conducted by Apple in February 2022 on pre-production Mac Studio systems with Apple M1 Max, 10-core processor and 32-core GPU, and pre-production Mac Studio systems with Apple M1 Ultra, 20-core processor and 64-core GPU. Performance measured using selected industry standard benchmarks. 10-core desktop processor performance data tested using Core i5-12600K and DDR5 memory. 16-core desktop processor performance data tested using Core i9-12900K and DDR5 memory. Performance tests are conducted using specific computer systems and reflect approximate performance of Mac Studio.
- Testing conducted by Apple in February 2022 on pre-production Mac Studio systems with Apple M1 Max, 10-core processor and 32-core GPU, and pre-production Mac Studio systems with Apple M1 Ultra, 20-core processor and 64-core GPU. Performance was measured using selected industry standard benchmarks. Popular discrete GPU performance data tested from Core i9-12900K with DDR5 memory and GeForce RTX 3060 Ti. Highest discrete GPU performance data tested from Core i9-12900K with DDR5 memory and GeForce RTX 3090. Performance tests are conducted on specific computer systems and reflect approximate Mac Studio performance.
- Testing was conducted by Apple in February 2022 using pre-production Mac Studio systems with Apple M1 Ultra, 20-core CPU and 64-core GPU, and 128GB of RAM, and configured with an 8TB SSD. Final Cut Pro 10.6.2 preview was tested using a one-minute picture-in-picture project with 18 streams of Apple ProRes 422 video at 8192 x 4320 resolution and 30 frames per second, as well as a one-minute picture-in-picture project with nine streams of Apple ProRes 422 video at 8192×4320 resolution and 30 frames per second. Performance tests are conducted using specific computer systems and reflect approximate performance of Mac Studio.
- Testing was conducted by Apple in February 2022 using pre-production Mac Studio systems with Apple M1 Ultra with a 20-core CPU and 64-core GPU. Power was measured using a representative workload in a commercial application. High-end PC desktop data acquired during Alienware Aurora R13 testing with Core i9-12900KF and GeForce RTX 3090. Benchmarks are conducted on specific computer systems and reflect approximate Mac Studio performance.
Press contacts
Todd Wilder
Apple
(408) 974-8335
Apple Media Phone Support
(408) 974-2042
