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Apple M2

Apple M2

The Apple M2 is a System on a Chip (SoC) from Apple that is found in the late 2022 MacBook Air and, MacBook Pro 13. It offers 8 cores divided in four performance cores and four power-efficiency cores. The big cores offer 192 KB instruction cache, 128 KB data cache, and 16 MB shared L2 cache (up from 12 MB). The four efficiency cores are a lot smaller and offer only 128 KB instruction cache, 64 KB data cache, and 4 MB shared cache. The efficiency cores (E cluster) clock with  up to 2,4 GHz, the performance cores (P cluster) with up to 3,5 GHz and therefore higher than the M1 cores. The architecture should be similar to the A15 (iPhone 13) with Avalanche and Blizzard cores.

The chip features a unified memory architecture for the CPU and GPU cores and supports up to 24 GB LPDDR5-6400 for a bandwidth of up to 100GB/s.

According to Apple, the M2 offers a 18% higher CPU performance at the same power consumption level compared to the Apple M1. In our tests, the MacBook Pro 13 with active cooling was able to reach the 18% in Geekbench Multi. In other benchmarks we measured 12 to 15% gains compared to the M1. Therefore, the performance is now near the M1 Pro with 8 cores. The passively cooled MacBook Air may however suffer from throttling in longer load scenarios.

The integrated graphics card in the M2 offers 8 or 10 cores and a peak performance of 3.6 TFLOPs.

Furthermore, the SoC integrates a fast 16 core neural engine with a peak performance of 16 TOPS (for AI hardware acceleration), a secure enclave (e.g., for encryption), Thunderbolt / USB 4 controller, an ISP, and media de- and encoders.

The Apple M2 includes 20 billion transistors (up from the 16 billion of the M1) and is manufactured in the second generation 5nm process at TSMC (most likely N5P). The power consumption is rated at 20W what we also measured under CPU load.

SeriesApple Apple M-Series

Series: Apple M-Series

Apple M2 Max compare2.42 - 3.7 GHz12 / 12 cores48 MB L3
Apple M2 Pro compare2.42 - 3.5 GHz12 / 12 cores24 MB L3
Apple M1 Max compare2.06 - 3.22 GHz10 / 10 cores48 MB L3
Apple M2 Pro 10-Core compare2.42 - 3.7 GHz10 / 10 cores24 MB L3
Apple M1 Pro compare2.06 - 3.22 GHz10 / 10 cores24 MB L3
Apple M1 Pro 8-Core compare2.06 - 3.22 GHz8 / 8 cores16 MB L3
Apple M2 « 2.42 - 3.48 GHz8 / 8 cores8 MB L3
Apple M1 compare2.06 - 3.22 GHz8 / 8 cores8 MB L3
Clock Rate2424 - 3480 MHz
Level 1 Cache2 MB
Level 2 Cache20 MB
Level 3 Cache8 MB
Number of Cores / Threads8 / 8
Power Consumption (TDP = Thermal Design Power)20 Watt
Transistor Count20000 Million
Manufacturing Technology5 nm
FeaturesARMv8 Instruction Set
GPUApple M2 10-Core GPU ( - 1398 MHz)
64 Bit64 Bit support
ArchitectureARM
Announcement Date06/10/2022
Product Link (external)Apple Apple M-Series M2

Benchmarks

Cinebench R23 - Cinebench R23 Multi Core
min: 8517     avg: 8654     median: 8667 (14%)     max: 8772 Points
Cinebench R23 - Cinebench R23 Single Core
min: 1580     avg: 1595     median: 1585 (70%)     max: 1638 Points
Cinebench R20 - Cinebench R20 CPU (Single Core)
min: 216     avg: 370.8     median: 381 (44%)     max: 446 Points
Cinebench R20 - Cinebench R20 CPU (Multi Core)
min: 2231     avg: 2325     median: 2324 (10%)     max: 2416 Points
Cinebench R15 - Cinebench R15 CPU Multi 64 Bit
min: 1209.9     avg: 1222     median: 1215 (13%)     max: 1243 Points
0651301952603253904555205856507157808459109751040110511701235Tooltip
Cinebench R15 - Cinebench R15 CPU Single 64 Bit
min: 222     avg: 223.8     median: 223 (68%)     max: 229 Points
Blender - Blender 3.3 Classroom CPU *
min: 540     avg: 620     median: 619.5 (8%)     max: 702 Seconds
Blender - Blender 2.79 BMW27 CPU *
min: 549     avg: 614     median: 597 (4%)     max: 713 Seconds
Geekbench 6.1 - 6.2 - Geekbench 6.2 Single-Core
min: 2593     avg: 2622     median: 2621.5 (85%)     max: 2650 points
Geekbench 6.1 - 6.2 - Geekbench 6.2 Multi-Core
min: 10034     avg: 10064     median: 10063.5 (48%)     max: 10093 points
Geekbench 5.2 - 5.5 - Geekbench 5.1 - 5.4 64 Bit Single-Core
min: 1890     avg: 1918     median: 1917 (83%)     max: 1953 points
Geekbench 5.2 - 5.5 - Geekbench 5.1 - 5.4 64 Bit Multi-Core
min: 8491     avg: 8839     median: 8961 (31%)     max: 8994 points
Mozilla Kraken 1.1 - Kraken 1.1 Total Score *
min: 440     avg: 452.4     median: 450.9 (1%)     max: 466.8 ms
Octane V2 - Octane V2 Total Score
min: 72484     avg: 74097     median: 74614 (68%)     max: 75776 Points
WebXPRT 4 - WebXPRT 4 Score
min: 223     avg: 235.5     median: 226.5 (68%)     max: 256 Points
WebXPRT 3 - WebXPRT 3 Score
min: 342     avg: 369.1     median: 377 (79%)     max: 387 Points
Antutu v9 - AnTuTu v9 Total Score
min: 1257990     avg: 1337360     median: 1337360 (94%)     max: 1416730 Points
Antutu v9 - AnTuTu v9 CPU
min: 294643     avg: 298254     median: 298254 (84%)     max: 301865 Points
CrossMark - CrossMark Overall
min: 1496     avg: 1533     median: 1520 (59%)     max: 1585 Points
Power Consumption - Cinebench R15 Multi Power Consumption - external Monitor *
29 Watt (6%)
0510152025Tooltip
Power Consumption - Geekbench 5.5 Power Consumption 150cd *
min: 9.08     avg: 9.4     median: 9.4 (4%)     max: 9.71 Watt
01234567891011121314151617Tooltip
Power Consumption - Idle Power Consumption - external Monitor *
min: 2.03     avg: 2.6     median: 2.4 (2%)     max: 3.98 Watt
00.20.40.70.91.11.31.51.722.22.42.62.833.33.53.73.94.1Tooltip
Power Consumption - Idle Power Consumption 150cd 1min *
min: 2.32     avg: 4.1     median: 4.7 (6%)     max: 5.32 Watt
012345Tooltip
Power Consumption - Cinebench R15 Multi Power Efficiency - external Monitor
42.4 Points per Watt (32%)
- Range of benchmark values for this graphics card
- Average benchmark values for this graphics card
* Smaller numbers mean a higher performance

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