Apple yesterday announced its M2 Silicon chip built using second-generation 5-nanometer technology in the new MacBook Air and 13-inch MacBook Pro.
The new chip offers an 18% faster CPU than the M1, a 35% more powerful GPU, and a 40 percent faster Neural Engine. It also offers 50% more bandwidth than the M1, and up to 24GB of fast unified memory.
RELATED CONTENT: WWDC 22 introduces better collaboration and focus capabilities along with Passkey security
“M2 starts the second generation of M-series chips and goes beyond the remarkable features of M1,” said Johny Srouji, senior vice president of Hardware Technologies at Apple. “With our relentless focus on power-efficient performance, M2 delivers a faster CPU, GPU, and Neural Engine. And along with higher memory bandwidth and new capabilities like ProRes acceleration, M2 continues the tremendous pace of innovation in Apple silicon for the Mac.”
The 25% higher transistor count in the M2 improves performance across the entire chip, including the memory controller. The greater CPU performance can more easily handle CPU-intensive tasks such as creating music with layers of effects or applying complex filters to photos.
M2 also features Apple’s next-generation GPU with up to 10 cores that offers a larger cache and higher memory bandwidth than the max 8 cores in the M1. The higher performance per watt from M2 enables systems to have exceptional battery life, and run cool and quietly, even when playing graphics-intensive games or editing massive RAW images.
Additional details on the M2 chip are available here.
