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M1 vs. M2 Chip Buyer's Guide: How Much Better Really Is M2?

coolfactor said:
(and golly-gee... who wrote that headline? Where's the editing review process?)
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Thank you! That headline made me read the comments just to see if anyone else thought it was a bad joke. Congrats to them though, as it is the first time I’ve ever wondered if the headline sentence structure could just be grammatical click-bait!
 
Ashbash75 said:
M1 Macbook Air = 49.9 watt-hour
M2 Macbook Air = 52.6 watt-hour
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That isn’t exactly relevant when the article is about the MacBook Pro 13 shipping today and I was pointing out that it is reported as getting longer battery life with the same sized battery in a design that is pretty much unchanged other than the CPU, which indicates that the CPU is more efficient, not less. The Air is an entirely new design with a different screen, so the energy draw difference isn’t limited to just the CPU and it is a lot harder to make a baseline comparison for just the CPU, especially since it has yet to even go on sale, let alone ship. But sure, most things about the Air are different.
 
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jav6454 said:
To achieve a higher clock at stable enough performance, voltage has to be increased. There is no free increase in frequency without power draw increase.
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Not when you've made improvements to the architecture that increase power efficiency. They're not the same cores.
 
Bug-Creator said:
Actually IT IS like G4 vs. G5.

Slightly higher clocks, a bit more and faster RAM and support for various bits. Clock by clock the difference was small and in some cases the G4 was even faster then a G5.
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The front side bus speed of the G5 alone was almost faster than the G4 clock speed, that is what held the G4 back.
Not to mention the G5 was 64 bit.
 
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erikkfi said:
For all the old-timers, this isn't like G4 to G5. It's more like G3/333 to G3/500.
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Not entirely. There wasn’t much changed to the chips except the speed. You’re not wrong, I wouldn’t call it a complete transition like the G3 to G4… however, the transition from G3 to the G4 wasn’t a HUGE difference compared to 68k to G3 or G4 to G5 (that was seismic).

The G4 was essentially Motorola using the existing G3 from IBM, but adding the Velocity Engine (then years later, crippling it with a terribly slow frontside bus 🤢). I’d say from vanilla M1 to M2, it is a G3 to G4 equivalent, but coming from the M1 Pro, Max or Ultra… it’s a modest update.

If you’re switching from Intel, this is the update for you or wait until the M3.
 
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falkon-engine said:
Xeons use different lithography libraries compared to Core… Xeons have more cache and even more cores, so they’re not analogous. For example, the upcoming meteor lake will be built on Intel 4, which is essentially a node that is using pure high performance libraries, but the subsequent Granite Rapids Xeons will be built on Intel 3, which uses a combination of high performance and high density libraries. Xeons and Core are different.

Apple on the other hand is literally using the same avalanche and blizzard cores from iPhone 13 in the m2 with of course some other mac specific tech like thunderbolt.

Given that macs have a higher power envelope and better cooling capacity than the iPhone, why lead with iPhone instead of leading with Mac? It’s a situation where the iPhone gets the best cores and the Mac/iPads are at least a year behind. M1 is based on a14 cores from over 2 years ago. iPhone 14 pro with a16 will launch in September before m2 pro / max are on sale, and a16 will be 2 whole generations ahead of m1 pro/max ultra. It matters because the newer generations have higher single threaded performance. Apple is charging more for its macs yet is giving them cores with lower single threaded capability as compared to the cores in the iPhone. To my mind it doesn’t make sense. Apple should synchronize the core designs. A Mac launched in a given year should have the same cores (or even newer ones) than the iPhone.
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I am similarly slightly disappointed that the Mac chips are so far behind the iPhone. Given that the next revision of the the MacBook Pros and Mac Pro aren't going to be here for a while, perhaps they could choose to skip M2 chip with the pro line and go directly to an M3 pro based on the iPhone 16 chips?
 
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So will the next MBP 14 / 16 have an M2 chip in, do we think? Presumably it will have one incarnation. Will it be an M2 or an 'M2 Pro' etc? Is it worth waiting on this compared to an M1 Pro? My 2015 MBP is creaking and so it's when to upgrade, not if!
 
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Billrey said:
I am similarly slightly disappointed that the Mac chips are so far behind the iPhone. Given that the next revision of the the MacBook Pros and Mac Pro aren't going to be here for a while, perhaps they could choose to skip M2 chip with the pro line and go directly to an M3 pro based on the iPhone 16 chips?
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For now, but I would expect there to be some divergence in development pipeline as time marches onward. It’s best to walk before you can run, especially with using an SOC to power an OS that was running on soldered, modular component. Using the A-series as a starting point isn‘t a bad idea.

