Apple’s long-awaited M2-class MacBook Pros have finally been unveiled. Apple has also updated the Mac mini.
This is how the year 2023 starts
Apple announced new SoCs M2 Pro and M2 Max that will be included in the new MacBook Pros. Mac mini only gets the M2 and M2 Pro chips, so the M2 Max processor is currently only available in notebook form factor. The biggest news here is that we’re finally seeing the Pro and Max versions of the M2. The M2 Pro is basically twice the size of a regular M2, offering almost twice the GPU cores and twice the memory bandwidth at 200GB/s. Apple claims that the M2 Pro’s CPU offers up to a 20% increase in performance over the M1 Pro. On the graphics side, Apple says it’s up to 30% faster. Finally, the updated Neural Engine is up to 40% faster than the previous M1 Pro.
On the other hand, the M2 Max offers twice what the M2 Pro chip offers. The chip consists of 67 billion transistors, which is three times the number in the regular M2. Memory bandwidth is doubled over the Pro to 400GB/s, and its GPU is even slightly beefier. The chip shares the same 12-core CPU configuration as the Pro, but increases the GPU core count from a maximum of 19 to 38. The M1 Max’s GPU supported a maximum of 32 cores. It also now supports up to 96GB of memory, compared to 64GB for the previous chip. Apple says it’s twice as fast as a Core i9 PC in Davinci Resolve and 30% faster than the previous Max SoC.
Fast Mac mini, lightning fast MacBooks
The new Mac mini is available with either the M2 or M2 Pro. Apple says the M2 Pro version is up to 14 times faster than the Intel chip it replaced, and that can be a good thing. After all, the Intel chip was old by the standards of the time, so it’s not a big surprise. Much more surprising, however, is the M2 Pro version of the Mac mini, which also has decisive advantages over the (really strong) M1 Mac mini. The version with the Pro SoC starts at 16 GB and can be doubled to 32 GB. In addition to the well-known improvements compared to the predecessor, the power consumption will remain the same – the Macbook Pros can now last up to 22 hours on a single battery charge. That’s really not from bad parents!
All three new products go on sale on January 24th. Apple announced the new products via press release and pre-recorded video, which is new territory for Apple. The company was expected to announce the products in October, but the event never materialized. This is probably related to the current delivery problems with high-end chips, but who knows for sure? The next event could now either be a traditional spring event, but a current overview showsthat in truth only the iPad mini is approaching a potential update. But since that also gets the strong A15 chip installed, a refresh would be pointless. Most likely, the next Apple event will be WWDC 2023!
Tag: macbook issue, macbook pro, macbook release, macbook macos