5 Things You Need to Know About M2 Pro and M2 Max

[MacRumors]

Apple this week expanded its lineup of Apple silicon chips with the new M2 Pro and M2 Max processors, building on the M2 chip announced in June. The new lineup of M2 chips represents the second generation of Apple silicon that can now now be found in the latest Macs.

The M2 Pro and M2 Max are noteworthy upgrades over the M1 Pro and M1 Max, bringing more performance, battery life, and capabilities to professional users. Below, we've listed five of the most important details you need to know about Apple's latest Mac chips.

• A Lot of Memory Bandwidth: The new M2 Pro and M2 Max chips feature the same memory bandwidth as their respective predecessor, which is some of the highest in the industry. Like the M1 Pro, the M2 Pro chip supports up to 200GB/s of memory bandwidth, while the M2 Max supports 400GB/s of memory bandwidth like the M1 Max.
• Even Longer Battery Life: The ‌M1 Pro‌ and ‌M1 Max‌ have two high-efficiency cores, whereas the ‌M2‌ Pro and ‌M2‌ Max both feature four efficiency cores, allowing the new Macs to tackle heavy workloads using less energy, thereby conserving battery life.
• Tons More Transistors: Thanks to the use of second-generation 5nm process technology, the M2 Pro has 40 billion transistors, which is 20% more than the M1 Pro. With ‌M2‌ Max, the jump is even bigger – its 67 billion transistors is 10 billion more than the number used in the ‌M1 Max‌.
• Highest Unified Memory Yet in a MacBook Pro: 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros configured with the high-end ‌M2‌ Max processor now support up to 96GB of unified memory. The 96GB of memory option is an additional $800, on top of the $200 extra for the higher-end variant of the M2 Max chip.
• Connect Even More Displays: 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros and Mac mini models configured with M2 Pro support up to two external displays. M2 Pro supports two 6K displays over Thunderbolt, or one 6K display at 60Hz over Thunderbolt and one 4K display at 144Hz over HDMI. MacBook Pro models with M2 Max support up to four displays: three displays with 6K resolution at 60Hz over Thunderbolt and one more 4K display at 144Hz over HDMI. M2 Max also supports two 6K displays at 60Hz over Thunderbolt, and one 8K display at 60Hz or one 4K display at 240Hz over HDMI.

The new 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro can be configured with both M2 Pro and M2 Max, while the updated Mac mini can be configured with either M2 or M2 Pro. Both the new MacBook Pro and Mac mini are available for pre-order on Apple's website and will begin arriving to customers on Tuesday, January 24.

Article Link: 5 Things You Need to Know About M2 Pro and M2 Max

 

[mystery hill]

14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros and Mac mini models configured with M2 Pro support up to three external displays. M2 Pro supports two 6K displays over Thunderbolt and one 4K display over HDMI.

14-inch MacBook Pro M2 Pro and 16-inch MacBook Pro M2 Pro support up to 2 external displays.

 

[kiranmk2]

The expanded display support throws up an interesting conundrum - it seems that the 8k60 (or 4k240) is only supported by the HDMI port and that the Thunderbolt interface is limited to 6k60. This means that to get the highest performance video output you can't have a one-cable solution (USB-C) and none of Apple's displays accept HDMI in (and don't seem to support >60 Hz)... Even a new Apple XDR display that supported 120 Hz would still need an HDMI cable. Does this imply that the ports are still DisplayPort 1.4? (the PC market is moving to DisplayPort 2.1 and plant of GPUs and monitors with support were announced at CES)

On battery life, does this mean maxing out the CPU will give less battery life than M1 Pro/Max as it seems that the increased battery life advertised arises from the low power cores being able to do a bigger proportion of low-mid level tasks?

 

[Kylo83]

Still have that ugly notch for a not so good web cam

 

[krakman]

What about the sd card slot does it read faster?

 

[Hammerd]

What about the Pro Max Plus?

