One has to remember that Apple is still selling an Intel mac mini at the top of the range: it likely means something about the performance to expect from M1 vs Intel.
I also imagine not all customers are ready to jump on ARM day 1. Some will want to wait until the software ecosystem has had time to make the transition.
Seems pretty obvious to me that there will be another more higher end variant of the M1, though maybe the only difference will be the amount of RAM, the number of GPU cores, the number of supported USB4 ports or something like that, not raw CPU performance.
Either way, it seems obvious to me that the M1 is their low end Mac chip.
That will be interesting to watch.
Server farms are going to switch rapidly, one leading Mini server farm just announced a 600 unit starter order, and the CEO noted that Big Sur also made significant changes to licensing to make its use in server farms easier.
Apple released a killer low end SOC in the M1. It contains the highest performance single core processor in the world along with high end multi core performance. But it’s limited to 16Gb and two USB4/Thunderbolt ports, so it’s targeted at the low end.
When the M2 is released mid next year, it will be even faster, support four USB4/Thunderbolt ports and will also come in 32Gb and 64Gb versions.
Greatness takes a small wait sometimes.
Where I can be wrong is that Apple could release two chips. First an upgraded M1, let’s call it M1x that supports a bit more on chip ram (24 or 32 Gb) and four ports. It would be only for high end MacBook Pros and again optimized for battery life.
And they would release a M1d for desktops that has more cores, but moves RAM off chip. That would improve multicore performance, but I don’t know how it much it would hurt single core with slower memory fetches. Probably they could compensate with higher clock speeds, power budgets, and more active cooling.