The 14-inch MacBook Pro and 16-inch MacBook Pro featuring M2 Pro and M2 Max chips hit store shelves earlier this year, but Apple is said to be preparing to launch successors in 2024.
in his latest book employment Newsletter (trans Mac rumors), Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman once again claims that Apple won’t release the new MacBook Pro in 2023. Even if Apple introduces the rumored M3 chip in late 2023 as Gurman predicts, the company is unlikely to release 14- and 16-inch M2 and M3 laptops in the same year. To this end, a 2024 launch seems possible.
Gurman has a great track record with his coverage of Apple, but it’s still wise to take his reporting with some skepticism. After all, even if it’s 100% accurate, Apple can still change course.
However, Apple will undoubtedly launch a MacBook Pro powered by a successor to the M2 processor at some point. In this case, potential MacBook Pro buyers have a choice to make.
Should you buy the M2 MacBook Pro now or wait for the inevitable M3-powered models? Let’s review the reasons for and against each.
Reasons to wait for M3
The underlying power of the M3
MacBooks with Apple M2 chips are among the most powerful laptops on the market, frequently matching or surpassing the best Windows laptops. As great as the M2 chip is, its various iterations didn’t offer the same jump in power seen when Apple switched from Intel chips to its own silicon with the M1 processor. However, it is possible that the M3 chip is revolutionary.
Unlike the M1 and M2 chips, which both use TSMC’s 5nm process, the M3 chip uses the manufacturer’s new 3nm process. According to the App Store developer log that Mark Gurman claims to have obtained, the M3 Pro will pack a 12-core CPU, an 18-core GPU, and support for up to 32GB of unified memory (RAM). In contrast, the M2 Pro chip features a 10-core CPU, 16-core GPU, and 16GB of RAM. These are two extra cores for the CPU and GPU, along with twice the memory.
If the previous claim is true, the increase in base count on the M2 Pro would be the same as the jump from the M1 Pro to the M2 Pro. This means that the Apple M3 chip can deliver incredible performance gains over the M2, possibly as much as 20%, according to Apple Inc. Vadim Yuriev from Max Tech YouTube channel.
Power users (video editors, gamers) who own older Intel-powered MacBooks or who want to dive into the Apple ecosystem would do well to hold out for MacBook Pros packing M3 chips. If these laptops are as powerful and energy-efficient as we expect, they could be a real game-changer.
The price of the M2 MacBook Pro drops
Another great reason to wait for M3 MacBooks: the potential price drop on existing M2 models.
Apple doesn’t usually offer deep discounts on its products, but we often see places like Best Buy and Amazon knock a few hundred dollars off older MacBooks when newer models arrive. The MacBook Air M1, for example, starts at $999, but we’ve seen it discounted to as low as $799 at certain points. This is also true for some The best iPads and the The best MacBooks.
If you’re not in a rush to buy a MacBook and want to save a few hundred dollars, it’s in your best interest to wait for the M3 MacBook Pro to arrive and see what kind of amazing deals you can get on the existing M2 MacBook Pro.
Reasons to buy the M2 now
The M2 delivers amazing performance
If what we’ve heard about the M3 chip is true, it could make for a significant upgrade over M2 laptops — worthy of inclusion in our best MacBook list. However, M2 MacBook Pros will not suddenly become obsolete. Even if these laptops aren’t as high-end as the M3 models, you can still get a very powerful and power-efficient laptop.
As our internal benchmark tests show, Apple laptops with the M2 chip deliver killer performance and exceptional battery life. In the Geekbench 5 multi-core CPU performance test, the 13-inch MacBook Pro M2 scored 8,911 points, which is pretty good. That’s on par with both the MacBook Air M2 and the 15-inch MacBook Air, and much better than the score of 7,521 earned by the M1-equipped MacBook Pro two years ago.
| Header cell – column 0 | Geekbench 5.4.0 update | Handbreak video transcoding conversion | PugetBench Photoshop | Sid Meier’s Civ VI: Gathering Storm | Rise of the Tomb Raider |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MacBook Pro 13-inch M2 | 8911 | 6:51 | 817 | 51 fps | 24.94 fps |
| MacBook Pro 14-inch M1 Pro | 12477 | 4:51 | 806 | 46.1 fps | 73.87 fps |
| MacBook Pro 16-inch M1 Max | 12683 | 4:48 | 877 | 46.1 fps | 39.33 fps |
| MacBook Air M1 | 5,962 | 9:15 | 653 | 37 fps | DNR |
| MacBook Pro 13-inch M1 | 5925 | 7:44 | 649 | 38 fps | 25.78 fps |
When we evaluated the 14-inch MacBook Pro with M2 and M2 Max chips, we weren’t surprised to see that these chips helped the laptop perform better than MacBooks with a vanilla M2 processor.
| The result is single core | Mutli-core points | |
| MacBook Pro 14-inch M2 Pro | 1,941 | 14,965 |
| MacBook Pro 14-inch M2 Max | 1,926 | 14,939 |
| MacBook Air M2 (13-inch) | 1,911 | 8965 |
| MacBook Air 15-inch M2 | 1,908 | 8932 |
The version of the M2 Pro we tested offers a 12-core CPU, 19 GPU cores, 32GB of RAM and 2TB of storage. The M2 Max model we tested has a 12-core CPU, 38 GPU cores, 64GB of memory and 2TB of storage. In the same Geekbench test, the MacBook Pro 14-inch M2 Pro version delivered a single-core score of 1941 and the M2 Max version had a similar score of 1926. Both models passed the 14,900 on the multi-core test, but the M2 Pro was again a bit faster.
Our full benchmark reports go into more detail but suffice it to say that the M2 chip is a computing beast. If you get the M2 boxing MacBook, you won’t be disappointed — even when the M3 MacBook Pros arrive.
prospects
Apple hasn’t officially announced the popular M3 chip in quite some time, so it’s important to take everything here with a grain of salt. However, it is not unreasonable to assume that a successor to the M2 is on the horizon.
Gurman says we’ll see the first MacBooks with the M3 for the first time in October — which could mean they’ll be announced at Apple’s expected event in September. If that happens, then Pro laptops with M3 Pro and M3 Max chipsets shouldn’t be too far behind.
As for whether or not to wait for M3 MacBooks, I’d suggest waiting until at least the first wave of M3 laptops arrive. This way, you can see what they offer over the M2 and whether these laptops are worth it. Waiting is also a good idea if you want to save on existing M2 MacBooks. However, if you own an older Intel MacBook and need a more powerful Apple laptop now, I’d say get the M2-powered MacBook Pro or the 15-inch MacBook Air.
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