 

[Klagarde]

Another thing:
Every upgrade extra is ridiculous expensive.
You can upgrade your M2 chip with $1000's worth of extra cores, graphical cores of unified memory.

 

[MentalFabric]

Very pleased about the extra RAM and 6E

 

[foobarbaz]

On battery life, does this mean maxing out the CPU will give less battery life than M1 Pro/Max as it seems that the increased battery life advertised arises from the low power cores being able to do a bigger proportion of low-mid level tasks?

Technically, yes, battery life could be worse with full CPU load. But in reality, the CPU load will be over faster, so it will be better.

So, Watt per hour would be higher (at load), but Watt per task would be lower.

 

[kyjaotkb]

The expanded display support throws up an interesting conundrum - it seems that the 8k60 (or 4k240) is only supported by the HDMI port and that the Thunderbolt interface is limited to 6k60. This means that to get the highest performance video output you can't have a one-cable solution (USB-C) and none of Apple's displays accept HDMI in (and don't seem to support >60 Hz)... Even a new Apple XDR display that supported 120 Hz would still need an HDMI cable. Does this imply that the ports are still DisplayPort 1.4? (the PC market is moving to DisplayPort 2.1 and plant of GPUs and monitors with support were announced at CES)

On battery life, does this mean maxing out the CPU will give less battery life than M1 Pro/Max as it seems that the increased battery life advertised arises from the low power cores being able to do a bigger proportion of low-mid level tasks?

HDMI 2.1 offers 48Gbps whereas Thunderbolt 4 is limited to 40 Gbps. You need 43 Gbps for 8K, 60Hz in 4.2.0.
This means that the MacBook Pro's support for 8K is limited to 4.2.0 chroma subsampling: fine for watching movies, unsuitable for grading movies, OK for gaming but downright awful for displaying text at 1x the resolution, but probably alright at 2x retina. https://www.rtings.com/tv/learn/chroma-subsampling

My guess is that next year's laptops will offer Thunderbolt 5, which offers 80Gbps and will allow full 4.4.4 chroma subsampling, and the next XDR display will be 8K and require Thunderbolt 5. Or maybe, Apple will put two Thunderbolt ports on that future XDR and allow 2022 MacBook Pros to output 4.4.4 to it using 2x Thunderbolt 4 connections. Similar to how the Dell UP3218K uses two Displayport connections (this monitor seems incompatible with the 2022 MacBook Pro and I've only read about one person using it with a Mac, using a Mac Pro 7.1, two PCIe graphics cards and a fair amount of hacking).

 

[eduardshugar]

The expanded display support throws up an interesting conundrum - it seems that the 8k60 (or 4k240) is only supported by the HDMI port and that the Thunderbolt interface is limited to 6k60. This means that to get the highest performance video output you can't have a one-cable solution (USB-C) and none of Apple's displays accept HDMI in (and don't seem to support >60 Hz)... Even a new Apple XDR display that supported 120 Hz would still need an HDMI cable. Does this imply that the ports are still DisplayPort 1.4? (the PC market is moving to DisplayPort 2.1 and plant of GPUs and monitors with support were announced at CES)

On battery life, does this mean maxing out the CPU will give less battery life than M1 Pro/Max as it seems that the increased battery life advertised arises from the low power cores being able to do a bigger proportion of low-mid level tasks?

Thunderbolt 4 supports DisplayPort up to 2.0

 

[infinitejest]

Can we expect a MacBook Pro redesign in 2024? I'm really not a fan of the bulky design and the all black keyboard. 😕

 

[G46&Fbnth5]

I noticed that the 14-inch M2 Max weighs 1,63 kg vs 1,60 kg of M2 Pro, so it probably has a better cooling system, which last year was exclusive to the 16-inch M1 Max model.

 

[martinsmac]

Any news on the number of thunderbolt controllers on the M2 Pro? On the M1 Mini, there were two controllers, so each port had the maximum possible bandwidth. Would be interesting to see whether the additional thunderbolt ports on the Pro Mini are sharing the existing controllers. Given the limited internal storage, external IO ops is especially important on the Mini.

