There new generation of Apple Silicon M2 chips in the Max and Pro variants it has been official since yesterday in conjunction with the announcement by Apple of the range MacBook Pro 2023 and of the new Mac Minialso available in Italy. But what changes between Apple Silicon M2 Max and M2 Pro and what are the differences?
In the transition between the “old” and new generation Apple has maintained unchanged some of the technical characteristics, intervening on many others. While unified memory bandwidth remained unaffected in the handover, the differences there is no shortage and they are on most of the parameters that determine the response to the inputs of those who, with Macs, perform demanding operations (see the highest number of CPU cores).
- CPUs:
- M2 Pro: up to 12 cores, 8 performance and 4 efficiency
- M1 Pro: up to 10 cores, 8 performance and 2 efficiency
- M2 Max: Same as M2 Pro, so 12 cores max
- M1 Max: same as M1 Pro, so 10 cores max
- GPUs:
- M2 Pro: up to 19 cores
- M1 Pro: up to 16 cores
- M2 Max: up to 38 cores
- M1 Max: up to 32 cores
- transistor:
- M2 Pro: 40 billion, double the M2 and over 15% more than the M1 Pro
- M1 Pro: 33.7 billion
- M2 Max: 67 billion, three times that of M2
- M1 Max: 57 billion
- unified memory:
- M2 Pro: 200GB/s bandwidth, double M2, up to 32GB
- M1 Pro: 200GB/s bandwidth, up to 32GB
- M2 Max: 400GB/s bandwidth, double the M2 Pro, up to 96GB
- M1 Max: 400GB/s bandwidth, up to 64GB
- productive process:
- M2 Max: 5 nanometer TSMC second generation
- M1 Max: 5 nanometers TSMC
- M2 Pro: 5 nanometer TSMC second generation
- M1 Pro: 5 nanometers TSMC
- video encoding engines and Pro Res:
- M2 Pro: 1 video encoding engine, 1 decoding, 1 ProRes encoding and decoding
- M1 Pro: 1 video encoding engine, 1 decoding, 1 ProRes encoding and decoding
- M2 Max: 2 video encode, 1 decode, 2 ProRes encode and decode engines
- M1 Max: 2 video encode, 1 decode, 2 ProRes encode and decode engines
Features common to bothM2 Max and M2 Pro:
- neural engine: 16 next-generation cores, up to 15.8 trillion operations per second, up to 40% faster than the respective previous generation chips
- ISPthe image processor, is the latest
- Secure Enclave (safety component) of the new generation.
Not every Mac that could be powered by the Apple Silicon M2 Max and M2 Pro already is. Mac Studiofor example, is the main candidate to accept them, but Apple is probably waiting to have the M2 Ultra chip ready: Mac Studio is currently offered with M1 Max and M1 Ultra, it would not make sense to update the “base” variant with M2 Max leaving I list the best variant with M1 Ultra.
However, the question is more complicated of Mac Pro, which even, as was said yesterday, is the only product in the range that has never had an Apple Silicon chip. Certainly Mac Pro, like Mac Studio, awaits the debut of M2 Ultra, but the times could be a little longer. In the meantime, here which Macs are currently available with the M2 Max and M2 Pro chips:
- MacBook Pro 14″ and 16″
- Mac mini (M2 Pro only).
