Geekbench for M2 MBA vs Binned 14" MBP...A Tie?

[GooseInTheCaboose]

It appears that geekbench scores for the M2 ( https://browser.geekbench.com/search?q=m2 ) come in at almost 2000 for single and 9000 for multi.

The binned 14" ( https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/15913955 ) comes in at around 2000 for single and a little more than 9000 for multi.

Does this mean that the M2 MBA are more or less a tie in terms of CPU power?

The 14" MBP has superior memory bandwidth (200 vs 100GB), the potential for 32 GB RAM (as opposed to up to 24GB) and a faster SSD (almost 6-7GB/S on 2 TB models vs ?????? for the MBA.

Where will these differences come into play? When is the MBA vs binned 14" MBP NOT a tie?

 

[BanditoB]

The M2 has a slightly faster single core performance rating of around 1900 vs. the M1 Pro at 1760. That's an increase of about 8%. Most general purpose apps are single threaded, so you would see a slight speed improvement in most apps on the M2, but I don't think it would necessarily be all that perceivable to most people. For multi-core performance the M1 Pro wins by 11%, so with sustained intensive computing, like video encodes, you should see better performance from the M1 Pro, especially because it has fans and won't throttle as much or at all.

So, there are minor differences in performance between the M2 and M1 Pro, but as you mentioned, they are pretty close to one another. So much so, that other than for intensive tasks, you in all likelihood would not be able to tell the difference in performance from a user perspective.