The R1 has a lot of memory bandwidth. According to this article at Tom's Hardware[0], the M2 has 68 GB/s of memory bandwidth. So the R1 has several times that at 256GB/s. Coincidentally (or not), that is similar to the discrete Nvidia and AMD GPUs they compare the M2 against in that article.
I know discrete GPU comparable memory bandwidth doesn't necessarily mean it's discrete GPU or a peer to the M2, but there's clearly a lot of something going on. Plus isn't it kinda weird to specifically mention a spec that is applicable to programmable devices like CPUs or GPUs on a signal processor? Like, who cares?
Apple likes mentioning whatever is a competitive advantage. M2 has 100GB/s, M2 Pro 200GB/s. They put in the bandwidth they think is needed for the purpose. Likewise with the 12 camera interfaces. It’s a safe bet that there’s some sort of GPU on board but there’s zero indication that this is Apples first discrete GPU. If anything you would expect such a chip to appear first in a desktop product. The R1 is likely programmable as well.
I know discrete GPU comparable memory bandwidth doesn't necessarily mean it's discrete GPU or a peer to the M2, but there's clearly a lot of something going on. Plus isn't it kinda weird to specifically mention a spec that is applicable to programmable devices like CPUs or GPUs on a signal processor? Like, who cares?
0: https://www.tomshardware.com/news/apple-m2-gpu-analysis