New M2 Chips revealed as Apple launches updates to MacBook Pro & Mac mini

Apple has just introduced two new updated computers sporting brand new M2 chips, the M2 Pro and M2 Max, two next-gen SoCs (system on a chip). The chips are being used in the 14 and 16 inch MacBook Pro and Mac Mini computers.

The chips are the next generation of Apple Sillicon, and allegedly push performance to “new frontiers”. They are certainly a step up from the M1, however, how much of a step is up for discussion.

Possibly the greatest difference between the M1 and M2 chips is in the graphics and neural engines. It is up to 40% faster than the previous version in these respects, with greater GPU and memory.

For video editing there are additional improvements. Apple has added hardware-accelerated H.264, HEVC, and ProRes video encoding and decoding. The M2 Max also features two video encode engines and two ProRes engines, bringing up to 2x faster video encoding than M2 Pro.

The new laptops also feature more stable Bluetooth and wifi connections with enhanced Bluetooth 5.3 and WiFi 6E. But perhaps it’s the battery life of the laptops that will be the real clincher. The M2 Max MacBook Pro boasts a whopping 22 hours of battery life. That’s pretty impressive, although like many Apple laptops, I wonder exactly how long that will actually last.

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So what does all of this mean in real terms for the people who use the computers? Basically, if you do any kind of work that is heavy on animation, CGI rendering, and video and audio editing. Essentially anything that is GPU intensive. It also places Apple ahead of the curve for new generative AI technology as these chips will be able to keep up with the demands.

M2Pro:

• 40 billion transistors
• 200GB/s of unified memory bandwidth
• up to 32GB of low-latency unified memory
• 10- or 12-core CPU consists of up to eight high-performance cores and four high-efficiency cores
• GPU in M2 Pro can be configured with up to 19 cores
• larger L2 cache
• 16-core Neural Engine, capable of 15.8 trillion operations per second
• two video encode engines and two ProRes engines

M2Max:

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• 67 billion transistors
• 400GB/s of unified memory bandwidth
• supports up to 96GB of fast unified memory
• next-generation 12-core CPU
• GPU is more powerful with up to 38 cores
• larger L2 cache
• 16-core Neural Engine, capable of 15.8 trillion operations per second
• hardware-accelerated H.264, HEVC, and ProRes video encode and decode, allowing playback of multiple streams of 4K and 8K ProRes video while using very little power

The updated MacBook Pro and Mac mini are available to order now. The Mac mini M2 Pro starts at $1299, the MacBook M2 Pro starts at $1999.