Apple is rumored to be on the verge of announcing new MacBooks at WWDC 2021, which might include the successor to the present M1 silicon – potentially an M1X or even M2 – with compelling integrated graphics. In fact, according to a new rumor, the most powerful chip might match the performance of Nvidia's laptop RTX 3070 GPU.
We should proceed with care when considering this rumor – which comes from YouTuber Dave2D – but the hypothesis is that there will be variants of Apple's M1 successor that might provide 16-core and 32-core integrated GPUs.
Dave2D speculates that the 32-core GPU will be used in the larger MacBook Pro 16-inch and that these will consume 40W and 20W of electricity, respectively.
The performance that Dave2D theorizes about based on this is pretty interesting, with the purported 32-core Apple GPU anticipated to hit about the same amount of frames per second (about 170) as the RTX 3070 laptop incarnation in GFXBench 5.0 Aztec.
That is, without a doubt, an eye-opening potential. Remember that the YouTuber is comparing a notional 40W part to a 90W Nvidia GPU, so matched performance would arrive at half the power consumption.
Keep in mind that these are only estimates and guesses based on rumor mill churnings – and projections given via a mobile benchmark suite, too – so take them with a grain of salt. But if Apple does have an M1X processor – or something similar – and it pushes forward on the GPU front to this extent, it would be incredibly astounding.
Gaming Abilities
Of course, pure performance isn't the only story here regarding gaming, as M1-powered Macs are limited in terms of support. While the new MacBook models may theoretically have some very fantastic frame rates, the games you can play natively on Apple silicon-powered Macs are extremely limited.
Of course, there's World of Warcraft and a few other games (some old GTA games, Among Us); however, Rosetta 2 (Apple's fancy translation software) allows a good few more games to be played on M1 machines, if not at full pelt. Overall, M1 gaming possibilities are restricted, but this scenario will gradually improve over time. On the negative, Dave2D predicts that the price of these potentially highly beefed-up Apple laptops would be significantly increased, which wouldn't be shocking if these performance predictions are close to the mark.
According to several rumors, Apple is anticipated to announce the rumored new MacBooks today at WWDC 2021. Yet, even if they are disclosed later, these portables may not go on sale until much later in the year.