This is roughly in line with what I expected, given the characteristics of the M1. It's still very power efficient and cool, has more CPU cores, a lot more GPU cores, wider memory controller, and presumably it has unchanged single core performance.
Apple clearly doesn't mean these to be a high performance desktop offering though because they didn't even offer an Mac Mini SKU with the new M1s.
But what I'm really curious about is how Apple is going to push this architecture for their pro desktop machines. Is there a version of the M1 which can take advantage of a permanent power supply and decent air flow?
I don't think they are going to make desktop versions, they'll probably put the pro and max versions in a new iMac body during Q2 2022 and might add config options to mac mini. Might be for supply chain reasons, focusing 100% on macbook pro production to meet the absolutely massive incoming demand.
I think it likely that Apple will just ramp up what they've been doing so far - make an "M1 Ultra" that has 32 or 64 or even 128 cores of CPU, at least that many GPU and scale the memory and I/O in the same way. Put the one with fewer cores in the iMac Pro and the one with the most cores in the Mac Pro.
Every couple of years when they upgrade again every product they make will go up to M2, then M3, etc. etc.
Apple clearly doesn't mean these to be a high performance desktop offering though because they didn't even offer an Mac Mini SKU with the new M1s.
But what I'm really curious about is how Apple is going to push this architecture for their pro desktop machines. Is there a version of the M1 which can take advantage of a permanent power supply and decent air flow?