Apple announces M2 silicon with 1.9x gains over Core i7-1255U and near-Core i7-1260P performance at just a fraction of the power
After having been the subject of several leaks over the past few months, it is finally here. Apple unveiled the M2 silicon at WWDC 2022 promising all-round improvements in CPU and GPU performance compared to the M1 SoC.
According to Apple, the M2 sports an 8-core 4+4 CPU configuration that is supposedly 18% faster, a 35% more powerful 10-core GPU, and a 40% faster Neural Engine compared to its predecessor, the Apple M1. Apple said that M2 offers up to 24 GB of 100 GB/s unified memory bandwidth together with 25% more transistors (20 billion) compared to the M1 owing to an enhanced, second generation 5 nm process.
Apple compared the M2's CPU performance to the "latest 10-core PC laptop chip", which essentially refers to the Intel Core i7-1255U in the Samsung Galaxy Book2 360. Both systems were equipped with 16 GB RAM. The company claimed an 18% performance uplift from the M1 at the 15 W envelope, which does seem to be on expected lines given the minor process improvements. The M2 is apparently 1.9x faster than the Core i7-1255U at 15 W and can also deliver 90% of the performance of a Core i7-1260P in the MSI Prestige 14 Evo.
On the GPU side, the M2 now boasts of a 10-core GPU with a larger cache and a higher memory bandwidth. Apple said that the M2's GPU offers a 25% higher performance at the same power level as the M1's 8-core GPU while offering up to 35% increased performance at max power. The Cupertino giant claimed that the M2's GPU is 2.3x faster than the Iris Xe Graphics G7 96 EUs in the Core i7-1255U and can match the latter's peak performance while consuming just a fifth of the power.
Media capabilities seem similar to those of the M1 including support for 8K H.264 and HEVC video decode and 4K and 8K Apple ProRes. There is no AV1 decode support indicated, however. The M2 also offers an improved Neural Engine that can now process 40% more operations than the M1 at 15.8 TOPS.
The Apple M2 silicon will first appear in the newly announced MacBook Air and 13-inch MacBook Pro. macOS Ventura coming this fall will take full advantage of all that the M2 silicon has to offer.
Buy the 2021 16-inch Apple MacBook Pro with M1 Pro on Amazon
Source(s)
Apple WWDC 2022 Event
