Leaked Benchmarks Confirm M2 Chip is Up to 20% Faster Than M1

[Analog Kid]

Incremental update is incremental. Which is what we all should have expected. 20% over 2 years. Not bad, building on a strong base, but not noteworthy in itself.

Actually they do, when increasing the clock speed by 10% and adding 20% more area. Intel have done this for many years on the tock generations, and on the ticks they reduce the process size.

What Intel refers to as their ”Tick-Tock-Tock-Tock-Tock-Tock” strategy.

 

[jav6454]

That's fair.

We're talking 3 vs. 4 watts, though. Either of those is way below even Intel's 9W (née "Y") chips.

Not sure why you think that's "at idle".



I don't really care about the GPU.

It’s one package deal; therefore, the increase of one affects the overall power consumption.

 

[SlaveToSwift]

12% is not internal design improvements, much of that is clock speed increases as outlined in the tweet.

Thanks, I missed that.

 

[SlaveToSwift]

Intel has already booked TSMC N5 and N3 capacity.

Still unlikely to catch them up in performance per watt. A couple 25% improvements don't wipe out a 200% shortfall.

 

[KPOM]

Seems like the gains are largely (9% of the 11.6%) GHz related though? That’s great, but suggests little structural improvement in the cores themselves? I ask as it would indicate that further improvements would rely on the 3 nm process to manage power consumption?

That’s the same with the A15 vs A14. Apple used the enhanced 5nm process mostly to improve efficiency, which let them increase the clock speed without using more power.

 

[Bubble99]

Intel has already booked TSMC N5 and N3 capacity.

The problem is Intel is not even at 7nm today.

Intel is just upping the power and clock to get any where close to the competition today. When intel was stuck on 14nm for 6 years and the desktop computers just switched to 10nm for no more than a year for desktop computers.

Remember Rocket lake came out in March 2021 and is 14nm and Alder Lake came out October 2021 and is 10nm.

Intel is only upping the power on the Alder Lake using 10nm where the get close to competition of similar 7nm this is why Intel dropped name of nm in marketing sales and uses Intel 7. And going in future will be Intel 7, Intel 5, Intel 3 so on. Intel advertising and marketing will no longer talk about nm. As Intel says Intel 7, Intel 5, Intel 3 is where the CPU is target at for competition. Being if we have CPU that is Intel 3 we get similar to other CPU like AMD and Apple using 3nm but it is a Intel lie because they not on nm at that scale and just using power draw and clock to get any where close to the competition.

In the fall of this year will be Raptor Lake this is again Intel 7 still using 10nm than next year will be Meteor Lake using Intel 5 but will be 7nm but using Intel power draw to get every little drop of power to have competition of 5nm. This not good at all what intel is doing.

And when you look at this year it is is so terrible it is very embarrassing. Today we have netbook not laptop but a netbook using M1 in a MacBook Air and it takes big desktop tower, water cooling, fans, heat and massive power to just get any where close to M1 used in netbook not even laptop. If I buy $6,000 PC with big desktop tower, water cooling, fans it should just speed buy M1 like a Ferrari not getting any where close to M1. With some websites saying only 5% increase and some say even a decrease by 5% in beyond embarrassing for Intel in big desktop computer. And intel laptops, netbooks and tablets are nothing more than space heaters and big desktop towers.

​

 

[SlaveToSwift]

$200 buys you:

• a slightly faster CPU
• a much faster GPU
• a lighter, thinner chassis with smaller bezels
• a much better camera
• a much better sound system
• MagSafe

If you can do without those, the M1 Air is a great laptop. If you like those, the M2 Air is also a great laptop.

You forgot about the larger, liquid retina display. That's a big addition. Along with the 24 Gb RAM option, and those new colors!

And also the CPU isn't slightly faster. Your mac is always using more than one core so multicore performance is much more important than single core. And any professional tasks always use multiple cores. For example doing XCode Builds an 8 core M1 Pro is about 20% faster than the original M1.

GitHub - devMEremenko/XcodeBenchmark: XcodeBenchmark measures the compilation time of a large codebase on iMac, MacBook, and Mac Pro

XcodeBenchmark measures the compilation time of a large codebase on iMac, MacBook, and Mac Pro - devMEremenko/XcodeBenchmark

github.com

The M1 Air's multicore performance is within 5% of the 8 core M1 Pro, meaning it should be roughly 15% faster at builds. If you do a hundred builds a day, even twenty seconds adds up.

