It’s been a week since Apple presented us with its first Mac with Apple Silicon, specifically with the M1 chip. Among these was the MacBook Air, which starts from two different prices depending on the cores of its GPU . Precisely this difference, more compared to the Mac mini and MacBook Pro, have attracted powerful attention. We analyze why these two versions exist in Apple’s new entry-level laptop.
Actually both MacBooks have 8 cores
Lets start by the beginning. If you go to the Apple website you will see that there are two versions of the new MacBook Air with M1 available for purchase. One part of 1,129 euros and another of 1,399 euros. In both cases, you can configure 8 or 16 GB of RAM, as well as expanding the storage. All this with its respective price increase, but the funny thing is that the first version will always have 7 GPU cores while the other will have 8 cores . And yes, regardless of whether more or less RAM and storage are added to it.
Thanks to an interesting article by 9to5Mac we have been able to understand a little better why there is this difference between both models when in principle they are the same machine. Moreover, for practical purposes the difference between one and the other model is almost negligible.
Although it is complex to explain the manufacturing process of a chip like Apple’s, we can try to summarize it thanks to the aforementioned 9to5Mac article. When making components as small as these 5 nanometer chips, it is really difficult for the process to be perfect and therefore a system known as chip binning or chip grouping in its literal translation is used. Basically, this process tries to avoid any microscopic contamination particle from seeping in, since this could end up affecting the performance of the device.
While there is never a specific element that you decide to ‘sacrifice’ during the manufacturing process, in the case of Apple it has been the GPU. The company has asked TSMC (manufacturer of the components) to separate the eighth core of this chip to guarantee the complete efficiency of the computer and sell it in a trimmed version and at a better price. Not surprisingly, this also means a final cost saving for the brand. Therefore, it is not at the end of two different chips, but both contain 8 cores and one is disabled.
That is why, despite having them, Apple does not say that the basic version has 7 cores. Although this is not really the case, in real terms only 7 cores will be working. As we said in previous paragraphs, in the end the difference between one that has its 8 active cores and another that is not really noticeable, since the difference in performance is almost negligible to the human eye.
The funny thing about this case is that the Mac mini and MacBook Pro with M1 also incorporate this GPU, but in their cases it has not been trimmed. In these teams you always have the 8-core version without there being a lower price version.