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This list of Mac models grouped by CPU type contains all
central processing unit A central processing unit (CPU), also called a central processor, main processor or just processor, is the electronic circuitry that executes instructions comprising a computer program. The CPU performs basic arithmetic, logic, controlling, an ...
s (CPUs) used by
Apple Inc. Apple Inc. is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, United States. Apple is the largest technology company by revenue (totaling in 2021) and, as of June 2022, is the world's biggest company b ...
for their Mac computers. It is grouped by processor family, processor model, and then chronologically by Mac models.


Motorola 68k


Motorola 68000

The
Motorola 68000 The Motorola 68000 (sometimes shortened to Motorola 68k or m68k and usually pronounced "sixty-eight-thousand") is a 16/32-bit complex instruction set computer (CISC) microprocessor, introduced in 1979 by Motorola Semiconductor Products Sector ...
was the first Apple Macintosh processor. It had 32-bit
CPU registers A processor register is a quickly accessible location available to a computer's Processor (computing), processor. Registers usually consist of a small amount of fast Computer storage, storage, although some registers have specific hardware functi ...
, a 24-bit
address bus In computer architecture, a bus (shortened form of the Latin '' omnibus'', and historically also called data highway or databus) is a communication system that transfers data between components inside a computer, or between computers. This ex ...
, and a 16-bit data path; Motorola referred to it as a "16-/32-bit microprocessor."


Motorola 68020

The
Motorola 68020 The Motorola 68020 ("''sixty-eight-oh-twenty''", "''sixty-eight-oh-two-oh''" or "''six-eight-oh-two-oh''") is a 32-bit microprocessor from Motorola, released in 1984. A lower-cost version was also made available, known as the 68EC020. In keepin ...
was the first
32-bit In computer architecture, 32-bit computing refers to computer systems with a processor, memory, and other major system components that operate on data in 32-bit units. Compared to smaller bit widths, 32-bit computers can perform large calculation ...
Mac processor, first used on the
Macintosh II The Macintosh II is a personal computer designed, manufactured, and sold by Apple Computer from March 1987 to January 1990. Based on the Motorola 68020 32-bit CPU, it is the first Macintosh supporting color graphics. When introduced, a basic sys ...
. The 68020 had many improvements over the 68000, including an
instruction cache A CPU cache is a hardware cache used by the central processing unit (CPU) of a computer to reduce the average cost (time or energy) to access data from the main memory. A cache is a smaller, faster memory, located closer to a processor core, which ...
, and was the first Mac processor to support a paged
memory management unit A memory management unit (MMU), sometimes called paged memory management unit (PMMU), is a computer hardware unit having all memory references passed through itself, primarily performing the translation of virtual memory addresses to physical ad ...
, the
Motorola 68851 The Motorola 68851 is an external Memory Management Unit (MMU) which is designed to provide paged memory support for the 68020 using that processor's coprocessor interface. In theory it can be used with other processors such as the 68010 by simulat ...
. The Macintosh LC configured the 68020 to use a 16-bit system bus with
ASIC An application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC ) is an integrated circuit (IC) chip customized for a particular use, rather than intended for general-purpose use, such as a chip designed to run in a digital voice recorder or a high-efficien ...
s that limited RAM to 10 MB (as opposed to the 32-bit limit of 4 GB).


Motorola 68030

The
Motorola 68030 The Motorola 68030 ("''sixty-eight-oh-thirty''") is a 32-bit microprocessor in the Motorola 68000 family. It was released in 1987. The 68030 was the successor to the Motorola 68020, and was followed by the Motorola 68040. In keeping with general ...
was the first Mac processor with an integrated paged
memory management unit A memory management unit (MMU), sometimes called paged memory management unit (PMMU), is a computer hardware unit having all memory references passed through itself, primarily performing the translation of virtual memory addresses to physical ad ...
, allowing for
virtual memory In computing, virtual memory, or virtual storage is a memory management technique that provides an "idealized abstraction of the storage resources that are actually available on a given machine" which "creates the illusion to users of a very l ...
. Another improvement over the 68020 was the addition of a
data cache A CPU cache is a hardware cache used by the central processing unit (CPU) of a computer to reduce the average cost (time or energy) to access data from the main memory. A cache is a smaller, faster memory, located closer to a processor core, which ...
.


