According to a recently leaked test result, the M2 processor in the new MacBook Air performs better than expected.
“Mr. Macintosh” on Twitter saw a Geekbench 5 result showing the MacBook Air with the M2 processor and 16GB of unified memory scoring 1,899 on the single-core test and 8,965 on the multi-core test. The 13-inch MacBook Pro with the M2 CPU earned the same results as the M1 model, demonstrating that the laptops perform almost identically in simulated testing.
Geekbench testing shows that the MacBook Pro’s M2 processor performs just as well as the MacBook Air’s M2 chip in Geekbench testing, but in real-world use, the MacBook Pro may perform better since it has a fan.
A single-core score of 1,706 and a multi-core score of 7,420 indicate that the M2 MacBook Air is up to 20% quicker than the M1 model in terms of multi-core performance compared to the previous generation.
Even though it costs approximately $5,000 less, the basic model Mac Pro tower with an 8-core Intel Xeon W CPU surpasses the M2 MacBook Air. In spite of the fact that the comparison isn’t quite apples-to-apples, it does demonstrate the amazing performance of Apple silicon CPUs in less expensive Macs.
It’s not clear whether the basic model M2 MacBook Air with a 256GB SSD has just one NAND storage chip. A single 256GB storage chip instead of two 128GB chips was found to be the cause of the much slower SSD speeds in the entry-level M2 MacBook Pro compared to the M1 model last month. Slower SSD speeds may sometimes have an influence on overall system performance because of virtual memory swapping.
On Friday, July 8, Apple started taking pre-orders for the new MacBook Air, and the first deliveries and in-store availability will begin on Friday, July 15. MacBook Air M2 models with the M1 CPU are still available for $999, while the new MacBook Air begins at $1,199.