Apple has announced its latest silicon for power users, the Apple M2 Pro and M2 Max, and the company promises some seriously improved performance with this second generation.
With the massive success of Apple’s move to its own silicon in 2020, it’s not at all surprising to see it follow through with the M1 Pro and M1 Max. These chips power some of the best laptops ever produced, the 14-inch MacBook Pro (2021) and the 16-inch MacBook Pro (2021).
With the 13-inch MacBook Air (M2) and 13-inch MacBook Pro (M2) released in 2022, all eyes were on announcing more dedicated Pro chips in 2023, and Apple didn’t disappoint, dropping a surprise announcement on its website and media accounts. on January 17th with a press invite to plan ahead for the launch (thanks Apple!).
However, now that the chips have been revealed, there’s a lot more we know about them and how they must be a huge draw for creative professionals everywhere.
Apple M2 Pro and M2 Max: stop chasing
- What is this? Apple’s latest pro system for Apple desktop computers and MacBooks.
- How much does it cost? The chips are part of a bundle and therefore will not be sold on their own, but they are definitely premium upgrades, if they are available.
- When can I get it? You can order the new MacBooks with M2 Pro and M2 Max, as well as the M2 Pro Mac Mini, now, with US and UK delivery starting January 23 and Australian delivery starting February 3.
Apple’s new M2 Pro and M2 Max chips will be available in a select number of devices, starting January 24, 2023. The M2 Pro will be available in both the 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models, as well as in the new Mac Mini. , which was also announced on January 17. The M2 Max will (for now) only be available on the two new MacBook Pro models.
Apple M2 Pro and M2 Max: release date
The Apple M2 Pro and M2 Max will be in the latest 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models announced on January 17, 2023, and the M2 Pro will be available as an upgrade option for the Apple Mac Mini (M2), also announced on January 17.
When you actually receive these products will depend on where you live, with US orders starting January 23rd. Australia, China and other countries will have to wait two weeks for their orders to be delivered, which are due to begin on February 3.
Apple M2 Pro and M2 Max: specifications
The M2 Pro and M2 Max aren’t quite as radical an innovation as the M1 Pro and M1 Max when they launched, since these latest chips are an iterative improvement over existing Apple silicon.
That’s not to say it’s not a big deal, especially for creative professionals who can never get enough performance to cut down on resource-intensive workloads like video editing and 3D modeling.
Starting with the M2 Pro, Apple says it’s crammed nearly 40 billion transistors onto the chip, which is roughly 20% more than what the M1 Pro was packing. Add in a larger GPU and twice the memory bandwidth of the standard M2 (up to 200GB/s) and you have a very powerful chip indeed. It remains to be seen if the chip itself will live up to its specifications, of course.
The M2 Pro has either a 10- or 12-core CPU and a 16-core or 19-core GPU (with up to 2432 execution units in the 19-core GPU), and can be paired with up to 32GB of unified memory. Additionally, the eight performance cores in the 12-core M2 Pro feature 32MB of L2 cache, with an additional 4MB available for four efficiency cores.
For the M2 Max, Apple decided to go really big and cram 67 billion transistors onto the chip, though it mostly goes to the GPU, since there are only 12 CPU cores. But the GPU core balloons to 30 to start with, with an option to go as high as 38.
All of this can be paired with up to 96GB of memory (with 400GB/s memory bandwidth) and a dedicated media engine for hardware acceleration and video encoding and decoding. This means faster processing of 4K and 8K video streams, making it an ideal chip for video editing on the go or in the office.
Apple M2 Pro and M2 Max: Performance
It’s hard to know what to expect from the performance of the M2 Pro and M2 Max without testing it ourselves, but Apple makes some performance claims that we can at least put a pin in and see if they pan out once they’re done. Our test.
Apple claims that the M2 Pro will have 20% better CPU performance, 30% better GPU performance, and 40% faster Neural Engine performance than the M1 Pro.
The M2 Max should have GPU speeds around 30% faster than the M1 Max, but that’s pretty much it for the numbers Apple is giving us about these chips, and even then, it’s best to take them with a pinch of salt.