Motorola 68040

The
Motorola 68040 The Motorola 68040 ("''sixty-eight-oh-forty''") is a 32-bit microprocessor in the Motorola 68000 series, released in 1990. It is the successor to the 68030 and is followed by the 68060, skipping the 68050. In keeping with general Motorola nami ...
had improved per-clock performance compared to the 68030, as well as larger instruction and data caches, and was the first Mac processor with an integrated
floating-point unit In computing, floating-point arithmetic (FP) is arithmetic that represents real numbers approximately, using an integer with a fixed precision, called the significand, scaled by an integer exponent of a fixed base. For example, 12.345 can b ...
. The MC68LC040 version was less expensive because it omitted the floating-point unit.


PowerPC


PowerPC 601

The
PowerPC 601 The PowerPC 600 family was the first family of PowerPC processors built. They were designed at the Somerset facility in Austin, Texas, jointly funded and staffed by engineers from IBM and Motorola as a part of the AIM alliance. Somerset was opened ...
was the first Mac processor to support the 32-bit
PowerPC PowerPC (with the backronym Performance Optimization With Enhanced RISC – Performance Computing, sometimes abbreviated as PPC) is a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architecture (ISA) created by the 1991 Apple Inc., App ...
instruction set architecture In computer science, an instruction set architecture (ISA), also called computer architecture, is an abstract model of a computer. A device that executes instructions described by that ISA, such as a central processing unit (CPU), is called an ' ...
.


PowerPC 603


PowerPC 604

The
PowerPC 604e The PowerPC 600 family was the first family of PowerPC processors built. They were designed at the Somerset facility in Austin, Texas, jointly funded and staffed by engineers from IBM and Motorola as a part of the AIM alliance. Somerset was opened ...
was the first Mac processor available in a
symmetric multiprocessing Symmetric multiprocessing or shared-memory multiprocessing (SMP) involves a multiprocessor computer hardware and software architecture where two or more identical processors are connected to a single, shared main memory, have full access to all ...
(SMP) configuration.


PowerPC G3


PowerPC G4

The PowerPC 7400 was the first Mac processor to include an AltiVec
vector processing In computing, a vector processor or array processor is a central processing unit (CPU) that implements an instruction set where its instructions are designed to operate efficiently and effectively on large one-dimensional arrays of data called ' ...
unit. The PowerPC 7455 was the first Mac processor over 1 GHz.


PowerPC G5

The
PowerPC 970 The PowerPC 970, PowerPC 970FX, and PowerPC 970MP are 64-bit PowerPC processors from IBM introduced in 2002. When used in PowerPC-based Macintosh computers, Apple referred to them as the PowerPC G5. The 970 family was created through a collab ...
("G5") was the first
64-bit In computer architecture, 64-bit Integer (computer science), integers, memory addresses, or other Data (computing), data units are those that are 64 bits wide. Also, 64-bit central processing unit, CPUs and arithmetic logic unit, ALUs are those ...
Mac processor. The PowerPC 970MP was the first
dual-core A multi-core processor is a microprocessor on a single integrated circuit with two or more separate processing units, called cores, each of which reads and executes program instructions. The instructions are ordinary CPU instructions (such a ...
Mac processor and the first to be found in a quad-core configuration. It was also the first Mac processor with partitioning and virtualization capabilities. Apple only used three variants of the G5, and soon moved entirely onto Intel architecture.


Intel x86

Sources: and


Overview


P6

Yonah was the first Mac processor to support the
IA-32 IA-32 (short for "Intel Architecture, 32-bit", commonly called i386) is the 32-bit version of the x86 instruction set architecture, designed by Intel and first implemented in the 80386 microprocessor in 1985. IA-32 is the first incarnation of ...
instruction set architecture, in addition to the MMX, SSE,
SSE2 SSE2 (Streaming SIMD Extensions 2) is one of the Intel SIMD (Single Instruction, Multiple Data) processor supplementary instruction sets first introduced by Intel with the initial version of the Pentium 4 in 2000. It extends the earlier Streamin ...
, and
SSE3 SSE3, Streaming SIMD Extensions 3, also known by its Intel code name Prescott New Instructions (PNI), is the third iteration of the SSE instruction set for the IA-32 (x86) architecture. Intel introduced SSE3 in early 2004 with the Prescott revis ...
extension instruction sets. The Core Solo was a Core Duo with one of the two cores disabled.


