Is it worth spending an extra 300 on the 10 core gpu on the new mba m2 ?

[George Dawes]

Looking at the specs for the new m2 mba , there’s a 300 difference between the 8 and 10 core gpu , does anyone think that will really make much of a difference in the real world ?

 

[AJB1971]

You also get double the storage and a slightly better power adapter. I think if the GPU is a consideration, you're probably better buying a MacBook Pro. The main thing is that increased storage.

Also, you can upgrade the base machine to the 10 core GPU for $100 if you don't need the increased storage.

 

[Malus120]

Looking at the specs for the new m2 mba , there’s a 300 difference between the 8 and 10 core gpu , does anyone think that will really make much of a difference in the real world ?

As noted above the real difference is $100.
However no one can really answer your question until independent reviewers conduct benchmarks.

What we can say is that with the original M1 the 7 Core GPU delivered roughly 92% of the GPU performance of the 8 core model despite having 12.5% less cores. If the M2 scaled in a similar fashion you could see around 85% of the performance of the 10 core model with only 80% of the compute resources. However its also very possible that this was because of a bottlenecks elsewhere in the M1 (for example memory bandwidth) that will not be present in the M2.

In other words, no one can really say exactly how it will perform, but at the end of the day its not likely to be larger than a 20-25% difference. Is that worth $100? That's up to each and every buyer.

Quick edit / addendum: If your workflow would actually benefit from the extra graphics performance you should really be considering the 13"/14" MBP (although it will be interesting to see how the 14" MBP with 6 P Cores / 2 E Cores & 14 GPU cores compares to the new M2 MBA/MBP,) as the MBA will likely throttle under extended load (without modification)

 

[TechRunner]

For me it wouldn't be, as I do nothing that truly taxes a system. For some, the extra $100 might be worth the price to meet that "just in case" scenario. For others, they'll drive it hard enough to justify buying the extra headroom. As @Malus120 said, a very individual purchase decision.

 

[Dealmans]

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[wowee]

I’m a heavy Lightroom user but not sure if that needs the extra gpus. I use an external 4k monitor. My plan was to max out the ram. But will I see any benefit from 10gpu vs 8gpu? I’m still confused by gpus purpose.

 

[calstanford]

I’m a heavy Lightroom user but not sure if that needs the extra gpus. I use an external 4k monitor. My plan was to max out the ram. But will I see any benefit from 10gpu vs 8gpu? I’m still confused by gpus purpose.

Not much. But you'd likely see benefits in more RAM. I upgrade to 24GB as I often deal with large files/panoramas.

 

[jav6454]

Looking at the specs for the new m2 mba , there’s a 300 difference between the 8 and 10 core gpu , does anyone think that will really make much of a difference in the real world ?

If you have to ask, the question is no.