The same is likely true for Photoshop, video editing, and every other professional tool you could use. I was going to get a 14 inch MacBook Pro to replace my M1 Air but now I'm reconsidering and thinking about the new Air.

 

[AlexMac89]

Exactly, the time when Moore's Law was held to the highest standard is long gone as now transistors are approaching the atomic size. You can't go below an atom in size.

We can’t CURRENTLY go below an atom in size using current technology and materials. Though we are already using the manipulation/control of subatomic (or as you put it, “below an atom in size”) particles in quantum computing. Why do you always feel the need to speak in such absolutes?

 

[reallynotnick]

The metal score score is pretty solid, the old chip was definitely bandwidth starved.

 

[NeroBurningRome]

Did they hit a CPU architecture limit? 10% increase in CPU clock frequency and 12% increase in single thread performance.

 

[l0stl0rd]

That is actually insane. If you follow other mainstream CPU. They do not get a 20% increase per generation

We will see, just wait for Raptor Lake and Raphael.

Also 20% at 9% clock speed increase 🤷‍♂️

 

[Cirlonde]

I don't think Apple targets its new computer releases at people who own the current generation, but rather at people who might have computers that are many generations old. By releasing incremental upgrades every year or two, the incremental improvements begin to add up over the years and will at some point become worthy of a decision to upgrade. This will let you go home earlier or finish a project faster.

This is my situation exactly. I'll be upgrading from a 2015 MBA. Going from a 2015 device to a 2022 device will feel like a massive improvement, all due to those incremental advancements that have happened over the past seven years. Much thanks to all who are funding those improvements by purchasing new devices every year!

 

[MikeSmoke]

Saving now for an M2 Air

 

[Populus]

Yes, these new M2 MacBooks could have worse battery life under load than the M1 MacBooks.
M2 MacBook Air should throttle quite a bit, especially under GPU load.

Hey Vadim! I will say this here because I don’t have Google account so I can’t comment on YouTube videos.

I’m pretty sure you and your brother will check the new Air as soon as you have it, but I am really interested on the dissipation system on this awesome fanless device.

With this new M2 chips having the potential to draw more watts of power, it will be interesting to see if the dissipation system is improved from the older one, otherwise there could be throttling. If it is possible, I would even ask you to disassemble it to see if there‘s any kind of vapor chamber. Another fun video would be enhancing the dissipation system with some thermal pad or even a custom made copper heat sink.

I watch almost every one of your videos, although some of them are reflecting info I already know, but your speculations and theories are very entertaining. Keep up your good work! Regards for you and your brother.

 

[duervo]

I’ll wait for the M2 14” MacBook Pro, which will hopefully be announced this fall. Although, this new MacBook Air was very tempting.

 

[vadimyuryev]

No and not really.
The M2 MacBook Air got a nice bump in battery capacity, going from a 49.9‑watt‑hour lithium‑polymer battery in the M1 to a 52.6‑watt‑hour lithium‑polymer battery in the M2, so any increase in power consumption should be quite balanced out and, like Apple says, the battery life in the end should be about the same.
As for the fan, if it’s anything like M1, The actual difference that it makes is extremely minor

Apple rates the M2 MacBook Air as getting the same 18 hours of battery life as the M1 MacBook Air.
However, like you said, it required a larger 52.6wH battery to achieve the same battery life.

The only problem is that these battery life tests are done under specific conditions like simple web browsing which usually tends to use the efficiency cores the most out of anything else, with a bit of P-cores and GPU.
This does NOT factor in the extra 3W of power the GPU will be consuming under load.

Therefore, we can assume that under full load, the battery life of the M2 MacBook Air will be worse than the M1 MacBook Air under full load.

I guess we'll have to wait and see.

 

[vadimyuryev]

Hey Vadim! I will say this here because I don’t have Google account so I can’t comment on YouTube videos.

I’m pretty sure you and your brother will check the new Air as soon as you have it, but I am really interested on the dissipation system on this awesome fanless device.