Core

Woodcrest added support for the
SSSE3 Supplemental Streaming SIMD Extensions 3 (SSSE3 or SSE3S) is a SIMD instruction set created by Intel and is the fourth iteration of the SSE technology. History SSSE3 was first introduced with Intel processors based on the Core microarchitecture ...
instruction set. Merom was the first Mac processor to support the
x86-64 x86-64 (also known as x64, x86_64, AMD64, and Intel 64) is a 64-bit version of the x86 instruction set, first released in 1999. It introduced two new modes of operation, 64-bit mode and compatibility mode, along with a new 4-level paging mod ...
instruction set, as well as the first 64-bit processor to appear in a Mac notebook. Clovertown was the first quad-core Mac processor and the first to be found in an 8-core configuration.


Penryn

Penryn added support for a subset for
SSE4 SSE4 (Streaming SIMD Extensions 4) is a SIMD CPU instruction set used in the Intel Core microarchitecture and AMD K10 (K8L). It was announced on September 27, 2006, at the Fall 2006 Intel Developer Forum, with vague details in a white paper; more ...
(SSE4.1).


Nehalem

Bloomfield and Gainestown introduced a number of notable features for the first time in any Mac processors: *Integrated
memory controller The memory controller is a digital circuit that manages the flow of data going to and from the computer's main memory. A memory controller can be a separate chip or integrated into another chip, such as being placed on the same die or as an int ...
s (with on-die DMI or
QPI The Intel QuickPath Interconnect (QPI) is a point-to-point processor interconnect developed by Intel which replaced the front-side bus (FSB) in Xeon, Itanium, and certain desktop platforms starting in 2008. It increased the scalability and availab ...
). *
Simultaneous multithreading Simultaneous multithreading (SMT) is a technique for improving the overall efficiency of superscalar CPUs with hardware multithreading. SMT permits multiple independent threads of execution to better use the resources provided by modern process ...
(branded as
Hyper-threading Hyper-threading (officially called Hyper-Threading Technology or HT Technology and abbreviated as HTT or HT) is Intel's proprietary simultaneous multithreading (SMT) implementation used to improve parallelization of computations (doing multip ...
). *Full support for the
SSE4 SSE4 (Streaming SIMD Extensions 4) is a SIMD CPU instruction set used in the Intel Core microarchitecture and AMD K10 (K8L). It was announced on September 27, 2006, at the Fall 2006 Intel Developer Forum, with vague details in a white paper; more ...
instruction set (SSE4.2). *Support for
Intel Turbo Boost Intel Turbo Boost is Intel's trade name for central processing units (CPUs) dynamic frequency scaling feature that automatically raises certain versions of its operating frequency when demanding tasks are running, thus enabling a higher resultin ...
. *Four cores on a single die rather than a
multi-chip module A multi-chip module (MCM) is generically an electronic assembly (such as a package with a number of conductor terminals or "pins") where multiple integrated circuits (ICs or "chips"), semiconductor dies and/or other discrete components are int ...
of two dual-core dies.


Westmere

Arrandale introduced
Intel HD Graphics Intel Graphics Technology (GT) is the collective name for a series of integrated graphics processors (IGPs) produced by Intel that are manufactured on the same package or die as the central processing unit (CPU). It was first introduced in 2010 ...
, an on-die integrated
GPU A graphics processing unit (GPU) is a specialized electronic circuit designed to manipulate and alter memory to accelerate the creation of images in a frame buffer intended for output to a display device. GPUs are used in embedded systems, mobil ...
.


Sandy Bridge

Sandy Bridge added support for
Intel Quick Sync Video Intel Quick Sync Video is Intel's brand for its dedicated video encoding and decoding hardware core. Quick Sync was introduced with the Sandy Bridge CPU microarchitecture on 9 January 2011 and has been found on the die of Intel CPUs ever since. ...
, a dedicated on-die video encoding and decoding core. It was also the first quad-core processor to appear in a Mac notebook.


