Tangible hype for the impending Apple Silicon Mac refresh

The rumor mill and predictions around upcoming Apple Silicon-based systems, which may be announced as early as next month, have been prevalent over the past few weeks. As the first crack at breaking the Intel dependency, the M1 has been a fairly impressive first effort with some limitations. The responsiveness and capabilities for general-purpose tasks continues to delight on the entry-level Mac mini that was purchased late last year. It’s unfortunate that the 10Gb network option wasn’t available on Day 1 for the Mac mini and is nowhere to be found on the twenty-four inch iMac, but this omission can be understood as 10Gb switching is still slightly cost-prohibitive for the markets addressed by these offerings. We’ve reached a point where software optimization has progressed far enough to better utilize the available resources and change in architecture.

The DaVinci Resolve 17.3 update, which was reported by Michael Potuck over at 9to5mac, has produced tangible improvements for video editing within existing workflows. In the traditional PC space, the expectations for performance based on the raw peak compute and GPU capabilities of Apple’s first SoC wouldn’t warrant high expectations for more demanding (yet not extremely complex) workflows. However, the ease of tearing through an edit and rendering the transcoded file faster while using less power with fewer total system resources is game changing. If the rumors related to the increase in GPU capabilities, quantity of performance cores, system memory, and USB ports hold true, then Apple will have addressed the beginning of the wish list and requirements held by professionals with more demanding workflows.