M2 13-Inch MacBook Pro With 256GB SSD Appears Slower Than Equivalent M1 in Real-World Speed Tests

[hans1972]

Apple blatantly promotes this new M2 13" Pro as "1.4x" faster than the M1 version of the same product but doesn't disclose that the base configuration does not deliver "1.4x" more and is in fact markedly slower than the base configuration of the 256GB M1 13" Pro on many metrics.

In other words, Apple is straight up lying on the M2 13" Pro product page.

No, Apple is talking about the M2 compared to the M1. SSD storage itself isn't part of the M2 SoC.

Here is the text from Apple's website:

"The M2 chip begins the next generation of Apple silicon, with even more of the speed and power efficiency introduced by M1. So you can rip through workflows with a more powerful 8-core CPU. Create stunning graphics with a lightning‑fast 10‑core GPU. Work with more streams of 4K and 8K ProRes video with the high-performance media engine. And do it all at once with up to 24GB of faster unified memory.

Up to1.4x faster than M1 model 2

Up to 6x faster than Intel-based model 2

Up to 20 hrs battery life 2

[...]

2.Testing conducted by Apple in May 2022 using preproduction 13‑inch MacBook Pro systems with Apple M2, 8‑core CPU, 10‑core GPU, and 24GB of RAM, and production 13‑inch MacBook Pro systems with Apple M1, 8‑core CPU, 8‑core GPU, and 16GB of RAM, all configured with 2TB SSD, as well as production 1.7GHz quad-core Intel Core i7-based 13‑inch MacBook Pro systems with Intel Iris Plus Graphics 645, 16GB of RAM, and 2TB SSD. Final Cut Pro 10.6.2 tested using a complex 2-minute project with 4K ProRes 422 media. Performance tests are conducted using specific computer systems and reflect the approximate performance of MacBook Pro.
"

 

[gpat]

No, Apple is talking about the M2 compared to the M1. SSD storage itself isn't part of the M2 SoC.

It's still a misleading statement.
Apple is not selling you a boxed M2 chip like Intel or AMD would do. They're selling whole machines only.
If it performs worse compared to its equivalent M1 counterpart, their statements can't be proven true.

 

[hans1972]

The fact that they still sell 256 GB and 8 GB in 2022 is the same kind of money pinching that is going on with 64 Gb iPhones. My MBP in 2012 had that configuration already.

I hate to say it but at least Steve Jobs valued user experience somewhat when making business decisions

For a lot of people the need for local storage has gone down the last decade due to cloud services.

By using cloud services you only need a subset of your data locally at any point in time.

This modell will be popular with enterprises and companies where local storage is frowned upon. They'll store their files in OneDrive, Teams, SharePoint and other online storage services.

 

[cupcakes2000]

It does have worse real world performance. This whole article is about this issue.

Nope. This is not ‘real world’. Real world fcp users don’t use 8gb base machines. They don’t buy 256gb internal storage if that’s what they’re relying on. They don’t work very well, and they never have.

 

[hans1972]

The Surface Pro 1 (which I bought) in 2013 had a 64GB SSD and I remember the outcry about this at the time. At least it had an SD card slot and the SSD was technically upgradable if you could get it open.

2022, iPad's still rocking 64GB with no expandability. It's deplorable.

Well, Microsoft just released a Surface model with 128Gb SSD and 4Gb RAM with a screen resolution less than 1080p.
And it's aimed at the business market.

 

[gpat]

Nope. This is not ‘real world’. Real world fcp users don’t use 8gb base machines. They don’t work very well, and they never have.

The whole YouTube community has been bragging about baseline M1 MBAs outperforming top-end Intel machines in Final Cut Pro.
So I guess $5000 Intel MBPs are being used by exactly 0 users for FCP right now.

 

[hans1972]

I believe that the rest of the industry has moved away from 128GB to higher capacities. But Apple (and Microsoft) still wants to continue to fleece its loyal userbase by not moving in tandem. Thats the reason I guess why 128 GB RAM modules are hard to come by. Apple should have set the standard and offered everyone minimum of 512GB (2 x 256GB NAND modules). There will not be another RAMGATE because Apple has no choice but to stop buying 128GB RAM modules. So its too bad if you want to buy the base model....just expect lower transfer speeds. Oh and please expect the same issues with the shiny new Macbook Air base model.