Ivy Bridge


Haswell

The
Crystal Well Intel Graphics Technology (GT) is the collective name for a series of integrated graphics processors (IGPs) produced by Intel that are manufactured on the same package or die as the central processing unit (CPU). It was first introduced in 2010 ...
variant used in some MacBook Pros contains an on-package
L4 cache A CPU cache is a hardware cache used by the central processing unit (CPU) of a computer to reduce the average cost (time or energy) to access data from the main memory. A cache is a smaller, faster memory, located closer to a processor core, which ...
shared between the CPU and integrated graphics.


Broadwell


Skylake


Kaby Lake


Coffee Lake

Coffee Lake was the first 6-core processor to appear in a Mac notebook.


Cascade Lake


Comet Lake


Ice Lake

Ice Lake ( Sunny Cove) was a 10th generation chip.


Apple silicon

Source:


M1

The M1 is a
system on a chip A system on a chip or system-on-chip (SoC ; pl. ''SoCs'' ) is an integrated circuit that integrates most or all components of a computer or other electronic system. These components almost always include a central processing unit (CPU), memory ...
fabricated by
TSMC Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (TSMC; also called Taiwan Semiconductor) is a Taiwanese multinational corporation, multinational semiconductor contract manufacturing and design company. It is the world's most valuable semicon ...
on the
5 nm process In semiconductor manufacturing, the International Roadmap for Devices and Systems defines the 5  nm process as the MOSFET technology node following the 7 nm node. In 2020, Samsung and TSMC entered volume production of 5 nm chips, ...
and contains 16 billion transistors. Its CPU cores are the first to be used in a Mac processor designed by Apple and the first to use the
ARM In human anatomy, the arm refers to the upper limb in common usage, although academically the term specifically means the upper arm between the glenohumeral joint (shoulder joint) and the elbow joint. The distal part of the upper limb between the ...
instruction set architecture. It has 8 CPU cores (4 performance and 4 efficiency), up to 8 GPU cores, and a 16-core Neural Engine, as well as LPDDR4X memory with a bandwidth of 68 GB/s. The M1 Pro and M1 Max SoCs are fabricated by TSMC on the 5 nm process and contain 33.7 and 57 billion transistors respectively. Both have 10 CPU cores (8 performance and 2 efficiency) and a 16-core Neural Engine. The M1 Pro and M1 Max have a 16-core and 32-core GPU, and a 256-bit and 512-bit LPDDR5 memory bus supporting 200 and 400 GB/s bandwidth respectively. Both chips were first introduced in the MacBook Pro in October 2021. On March 8, 2022, the M1 Ultra, a processor combining two M1 Max chips in one package, was announced. It is initially available exclusively in the highest-end variants of the Mac Studio and was released simultaneously with on March 18, 2022. All parameters of the M1 Max processors are doubled in M1 Ultra processors, as they are essentially two M1 Max chips operating in parallel; they are, however, packed as one processor package (in size being bigger than
Socket AM4 Socket AM4 is a PGA microprocessor socket used by AMD's central processing units (CPUs) built on the Zen (including Zen+, Zen 2 and Zen 3) and Excavator microarchitectures. ''AM4'' was launched in September 2016 and was designed to replace the ...
AMD Ryzen Ryzen ( ) is a brand of multi-core x86-64 microprocessors designed and marketed by AMD for desktop, mobile, server, and embedded platforms based on the Zen microarchitecture. It consists of central processing units (CPUs) marketed for mainst ...
processor) and seen as one M1 Ultra processor in macOS.


M2

The M2 is a system on a chip fabricated by TSMC on an enhanced 5 nm process, containing 20 billion transistors. It has 8 CPU cores (4 performance and 4 efficiency), up to 10 GPU cores, and a 16 core Neural Engine, as well as LPDDR5 memory with a bandwidth of 100 GB/s.


See also

*
Mac (computer) The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and ...
* List of Mac models


Notes


References

{{Reflist


Sources


Specifications
Apple, Inc. * Ian Page and contributors
MacTracker
* Glen Sanford
Apple History
apple-history.com. * Dan Knight

LowEndMac, Cobweb Publishing, Inc.
Product Specifications
Intel, Inc. CPU Apple Macintosh CPU Macintosh models grouped by CPU type