It's been a little over six months since we first encountered the M1 chip, Apple's first foray into in-house chipset design for the Mac. In fact, we even selected the M1 for the 2021 Tom's Guide Awards Breakthrough Award.

The M1 chip has significantly improved performance and power efficiency across all Apple products with it, including the M1-powered MacBook Pro, M1-powered MacBook Air, and M1-powered Mac mini The M1 chip has also made iOS and iPadOS applications natively running natively without issue, bringing Apple's Mac and mobile ecosystems closer together than ever before.

We are currently hearing a lot of rumors about what's next for Apple silicon. A more powerful version of the M1 chip with more cores and more RAM is expected to debut in new 14-inch MacBook Pro and 16-inch MacBook Pro models later this year, and an all-new chip called M2 will debut in the new MacBook Air in the first half of 2022.

So what are the differences, and what does that mean for you? Here is a brief summary of what we know so far about the long-rumored M1X and M2 chips.

Trying to parse everything we're hearing about Apple's silicon future is a bit confusing. However, leaks of the MacBook Pro 2021 announced earlier this year by iOS developer Dylandkt (whose Apple predictions on Twitter have been proven correct in the past) suggest that two chips, the M2, the successor to the M1, and an improved version of the M1 known as the M1X, are indeed suggesting that they are in development, helping to shed light on the situation.

"The M1X is an enhanced version of the M1 with more Thunderbolt channels, CPU cores, GPU cores, multiple external monitor support, and greater power consumption," Dylandkt claims. He predicts that these M1X chips will be in the new 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models, with a release date in late 2021." Both of these devices will feature a 1080p webcam, SD card reader, three Thunderbolt USB C ports, an updated MagSafe port, and an HDMI port."

Around the same time, Bloomberg published a report suggesting that Apple's next silicon will have as many as 10 CPU cores, a marked improvement over the current M1 chip's octa-core CPU. The same Bloomberg report also suggests that the next generation of Apple silicon could support as much as 64 GB of RAM and have a 16- or 32-core GPU.

It is hard to believe that Apple's new M1X chip could offer a 32-core GPU and 64GB of RAM, but it is certainly possible. More plausible is that Apple will release 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pros this year with the M1X chip (or whatever Apple will brand the improved M1) with slightly more Thunderbolt channels, CPU cores, and GPU cores. The proposal is to release a refreshed version.

If that proves to be true, what it would mean for the 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pro (or any other Mac with M1X) is simple: the return of MagSafe charging, the addition of an HDMI port, and (if the rumors prove true) slimmer bezels would all be just icing on the cake.

As noted above, we have heard alternately about both the M1X chip and its M1 successor, branded M2. In April, for example, Nikkei Asia reported that it had heard from sources that a new chipset called M2 had entered production, and (if true) these chips would be ready for inclusion in Apple products by the end of this year.

Now, it is possible that the leak is true and refers to the aforementioned improved M1X chip that is supposed to be included in the long-rumored 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro refresh. However, we have heard enough leaks and rumors to support the idea that there is a separate M2 chip and that it is significantly different from the aforementioned M1X.

For starters, the M2 chip is rumored to be manufactured on a 4nm manufacturing node rather than the 5nm process used for the M1. If true, this would result in higher performance and efficiency than the M1 due to the increased number of transistors per square nanometer.

We have also seen reports from both Bloomberg and Dylandkt that Apple plans to release a new MacBook Air with the M2 chip in early 2022. later this year.

And while the chip called M2 might be considered superior in every way to the chip named M1X, rumors suggest that M2 may actually be slightly inferior. according to one of Bloomberg's latest reports, Apple early next year, ship a large number of MacBook Airs in new colors with M2 chips with 9-10 GPU cores, but only 8 CPU cores. While these chips will still be faster and more powerful than the current M1, there is good reason to suspect that they will be slightly slower than the M1X chips that are expected to appear in the new 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro later this year.

Leaks and rumors over the past six months have painted a hazy, shifting picture of what to expect from Apple's next generation of silicon. The ongoing chip shortage seems to have thrown a wrench into Apple's production pipeline, making it more difficult to predict when and what hardware the company will release next.

Still, it is safe to assume that a more powerful version of the M1 chip will debut later this year or early next year. Recent leaks suggest that the new MacBook Pro will have the M1X chipset later this year, and the new MacBook Air will have the M2 chip in 2022, which seems quite plausible. But even if the Cupertino folks change things up, one thing is certain: Apple's silicon is a vast improvement over the Intel-based chipsets that have been in Macs for years, and we can't wait to see what the next generation will be able to do.