The march of Apple silicon is not decreasing. To power the brand-new high-end Mac mini and 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro systems, Apple has actually revealed the brand new M2 Pro and M2 Max processors, taking all the enhancements of the A15 and A16 processors and using them to the Mac chips, leading to a substantial increase in efficiency over the M1 line. Apple declares the M2 Pro and M2 Max chips bring 20 percent much better CPU efficiency and 30 percent quicker GPU efficiency than the M1 Pro and M1 Max. They likewise consist of the more recent Neural Engine, which depends on 40 percent quicker than that in the M1 series.
As remarkable as those claims are, they are likewise unsurprising and a bit frustrating. A few of the more interesting reports about advanced production, brand-new GPUs, or other enhancements have actually shown incorrect, and the M2 Pro and M2 Max seem precisely what was anticipated: the M2 scaled up with more CPU and GPU cores and a broader memory bus. In reality, the M1 Pro and M1 Max chips had more to distinguish them from the M1 than the M2 Pro and M2 Max do when compared to the M2.
However still, there are some intriguing things to learn about these chips before you choose to purchase among the brand-new Macs. Here are 5 essential attributes worth keeping in mind.
Very same CPU core style and efficiency as M2
When Apple presented the M2, it declared an 18 percent enhancement in CPU efficiency versus the M1. Now it’s stating that the M2 Pro and M2 Max have 20 percent much better CPU efficiency than the M1 Pro and M1 Max, and dripped standards appear to support those claims. To put it simply, you can anticipate the exact same general architectural enhancements and efficiency uplift as the M2 provided compared to the M1.
Apple
A few of this merely boils down to core count. The M2 Pro and M2 Max have 8 high-performance cores similar to the M1 Pro/Max, however the variety of performance cores increases from 2 to 4. So the M2 Pro and M2 Max have 12-core CPUs while the M1 Pro/Max have 10-core CPUs.
GPU gains are much better, however there’s no excellent architectural shift
Apple states the M2 Pro/Max GPUs are 30 percent faster than the M1 Pro/Max, and dripped Metal standards back up those claims. That’s unsurprising, thinking about the M2 was stated to have graphics efficiency that depends on 35 percent higher than the M1.
This is likely due to the addition of a couple of more graphics cores and some small architectural tweaks. The M2 Pro has up to 19 graphics cores (vs. 16 in the M1 Pro) and the M2 Max has up to 38 graphics cores (vs. 32 in the M1 Max).
Those are uncommon numbers—core counts are generally even in number, and frequently powers of 2, so it’s most likely that the style is for 20/40 GPU cores with space for one defective core to be handicapped, enhancing production yields on these huge chips. Still, that’s an almost 20 percent boost in core count, so with some enhanced caching and greater clock speeds, you can get to 30 percent.
Apple
If you were expecting a brand new GPU from Apple with contemporary functions like ray-tracing velocity, which GPUs from AMD and Nvidia have actually had for a number of years currently, you’re going to be dissatisfied.
Memory bandwidth is the exact same even with more RAM
Memory bandwidth on the M2 Pro is 200 GB/sec, similar to the M1 Pro. The M2 Max doubles that to 400 GB/sec. So we’re probably still taking a look at a 256-bit LPDDR5 memory bus on the Pro and 512-bit LPDDR5 on limit. Apple enhanced caching in the A15, and those architectural enhancements most likely rollover to the M2 Pro and M2 Max.
While the M2 Pro maxes out at 32GB of RAM (the like the M1 Pro), the M2 Max can increase to 96GB–half more than the 64GB limitation of the M1 Max. However there’s a catch—the 96GB RAM choice is restricted to the variation of the M2 Max with 38 GPU cores. The less expensive choice with 30 GPU cores tops out at 64GB.
They still don’t have AV1 support
With the M1 Pro had a new video encoder and decoder that added hardware acceleration for the ProRes format, and the M1 Max doubled the number of video encoders to two. After some confusion, that’s still the case with the M2 Max, but it supports all the same formats as before: H.264, HEVC, ProRes, and ProRes RAW. That means support for the newer AV1 codec is still nowhere to be found, despite being available in today’s GPUs from Nvidia, AMD, and Intel. Apple is falling behind here.
Apple
We couldn’t help however notice that all of Apple’s marketing benchmarks around video production, claiming improvements of 30 percent or so, are for activities like color grading or 3D effects rendering, typically limited by GPU performance. Apple didn’t provide benchmarks showing an improvement in video encoding speed, so it will be interesting to watch the first reviews of the M2 Max to see if the video encoders are measurably faster.
They’re still all 5nm
There has been a lot of speculation about when Apple will start using TSMC’s new 3nm manufacturing process. Apple is said to be the first major manufacturer to do so, and some of the rumors said the new M2 Pro and Max chips would be where Apple makes the leap.
It looks like we’ll be waiting for an M2 Ultra later in the year, or possibly the A17 that will be introduced with the iPhone 16 this fall. Apple says the M2 Pro and Max are made using “second-generation 5nm technology.” It’s likely that this is the exact same procedure that Apple somewhat erroneously called “4nm” in its iPhone 15 presentation in September 2022. TSMC calls its N4 node an “enhanced” 5nm procedure, and Apple appears to be remedying its language here.
