As per Apple Tech Specs, 58.2-watt-hour lithium-polymer battery, same as M1.
That higher clock always requires higher voltage theory does not hold up across different CPU architectures and process nodes.
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M1 vs. M2 Chip Buyer's Guide: How Much Better Really Is M2?
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That higher clock always requires higher voltage theory does not hold up across different CPU architectures and process nodes.
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!
M1 Macbook Air = 49.9 watt-hour
M2 Macbook Air = 52.6 watt-hour
Has anyone figured out why the m2 still can not run two displays?
Seems that the GPU is powerful enough.
Seems that the GPU is powerful enough.
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.
Not when you've made improvements to the architecture that increase power efficiency. They're not the same cores.
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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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.
Improvements are there for sure but it is not worth it to upgrade for anyone with an M1 Mac!
Sexy for a passively cooled machine would be a smaller footprint than a piece of paper and < 2 lbs...
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?
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.
Wrong. Any increase to frequency via multipliers or base clock requires a new voltage setting is is higher. Have you never overclocked?
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.
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.
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.
Yes, but in this case, given Apple's charts that power increased vs M1, then it stands to make sense that voltage went up.
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.
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.
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.
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.