If I were to guess, probably in five years the A and M chip teams will have different goals and opportunities to pursue within the design of these chips. It’s not going to happen overnight, especially when these Macs have barely been out for 2 years. There isn’t enough data yet.
 
teh_hunterer said:
Not when you've made improvements to the architecture that increase power efficiency. They're not the same cores.
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Wrong. Any increase to frequency via multipliers or base clock requires a new voltage setting is is higher. Have you never overclocked?
 
bgillander said:
Are you sure? That doesn’t really match up with yesterday’s article’s reviews.

“TheStreet's Jacob Krol said the new 13-inch MacBook Pro delivers even more impressive battery life compared to the previous model:”
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Battery life is one thing. Clock, frequency and voltages are another. It is already established the M2 uses more power than the M1 by Apple themselves. Just because the battery lasts that long doesn't negate that fact. It just means the efficiency cores are able to keep up when power draw is low.
 
Spock said:
Not to mention the G5 was 64 bit.
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Yup that gives you the possibility for more RAM. Databus had been 64Bit with the G4.
The G4 also had the better Altivec implemention, so putting the 1.6 or 1.8GHz single G5 models against a G4 upgraded to the same clock would have given very mixed results.

So the G5 was a minor upgrade in performance but did offer a modernisation in terms of RAM and I/O not much difference to what the M2 offers over a M1.
 
jav6454 said:
Wrong. Any increase to frequency via multipliers or base clock requires a new voltage setting is is higher. Have you never overclocked?
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Wait, when you overclock you actually change your chip process node? /s

Yes, when you try to speed up your existing cpu you usually use more voltage. When you change chips, the rest of the equation also changes.
 
bgillander said:
Wait, when you overclock you actually change your chip process node? /s

Yes, when you try to speed up your existing cpu you usually use more voltage. When you change chips, the rest of the equation also changes.
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Yes, but in this case, given Apple's charts that power increased vs M1, then it stands to make sense that voltage went up.
 
jav6454 said:
Yes, but in this case, given Apple's charts that power increased vs M1, then it stands to make sense that voltage went up.
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Sure, but he was talking in absolutes, which is not true. Stating it uses more energy when you try to do work discounts the fact they state it is 25% faster at the same energy usage, so even if it uses more energy at peak, it is still more efficient. If your new car uses 2% more gas to go 10% faster, or 80% of the gas to go the same speed, at is still more efficient since you will have more energy left in the tank when you get to you destination.
 
bgillander said:
Sure, but he was talking in absolutes, which is not true. Stating it uses more energy when you try to do work discounts the fact they state it is 25% faster at the same energy usage, so even if it uses more energy at peak, it is still more efficient. If your new car uses 2% more gas to go 10% faster, or 80% of the gas to go the same speed, at is still more efficient since you will have more energy left in the tank when you get to you destination.
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You are increasing power for performance gains. Yes, the chip is more efficient, but it's drawing more power regardless. More efficiency actually means doing more with the same or less. In this case, it's just reducing energy increase, but there is one.
 
progx said:
Not entirely. There wasn’t much changed to the chips except the speed. You’re not wrong, I wouldn’t call it a complete transition like the G3 to G4… however, the transition from G3 to the G4 wasn’t a HUGE difference compared to 68k to G3 or G4 to G5 (that was seismic).

The G4 was essentially Motorola using the existing G3 from IBM, but adding the Velocity Engine (then years later, crippling it with a terribly slow frontside bus 🤢). I’d say from vanilla M1 to M2, it is a G3 to G4 equivalent, but coming from the M1 Pro, Max or Ultra… it’s a modest update.

If you’re switching from Intel, this is the update for you or wait until the M3.
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It will likely be the update for me to take replace my 2018 Mac mini when Apple releases a M2 Mac mini. I'm expecting that to be announced in September. Should be a huge upgrade for me. Though very few files that I work with are large enough or complicated enough for me to notice a difference. Honestly will be partly doing it for the electricity savings and the heat reduction in my home office. My 2018 Mac mini with only 8 gb of RAM works fine for my office workflow, so it just a "nice to have" upgrade and not a need to have upgrade.
 
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Billrey said:
perhaps they could choose to skip M2 chip with the pro line and go directly to an M3 pro based on the iPhone 16 chips?
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They could… they probably should. Assuming 18 months between m1 pro, max, ultra and their successors, by then, TSMC 3nm should be in high volume production. So Apple could use the latest and greatest cores. Rather than using dated a15 cores on 5nm. Don’t get me wrong, i think what apple has done with apple silicon is impressive. But it’s a bit weird that the more expensive macs get dated cores compared to the less expensive iPhone.
 
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