Apple boosts its latest MacBooks with M2 PRO and M2 MAX SoCs

Apple unleashed their new M2 PRO and M2 MAX processors, boosting the performance of their latest MacBooks and Mac Mini  

Apple has just revealed new M2 series chips, new Apple Silicon that offers users more CPU cores and a huge GPU upgrade over the company’s standard M2 chips. These new chips are Apple’s M2 PRO and M2 MAX, both of which can be configured with up to twelve CPU cores. Both of these new CPUs appear to be based on TSMC’s 5nm silicon and feature eight high-performance cores and four high efficiency cores. 

With Apple’s M2 PRO, Apple can offer customers up to 32GB of low latency unified memory, and with their M2 Max Apple can offer users up to a staggering 96GB of unified memory. Apple’s M2 PRO chip has access to 200GB/s of unified memory bandwidth, while the M2 MAX has access to 400 GB/s of unified memory bandwidth. This is two times and four times the bandwidth than Apple’s standard M2 silicon. 

The primary areas where Apple’s M2 PRO and M2 MAX silicon receive performance upgrades is with its integrated graphics. The M2 PRO features 19 GPU cores and and is said to be 30% faster than their M1 PRO. As for the M2 MAX, it can feature up to 38 GPU cores and is up to 30% more powerful than the M1 MAX. 

   M2 Pro: Next-Generation Performance for Pro Workflows

Built using a second-generation 5-nanometer process technology, M2 Pro consists of 40 billion transistors — nearly 20 percent more than M1 Pro, and double the amount in M2. It features 200GB/s of unified memory bandwidth — twice that of M2 — and up to 32GB of low-latency unified memory. The next-generation 10- or 12-core CPU consists of up to eight high-performance cores and four high-efficiency cores, resulting in multithreaded CPU performance that is up to 20 percent faster than the 10-core CPU in M1 Pro. Apps like Adobe Photoshop run heavy workloads faster than ever, and compiling in Xcode is up to 2.5x faster than on the fastest Intel-based MacBook Pro.

The GPU in M2 Pro can be configured with up to 19 cores — three more than the GPU in M1 Pro — and includes a larger L2 cache. Graphics speeds are up to 30 percent faster than that of M1 Pro, resulting in huge increases in image processing performance and enabling console-quality gaming.

In photoshop, Apple’s new M2 Pro silicon is said to be 40% faster than a M1 PRO and up to 80% faster than a Core i9 MacBook Pro. When compiling code in Xcode, Apple’s M2 PRO is said to be 25% faster than their M1 PRO and 2.5x faster than an Intel i9-powered MacBook Pro. It is worth noting here that the Intel i9 used in Apple’s 16-icnh MacBook Pro is a laptop from 2019 and that Intel has released more powerful processors since then.

Apple’s M2 PRO and M2 MAX silicon will be used to power Apple’s new MacBook PRO laptops, and Apple’s M2 and M2 PRO chips will soon be available as part of Apple’s latest Mac Mini. At this time, Apple has revealed no plans to create a M2 Ultra chip. 

    M2 Max: The World’s Most Powerful and Efficient Chip for a Pro Laptop

With 67 billion transistors — 10 billion more than M1 Max and more than 3x that of M2 — M2 Max pushes the performance and capabilities of Apple silicon even further. Its 400GB/s of unified memory bandwidth is twice that of M2 Pro, 4x that of M2, and supports up to 96GB of fast unified memory. So massive files open instantaneously, and working across multiple pro apps is incredibly quick and fluid.

M2 Max features the same next-generation 12-core CPU as M2 Pro. The GPU is even more powerful with up to 38 cores, and is paired with a larger L2 cache. Graphics speeds climb up to 30 percent faster than M1 Max. Along with 96GB of memory, the new MacBook Pro with M2 Max can tackle graphics-intensive projects that competing systems can’t even run.2 From powering visual effects, to training machine learning models, to stitching together gigapixel images, MacBook Pro with M2 Max brings incredible performance whether plugged in or running on battery power. M2 Max is the world’s most powerful and efficient chip for a pro laptop.

 

(Apple’s new M2 Max silicon)

Apple’s new M2 PRO and M2 MAX powered MacBooks are due to launch on January 24th, with the company’s new M2 and M2 PRO based Mac Mini systems launching on the same day.  

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