Unveiled at Apple’s WWDC 2022 keynote on June 6, the Apple M2 chip is the inaugural chip in Apple’s second generation of custom-made silicon. This matters because the M2 is an evolution of the awesome M1 chip that debuted in 2020, and it powers Apple’s new 13-inch MacBook Air 2022 and MacBook Pro 2022. They are the successors to two of the best MacBooks on the market, and it’s exciting to see what M2 syringe can do.
With that in mind, here’s what we know about the Apple M2 chip so far.
If this chip isn’t enough for you, we’re now hearing rumors How M2 Pro can improve it. There is also talk of him appearing in New iPad Pro, including a new 14-inch model. Reporting worker Apple MacBook Air 15-inch and MacBook 12-inch are said to be in the worksAnd it looks like we can look forward to a slew of M2-powered devices hitting the market between 2022 and 2023.
Apple M2 chip: Top new features and improvements
- The new 5nm chip is a great follow-up to the M1
- Eight-core CPU and up to 12-core GPU with performance improvements over the M1
- It houses 20 billion transistors, which Apple claims is 25% more than the M1
- Can support 100Gb/s unified memory bandwidth
- Supports unified memory up to 24 GB
- 16-core Neural Engine with improvements to the M1 Neural Engine
- Capable of playing multiple streams of ProRes 4K/8K video
Apple M2 chip release date and configurations
The new Apple M2 chip will debut in two new laptops: the 13-inch MacBook Air and MacBook Pro, expected to hit the market in July of 2022.
The M2 chip is available in either the new 13-inch MacBook Air 2022 (starting price: $1,199) or MacBook Pro 2022 ($1,299), so you’ll need to pay more than $1,000 to get an M2-powered MacBook.
Apple M2 chip: Specifications
Apple’s new M2 chip is configurable with an 8-core CPU and up to 10-core GPU. This is an improvement over the original M1, which was configurable with an 8-core CPU and 8-core GPU. However, it can’t match the core numbers of the more thinner M1 Pro and M1 Max chipsets, which offer 8 to 10 CPU cores and 16 to 32 GPU cores.
However, Apple claims that the M2 chip is capable of up to 18% more multi-core performance than the M1. We’ll have to test that ourselves, but if it proves true, that’s good news since the M1 chip has astounded us with its impressive combination of fast multi-core performance and power efficiency.
There is also a 16-core Neural Engine built into the M2, just like the M1. The M2’s Neural Engine can process up to 15.8 trillion operations per second, which Apple claims is 40 percent more than the M1.
The M2 chip supports up to 24GB of memory, and Apple claims it can deliver up to twice the performance of the M1 chip while using half the power.
This would be an impressive improvement in performance and energy efficiency, and would support Apple’s claim that the M2-powered 13-inch MacBook Pro 2022 can provide up to 20 hours of video playback on a single charge.
The M2 also brings a new media engine that should be able to decode up to 8K HVEC and H.264 video, while supporting playback of multiple ProRes streams in 4K and 8K resolution.
Apple also claims that the M2 chip’s image signal processor (or ISP) is significantly improved over what was available on the M1, so it should be able to help you look your best in video calls.
Apple M2 chip: Outlook
The fact that Apple has finally released a successor to the industry-shaking M1 chip for 2020 is exciting, especially if you’re a Mac fan looking forward to a new 13-inch MacBook. The M2 chip appears to be Apple’s mid-tier silicon chip that will likely outperform its M1 predecessor without matching the more deceptive heights of the M1 Max. We’ll have to test one ourselves to be sure, and look forward to testing it later this summer.
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