M1 chips for rendering in Maya (Renderman)

Hello,

I have a few questions about the M1 chips in regard to their 3D rendering performance (specifically with Maya). In the past, I have used an iMac to render entire short films with a fair bit of success although it was rather slow. My current machine is a 2017 MBP 15" with a 2.8 GHz i7. I've been looking into having a separate machine exclusively for rendering and would like to be able to render entire shorts using it. Another thing to mention is the engines I am using for rendering (Renderman and Arnold) are not GPU accelerated which means I am really just looking for a strong CPU to get the job done and the M1 looks promising. Does anybody have experience in using M1 for 3D rendering? Is a Mac Mini M1 (for example) a viable option for this kind of thing?

Thanks, I look forward to any and all replies.