With the release of the 2023 MacBook Pro and the 2023 Mac mini, the form of the second generation of Apple silicon on Mac has been revealed. This is, unsurprisingly, a bit of a first-gen re-reading: Apple has segmented its chips into a few different varieties.
As with the M1 generation, the new M2 Pro and M2 Max chips are closely related to each other and to the M2 chip introduced last summer. They are all based on the same base, but each chip has different characteristics. When it comes to deciding how much to pay for a Mac mini or MacBook Pro, these differences matter.
Round 1: M2 against M1
Before comparing the M2 Pro and M2 Max, it’s fair to discuss the M2, which debuted last June alongside the MacBook Air and 13-inch MacBook Pro. The M2’s CPU and GPU cores are the same as Apple’s A15 chip, which formed the basis of the iPhone 13 line.
Apple’s chips are getting faster and faster. Typically, each M2 CPU core is about 12-15% faster than the equivalent M1 core. As a result, the M1 to M2 transition cannot provide the quantum leap offered by Apple’s leap from Intel to its own processors. Instead, the Mac is now on the slow but steady path of progression we see every year with the unveiling of a new iPhone processor.
Apple
However, Apple continues to tinker from generation to generation. In the M2, Apple fixed one of the biggest flaws of the M1 processor: limited RAM capacity. The M2 can support up to 24GB of unified memory, up from the 16GB limit that has made many potential M1 Mac buyers cringe. Apple has also increased memory bandwidth from 68 GB to 100 GB per second.
While the M2 retained the same CPU core configuration as the M1 – eight cores, four dedicated to performance and the remaining four to efficiency – it increased the maximum number of GPUs available on the chip from eight to ten. increasing the maximum graphics performance a bit. The M2’s next-generation Neural Engine is over 40% faster for machine learning operations.
Perhaps most importantly, the M2 offered video encoding a boost. In the previous generation of chips, Apple added dedicated hardware to the high-end M1 Pro, Max, and Ultra chips to allow them to encode and decode ProRes video files much more efficiently. Apple built this capability into the M2, making Macs with M2 processors much more capable video editors.
The M2 is an impressive chip, but it really pales in comparison to the M2 Pro and M2 Max. The M2’s four capable CPU cores make it remarkably powerful, but the M2 Pro and Max offer twice as much, which doesn’t quite double the CPU performance… but it’s still around 1.6 times the speed . And then there’s the GPU side, where the M2’s 10 GPU core maximum clashes with up to 19 GPU cores on the M2 Pro and a staggering 38 GPU core maximum on the M2 Max.
The M2 Max has the same number of CPU cores as the M2 Pro, but the Max boosts the GPU cores.
Apple
And while the M2’s 24GB max RAM is much better than the M1’s 16GB, the M2 Pro can go up to 32GB and the M2 Max can go up to 96GB. Pro is double that of the M2, and on the M2 Max it is four times that.
Add in limited USB/Thunderbolt ports and video output support and you can see there’s still a lot to differentiate the high-end chips from the M2. That’s not to say the M2 is in any way a loser! It’s actually a remarkably powerful chip. But Apple designed the M2 Pro and M2 Max for a more demanding user.
Tower (M)2: Pro vs. Max
As with the M1 Pro and M1 Max, it’s important to note that the M2 Pro and M2 Max are identical in many ways. Apple offers M2 Pro chips with less than 12 CPU cores, but if you get a 12-core model, you’ll get the exact same 12 cores offered on the M2 Max. CPU power will be the same. You do not believe me ? Looked:
Everywhere else, the story is different. Apple limited the M2 Pro to 19 GPU cores, but the M2 Max can have up to 38 GPU cores. That means if you need graphics power, the M2 Max is the way to squeeze it to the max.
Likewise, the memory of the M2 Pro maxes out at 32GB, but the M2 Max can handle up to 96GB. And the memory bandwidth of the M2 Max is twice that of the M2 Pro. And the M2 Max is better for video encoding to decoding because it has of them video encoding engines and ProRes video engines to that of the M2 Pro. This means that in some video encoding tasks, the M2 Max will be twice as fast, as our Final Cut Pro export showed.
M2 Pro vs M2 Max: Choose wisely
You can essentially think of the M2 Max as the M2 Pro with a bit more – and based on Apple’s photos of the chips, you can take it literally. The two chips look identical when viewed from the top down of the M2 Pro…but the M2 Max is larger, continuing a bit beyond that. In this new area, Apple has added a second bank of GPUs, an additional memory bus and additional video encoding engines.
So which will it be, Pro or Max? If your workflows largely depend on CPU speed, the extra GPU cores in the M2 Max chips won’t help, making an M2 Pro a better buy. Unless you need huge amounts of really fast RAM, in which case, again, the M2 Max is a better choice. Video encoding will be faster on M2 Max, but maybe not enough to justify the price increase.
Apple 16-inch MacBook Pro (2023, M2 Max, 12-core/38-core, 1TB)
Apple 14-inch MacBook Pro (2023, M2 Pro, 12-core/19-core, 1TB)
Read our comparison of Mac Studio (M1 Max) and Mac mini (M2 Pro).
Table of Contents
