According to a leaked Intel roadmap, the company is working on a new line of CPUs that will outperform Apple's 14-inch MacBook Pro with the M1 Pro and M1 Max chips by late 2023 or early 2024, almost two years after the new chips and laptop were released.
Intel's Arrow Lake series is explicitly designed to compete with Apple's 14-inch MacBook Pro, according to the roadmap, which was first leaked by AdoredTV and interpreted by Wccftech. Intel's 15th generation Arrow Lake processors could be ready to ship by late 2023 or early 2024, according to the roadmap, with a focus on delivering high performance while using minimal energy.
Intel will also use TSMC's 3nm process, according to the roadmap. Apple currently uses a 5nm process for its latest chips, but the "M3" Apple silicon chip and A15 chip in the iPhone 15 are expected to use a 3nm chip architecture in 2023.
If you ignore the high energy consumption and short battery life, Intel has already beaten Apple's M1 Max chip on paper. In tests, Intel's latest Core i9 processors outperformed Apple's M1 Max chip by 4%, but that 4 percent boost in performance is offset by a significant reduction in battery life when compared to Apple's chips. According to tests, a laptop with Intel's latest i9 Core chip can only play video for six hours. In comparison, Apple claims that the latest 16-inch MacBook Pro has a battery life of up to 21 hours for offline video playback.
Apple has been gradually transitioning its Macs to custom-made chips since announcing its departure from Intel in the summer of 2020. Apple has released four laptop computers and two desktop computers with Apple silicon so far. Apple is expected to announce at least one new Mac with Apple silicon in the coming weeks, with a new high-end Mac mini and an update to the low-end 13-inch MacBook Pro among the possibilities.
