5 issues to know concerning the M2 Professional and M2 Max | Cult Tech

The march of Apple’s silicon doesn’t cease. To energy the brand new high-end 14-inch and 16-inch Mac mini and MacBook Professional methods, Apple has launched the brand new M2 Professional and M2 Max processors, taking all of the enhancements from the A16 processor and making use of them to Mac chips, leading to a major improve in efficiency over the M1 line.

Apple claims that the M2 Professional and M2 Max have 20% higher CPU efficiency than the M1 Professional/Max and 30% sooner GPU efficiency. In addition they embody the most recent Neural Engine, which is as much as 40 % sooner than the one within the M1 sequence.

As spectacular as these new chips are, they’re hardly shocking. Among the rumors about extra superior manufacturing, new GPUs, or different enhancements turned out to be false, and the M2 Professional and M2 Max appear to be precisely what we anticipated: the M2 was expanded with extra CPU and GPU cores and a reminiscence bus. wider. The truth is, the M1 Professional/Max chips had extra to distinguish them from the M1 than the M2 Professional/Max from the M2. Listed below are a number of the key options price noting.

Identical CPU core design and efficiency as M2

When Apple launched the M2, it claimed an 18 % enchancment in CPU efficiency in comparison with the M1. It now says that the M2 Professional and M2 Max have 20 % higher CPU efficiency than the M1 Professional and M2 Max. In different phrases, you possibly can count on the identical basic structure enhancements and efficiency enchancment that the M2 provides in comparison with the M1.

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A few of this simply comes all the way down to core rely. The M2 Professional and M2 Max have eight efficiency cores identical to the M1 Professional/Max, however the variety of effectivity cores is elevated from two to 4. So M2 Professional and M2 Max have 12 core CPU whereas M1 Professional/Max have 10 core CPU.

GPU positive factors are higher, however no huge architectural change

Apple says that the GPUs within the M2 Professional/Max are 30 % sooner than within the M1 Professional/Max. That is not shocking, contemplating the M2 was mentioned to have as much as 35 % higher graphics efficiency than the M1.

That is in all probability as a result of addition of some extra graphics cores and a few minor architectural tweaks. The M2 Professional has as much as 19 graphics cores (vs. 16 on the M1 Professional) and the M2 Max has as much as 38 graphics cores (vs. 32 on the M1 Max).

These are uncommon numbers – core counts are often even and infrequently powers of two, so the design is probably going for 20/40 GPU cores with room for a foul core to be disabled, enhancing manufacturing returns on these nice chips. Nonetheless, that is an almost 20 % improve in core rely, so with a little bit of improved caching and better clock speeds, you may get as excessive as 30 %.

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In the event you have been anticipating an all-new GPU from Apple with trendy options like ray tracing acceleration, which AMD and Nvidia’s GPUs have had for a number of years, you are going to be dissatisfied.

Reminiscence bandwidth is similar even with extra RAM

Reminiscence bandwidth on the M2 Professional is 200 GB/sec, the identical because the M1 Professional. The M2 Max doubles that to 400 GB/sec. So we’re virtually actually nonetheless a 256-bit LPDDR5 reminiscence bus on the Professional and 512-bit LPDDR5 on the Max. Apple improved caching on the A16, and people architectural enhancements will probably carry over to the M2 Professional and M2 Max.

Whereas the M2 Professional tops out at 32GB of RAM (the identical because the M1 Professional), the M2 Max can go as excessive as 96GB, which is 50 % greater than the M1 Max’s 64GB restrict. However there’s a catch: the 96 GB RAM possibility is restricted to the model of the M2 Max with 38 GPU cores. The least costly possibility with 30 GPU cores maxes out at 64GB.

Solely a video encoding engine, no AV1 help

With the M1 Professional, it had a brand new video encoder and decoder that added {hardware} acceleration for the ProRes format, and the M1 Max doubled the variety of encoders to 2.

Oddly sufficient, that is not the case with the M2 Max, which nonetheless has just one video encoder. Helps the identical codecs as earlier than: H.264, HEVC, ProRes, and ProRes RAW. Which means there’s nonetheless no help for the newer AV1 codec, regardless of being out there on present GPUs from Nvidia, AMD, and Intel. Apple is falling behind right here.

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We could not assist however discover that each one of Apple’s advertising benchmarks round video manufacturing, which declare enhancements of 30 % or so, are for actions like coloration correction or 3D results rendering, that are usually restricted. for GPU efficiency. Apple did not present benchmarks exhibiting an enchancment in video encoding velocity, so it will likely be attention-grabbing to see early evaluations of the M2 Max to see if a single new video encoder can sustain with two encoders on the M1 Max. .

Every part continues to be 5nm

There was plenty of hypothesis as to when Apple will begin utilizing TSMC’s new 3nm manufacturing course of. Apple is alleged to be the primary main producer to take action, and a number of the rumors mentioned that the brand new M2 Professional and Max chips could be the place Apple would make the leap.

It appears to be like like we’ll expect an M2 Extremely later within the yr, or presumably the A17 to be launched with the iPhone 16 this fall. Apple says the M2 Professional and Max are constructed with “second-generation 5nm know-how.” That is probably the identical course of that Apple mistakenly known as “4nm” in its iPhone 15 unveiling in September 2022. TSMC calls its N4 node an “enhanced” 5nm course of, and Apple seems to be correcting its language right here.