With this new M2 chips having the potential to draw more watts of power, it will be interesting to see if the dissipation system is improved from the older one, otherwise there could be throttling. If it is possible, I would even ask you to disassemble it to see if there‘s any kind of vapor chamber. Another fun video would be enhancing the dissipation system with some thermal pad or even a custom made copper heat sink.

I watch almost every one of your videos, although some of them are reflecting info I already know, but your speculations and theories are very entertaining. Keep up your good work! Regards for you and your brother.

Thank you for the support!

Yes, we're actually planning to test both of those things you mentioned.
We'll probably start with a thermal throttling test video where we take the bottom casing off and push it to the limits.
Then, we'll do a thermal pad video to see if we can improve the performance.

We'll also be doing a performance/battery life video with multiple setups.
M1 Air vs M2 Air
M2 Air vs M2 Pro MBP
M2 Air vs M1 Pro MBP

Cheers!

 

[arvinsim]

I wonder what the M2 Pro/Max scores will be. Will they finally break the 2000 single-core Geekbench threshold?

 

[Tempor_aka]

The real benefit is faster memory (50% more BW), you will not see a huge improvement in synthetic tests, but if you run memory intensive tasks like on images and video you will. Power consumption will also be OK, memory consumes less if rumors are correct, going from DDR4 to 5 and the efficiency cores are way faster, so they will handle more tasks … So hold your judgement until real life tests are run …

 

[Kelly Jones]

This is my situation exactly. I'll be upgrading from a 2015 MBA. Going from a 2015 device to a 2022 device will feel like a massive improvement, all due to those incremental advancements that have happened over the past seven years. Much thanks to all who are funding those improvements by purchasing new devices every year!

Yep. Also, by having Apple deliver incremental upgrades every year or two, new purchasers can be assured that they have the latest and greatest, or very close to it rather than waiting on a longer upgrade cycle if Apple waited for larger improvements between generations. My wife only upgraded her 2013 MBA to an MBA M1 late last year and it was a very noticeable upgrade for her. Would an M2 MBA be better if we had waited seven more months to upgrade? Sure, but it would have cost more and she needed the computer and could not wait. We gave the old MBA to my daughter to check email, netflix, etc.. Works fine for that.

 

[ikjadoon]

AMD has been doing about 15% IPC per generation which is quite a bit higher than 20% multithreaded; but they obviously started from a lower place and have different design goals.

Edit: Butchered that quote 🤣

That's not quite accurate.

2018: +3% IPC (Zen+)

2019: +15% IPC (Zen2)

2020: +19% IPC (Zen3)

2022: +9% IPC (Zen4; AMD estimate)

On average, AMD is hitting closer to 10 - 11% per release, but note how some generations take a while to release (Zen4).

Officially, AMD's target beat the "industry-standard" 8-10% CAGR (which is IPC + clocks + memory combined).

//

Apple A15 <-> A15 is only a 4-5% IPC increase, which is roughly a "Zen -> Zen+" improvement, e.g., small in IPC. But it has significantly better efficiency and still much higher clocks, so for mobile & laptops, that's a significant improvement.

 

[ikramerica]

That is actually insane. If you follow other mainstream CPU. They do not get a 20% increase per generation

They are clocked 9% higher and get 12% improvement. So clock for clock we are talking about 2.5% faster, which is pathetic.

 

[cpnotebook80]

I wonder what the M2 Pro/Max scores will be. Will they finally break the 2000 single-core Geekbench threshold?

I'm waiting for those too. Perhaps we can extrapolate increases from the m2 base chip after m2 units get released. I am waiting for 3nm to see the gaines as my mac pro 5.1 keeps me up and running for now, so no rush for me. However, my m1 macbook pro I purchased last year, ugh the 8gb ram is the only regret on that.

 

[Adamantoise]

I *highly* doubt it. Intel's only break came from having their P and E core CPUs be coded for enhancements by Microsoft and then came AMD without that and still walloped Intel.

Are you saying Alder Lake doesn't work as intended on Linux or other operating systems?

I highly doubt that. Kernels have long been made aware of the potential hardware they would be running on since before I even began computing as a career.

macOS, iOS, Windows, Android... All have hardware profiles. What is it about Alder Lake that's somehow different?

 

[August West]

I wish they'd stick on of these in a Mini. My 2012 will cease getting security updates for Catalina this fall so I'd like to replace it with the latest/greatest since I tend to keep my devices as long as possible.