M2 Pro Vs M1 Pro!
How much can Apple do in 1 year?
Introduction
Back in WWDC 2020, Apple announced that they were going to start using chips made by them to power all of its devices from now on, and now, it has been more than 2 years since this announcement.
The first generation of M-chips was a great success, and last year, Apple announced a new second generation which is even more powerful. They started with the base model, the M1, which got an upgrade to the M2. Now, the M1 Pro also got itself an upgrade a while ago, and the new chip looks exciting.
However, now that the second generation is out, it is time to take a look back at the M2 Pro and M1 Pro and compare them. We can take a look at the specs of each and we can also try to find out if Apple’s new chip is much better than last year’s model.
Everything you need to know
Specs
Apple always applies the same marketing tactics when announcing a new chip. Last year, they would usually refer to the M1 Pro chip as a chip with 10 CPU cores, but then, you would find out that the baseline model comes with 8 CPU cores and not 10, and that the 10-core version starts at 500 dollars extra.
It is not really a trick, but I guess it sounds cooler during the announcement itself till you head to their website.
So, the M1 Pro started at 8 CPU cores with a maximum of 10 CPU cores. This year’s M2 Pro actually starts with 10 CPU cores and goes to a maximum of 12 cores, which is a good upgrade. This means, that this year when you pay $1,999 for the baseline 14-inch MacBook Pro, you will get two additional CPU cores which is great!
The M2 Pro’s GPU also got itself an upgrade. The base model of the new 14-inch MacBook Pro now starts with 16 GPU cores instead of last year’s 14 cores and of course, for the same price. The $2,499 model gets an upgrade of 3 extra cores. Now, you get 19 GPU cores instead of last year’s 16 cores.
Of course, Apple also upgraded the neural engine. Even though it still has 16 cores, the second generation of the new neural engine is a big upgrade and is much faster according to Apple.
Both chips were built on 5 nm technology, however, the new M2 Pro packs over 40 billion transistors, which is 20% more than the M1 Pro chip. Both chips start with 16 GBs of Unified memory and are configurable with up to 32 GBs. They share the same memory bandwidth that goes up to 200GB/s.
Head to Head
Now that we know the specs by heart, we can finally talk numbers and see what these numbers actually mean in real life.
The increased number of CPU cores means that the new chips are 20% faster than the previous generation, and when it comes to the GPU, there is an even bigger improvement. When comparing the M2 Pro with 19 cores to last year’s M1 Pro which had 16 GPU cores, the new chip is 30% faster, which is a huge improvement.
Apple also claims that the new chip can run Photoshop up to 40% faster than the M1 Pro chip. It is even 80% faster than the Intel i9 MacBooks. When using Xcode, the M2 Pro is up to 25% faster when it comes to compiling code.
When it comes to editing videos on Final Cut Pro, the new chip can handle up to 23 streams of 4K ProRes videos, while the older chip can handle only 20 streams. The new chip supports one 4K display at 240 Hertz or one 8K display at 60 Hertz only, while the M1 Pro could handle only 4K displays at 60 Hertz only.
Conclusions and personal thoughts
Overall, the new chip is simply a great upgrade, and Apple is doing a great job in making sure that it is a big enough upgrade to a chip that was already pretty powerful.
I would not really recommend that someone who got himself a new MacBook Pro with an M1 Pro chip last year upgrade to the new chip since I, personally, do not think that it would be worth it. However, I can easily recommend it to many people who are still using older models and are seeking a big upgrade.
I really think that the M2 Pro chip would make an even bigger difference when the new Mac Mini is out. Before this upgrade, you could have never bought a Mac Mini that is this powerful, and now, for just $1,299, you can buy yourself one with a base model M2 Pro chip with 10 CPU cores and 16 GPU cores. For an extra 300 dollars, you can even buy the high-end M2 Pro chip, and for many Mac Mini users, this will be a dream.
Whether you want a MacBook or could settle for a Mac Mini, I think the new chip is a win for Apple and, for many, a great upgrade.
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