Apple’s second-generation custom silicon, the M2, is now available for pre-order on the company’s website.
First revealed at Apple’s WWDC 2022 keynote on June 6, the M2 chip is the first in Apple’s second generation of custom silicon. M2 is a development of M1 and powers Apple’s new 13-inch MacBook Air 2022 as well as MacBook Pro 2022, which were unveiled in 2020. It’s wonderful to see what an M2 injection can achieve for two of the greatest MacBooks now on the market.
Here’s what we know so far about the Apple M2 processor with that in mind.
If this chip isn’t powerful enough for you, the M2 Pro version is rumored to be coming soon. There’s also rumours of a new iPad Pro, possibly a new 14-inch device, including the technology. We may expect a number of M2-powered gadgets to hit the market between 2022 and 2023, taking into account claims of an Apple MacBook Air 15-inch and MacBook 12-inch supposedly in development.
Top new features and enhancements in Apple’s M2 chip
- Follow-up to M1 8-core CPU and up to 12-core GPU, the new 5-nanometer device has improved performance over M1.
- Apple claims that the M2 has 25% more transistors than the M1.
- unified memory bandwidth of 100 GB/s is supported.
- Unified memory can be up to 24GB.
- 16-core Neural Engine with advancements over the M1 Neural Engine, capable of playing back multiple streams of ProRes 4K/8K video in real time.
Date and variants of the Apple M2 chip release
The 13-inch MacBook Air and MacBook Pro, which are slated to go on sale in July of 2022, will have the new Apple M2 chip.
Unless you’re willing to shell out more than $1,200 for a new 13-inch MacBook Air 2022 or the MacBook Pro 2022, you won’t be able to get an M2-powered MacBook.
Specs of the Apple M2 chip
An 8-core CPU and a 10-core GPU can be added to the new Apple M2 processor. An 8-core CPU and 8-core GPU is an advance over the original M1, which could be configured with up to eight cores. It can’t match the core counts of the beefier M1 Pro and M1 Max processors, which have CPU core counts of 8-10 and GPU core counts of 16-32.
As for the M2, Apple believes it can perform up to 18 percent better than the M1 in multi-core performance. Given that the M1 chip blew us away with its exceptional combination of rapid multi-core performance and power economy, it’s good news if that’s the case.
Like the M1, the M2 is equipped with a 16-core Neural Engine. Apple claims that the M2’s Neural Engine can process over 40% more operations per second than the M1’s.
To put it simply, the M2 processor supports up to 24GB of memory, and Apple claims that it is capable of delivering up to two times more performance than its predecessor, the M1.
Apple’s claim that the M2-powered 13-inch MacBook Pro 2022 can give up to 20 hours of video playing on a single charge would be backed up if this were the case.
With the new media engine in the M2, you can play back multiple 4K and 8K ProRes streams and decode up to 8K HVEC and H.264 video.
You should be able to appear your best when making video conversations thanks to Apple’s assertion that the M2 chip’s image signal processor (or ISP) is much enhanced over what was available in the M1.
The Apple M2 chip: Outlook
A new 13-inch MacBook with Apple’s new M1 CPU is finally here, and it’s a welcome sight for Mac fans who have been anticipating its arrival for some time. Although it’s possible that the M2 chip will exceed its M1 predecessor, it won’t be able to equal the M1 Max’s performance. To be sure, we’ll have to put one to the test, which we hope to do later this summer.