 

[Lwii2boo]

I'm a bit surprised that they did not add a Face ID feature on the notch. That would have been an extra strong selling point for some to get the M2 Pro instead of M1 Pro devices.

This laptop is ofc excellent but very close to M1 Pro MBPs. Maybe Face ID is kept on their roadmap for the M3 Pro MBPs ?

 

[jayducharme]

I have the M1 mini and the only issue I have with it is a bit of lag using FCPX. Ironically, before the latest OS it was working fine. But I’m not sure that the M2 Pro is worth the upgrade cost for the relatively small gain in processing power.

 

[RamGuy]

I'm interested in seeing benchmarks between the Mac mini with M1 vs M2 vs M2 Pro. I have a feeling that besides the improvement in GPU performance with the M2 Pro there won't be much of a difference in real-world usage.

I also find it strange for Apple to continue on with the Mac mini. The Mac Studio felt like an evolution on the Mac mini offering mostly the same form factor with better cooling. Now we have this strange scenario where the Mac mini suddenly offers M2, M2 Pro, and M2 Max, while the Mac Studio is stuck with M1 Max and M1 Ultra.

 

[mystery hill]

Now we have this strange scenario where the Mac mini suddenly offers M2, M2 Pro, and M2 Max, while the Mac Studio is stuck with M1 Max and M1 Ultra.

Mac mini doesn’t offer the M2 Max.

 

[xraydoc]

While benchmarks will be interesting to see compared to the M1 Pro & M1 Max, I've still got no regrets buying my 14" MBP with the M1 Pro back in July and not waiting for the M2-series.

Battery life already lasts longer than I need it to and I don't use high-refresh rate displays. And the machine is currently faster than I need anyway. So the M2 Pro isn't bringing anything else to the table.

Don't get me wrong, I'm very happy they're out, but Apple hardware is so good currently, I no longer need to upgrade constantly.

 

[star-affinity]

Can we expect a MacBook Pro redesign in 2024? I'm really not a fan of the bulky design and the all black keyboard. 😕

I'm a fan of it. I think the design is great. I'm pretty sure it's ”bulky” (I think it's heavy, but not bulky) for a reason. If you want slim there's MacBook Air.

 

[DrV]

Thanks to the use of second-generation 5nm process technology, the M2 Pro has 40 billion transistors, which is 20% more than the M1 Pro.

Yes. And?

More transistors means more power consumption, more silicon area, and more cost. Improved process technology is good news as it reduces the size of transistors leading to lower capacitances (speed, power consumption) and smaller silicon area (lower power consumption, cost).

The right question to ask is what the added transistors do. They may increase parallelism giving more performance or they may introduce some completely new features. Both would be great but the increase in the number of transistors is not a great selling point.

 

[darngooddesign]

Can we expect a MacBook Pro redesign in 2024? I'm really not a fan of the bulky design and the all black keyboard. 😕

I doubt it.

 

[woolypants]

Re: support for monitors and high refresh rates, even the M1 Macs can support higher refresh rates than 60Hz. You just have to use things like Thunderbolt to HDMI 2.1 adapters. Search this forum for more information.

In other words, MacRumors journalists and indeed readers should be careful about reading the specs and believing it's the end of the story. It just Apple spinning things a certain way to encourage buying decisions.

 

[darngooddesign]

While benchmarks will be interesting to see compared to the M1 Pro & M1 Max, I've still got no regrets buying my 14" MBP with the M1 Pro back in July and not waiting for the M2-series...

Same here. Bought my fiancé a base 14" discounted by $400 a month ago. Nothing in the new one would benefit her, and while an Air would have been fine for her needs, the prices were so close at 16/512 there was no reason not to go for the better screen and speakers.

 

[woolypants]

I noticed that the 14-inch M2 Max weighs 1,63 kg vs 1,60 kg of M2 Pro, so it probably has a better cooling system,

Good spot, but it'll almost certainly be a marginally bigger battery.