Does Apple’s new MacBook Pro reinvent the wheel? No. Does it feature ground-breaking new features and a revolutionary design…? Also no. What Apple’s new MacBook Pro does is ramp up specs and improve on an already popular design.
It continues to feature the touch bar (very much a love or hate feature), it offers more RAM allocation, the charging is faster and the Pro now features Spatial Audio.
However, the biggest change here is the processor, now featuring Apple’s M2 processor chip. This makes the 2022 MacBook Pro an incredibly powerful computer. Finally, we have an Apple laptop that can keep up with gaming alongside the demands of professional editing and creative software.
M2 Chip Explained
The M2 is Apple’s next-generation System on a Chip (SoC) developed for use in Macs and iPads. It marks Apple’s continued work to transition away from the Intel chips that were used in Macs up until 2020.
As a “System on a Chip,” the M2 integrates several different components, including the CPU, GPU, unified memory architecture (RAM), Neural Engine, Secure Enclave, SSD controller, image signal processor, encode/decode engines, Thunderbolt controller with USB 4 support, and more, all of which power the different features in the Mac.
Before Apple silicon, Macs used multiple chips for CPU, I/O, and security, but Apple’s effort to integrate these chips is the reason why the M2 is much faster and more efficient than Intel chips. The unified memory architecture that Apple has included is also a major factor because all of the technologies in the M2 are able to access the same data without having to swap between multiple pools of memory.
Apple M2 chip: Top new features and improvements
- New 5-nanometer chip is a follow-up to the remarkable M1
- 8-core CPU and up to a 12-core GPU w/ performance improvements over M1
- Features 20 billion transistors, which Apple claims is 25% more than the M1
- Can support 100 GB/s unified memory bandwidth
- Supports up to 24GB unified memory
- 16-core Neural Engine with improvements over M1 Neural Engine
- Capable of playing back multiple streams of ProRes 4K/8K video
Apple M2 chip: Outlook
The fact that Apple has finally released the successor to 2020’s industry-shaking M1 chip is exciting, especially if you’re a Mac fan who’s been eyeing a new 13-inch MacBook. The M2 chip appears to be more of a mid-grade slice of Apple silicon that’s likely to outperform its M1 predecessor without matching the heights of the most tricked-out M1 Max. We’ll have to test one for ourselves to be sure, and look forward to testing one later this summer.
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