I'm pretty sure every PC manufacture is offering even 128Gb SSD for there laptops. And 4Gb of RAM. And Celeron CPUs.

Dell Latitude 3120 is such an example.

 

[hans1972]

It does have worse real world performance. This whole article is about this issue.
SSD speed is a core component of system performance. For the last 2 years, people have been buying Macs with only 8GB RAM because swapping to the SSD was so fast that you could hardly tell.
Now they've added a bottleneck to force upgrades towards either larger RAM or SSD sizes.
But I'd expect no less from the company selling iMacs with 5400rpm drives all the way until 2021.

But sequential read and writes affects some workflows more than others. In many workflows it doesn't really influence the experience at all.

Random reads is usually more important for most tasks not involving large data sets.

So what's the difference in random read speeds?

 

[hans1972]

It's still a misleading statement.
Apple is not selling you a boxed M2 chip like Intel or AMD would do. They're selling whole machines only.
If it performs worse compared to its equivalent M1 counterpart, their statements can't be proven true.

The 1.4x performance claim is in a section about the M2. You have to read information in context.

Take a look yourself at https://www.apple.com/macbook-pro-13/

There is no doubt they're comparing M2 to M1.

 

[babyexercise]

This doesn’t make sense. Wtf was Apple thinking?

Apple was thinking
Save some cost
More $$$

 

[cupcakes2000]

The whole YouTube community has been bragging about baseline M1 MBAs outperforming top-end Intel machines in Final Cut Pro.
So I guess $5000 Intel MBPs are being used by exactly 0 users for FCP right now.

That doesn’t mean anything. I’m talking about real users not the ‘whole YouTube community’. That’s like coming to macrumours and only deciding something based solely on the views here.

Base m1 MacBook airs are great and do out perform other machines in and above their class.

But your conflating everything - and nothing needs conflating. Each has its own place. If it doesn’t fit? Choose something else.

 

[ZipZap]

NOBODY uses an M2‌ MacBook Pro with 256GB SSD for professional work. Still, this issue should not exist.

 

[cupcakes2000]

NOBODY uses an M2‌ MacBook Pro with 256GB SSD for professional work. Still, this issue should not exist.

What issue? Slower ssd speeds on the base model compared to higher end specs? Or slower ssd compared to the previous model? I don’t think either of those points are entirely worth what’s destined to become an I hate Apple / I love Apple mega thread.

 

[Malkie0831]

This has surely to do with Apple reducing Inventory? The MBP 13” model probably only exists as they have stocks of the chassis unsold, and now manufacturing have to stock one size of SSD chip less than before. That’s why it is being sold at the same price as the M1 model. Yes they should “fess up” and admit it has lower performance, but will it hit sales?

 

[cupcakes2000]

This has surely to do with Apple reducing Inventory? The MBP 13” model probably only exists as they have stocks of the chassis unsold, and now manufacturing have to stock one size of SSD chip less than before. That’s why it is being sold at the same price as the M1 model. Yes they should “fess up” and admit it has lower performance, but will it hit sales?

Perhaps they launched their m1 with the absolute best they could muster - to blow everything out of the water. Including striped nand ssd (if that was how these dual ssd modules worked). Perhaps now they wish to ‘get back to reality’ and are reducing costs on the lower end by just using single ssd modules, but due to the m2 feel that it doesn’t impact performance to much considering the use case for these base machines.

 

[CWallace]

This has surely to do with Apple reducing Inventory? The MBP 13” model probably only exists as they have stocks of the chassis unsold, and now manufacturing have to stock one size of SSD chip less than before. That’s why it is being sold at the same price as the M1 model. Yes they should “fess up” and admit it has lower performance, but will it hit sales?

Apple moves literally millions of these every year (they claim it is the second-best selling laptop, period, after the Air) so you can be pretty sure that they kept the old case for reasons other than because they have them lying around in a warehouse in Shenzen.

And you can order this 13" M2 MBP with 1TB or 2TB of storage, which use paired 512GB or 1TB storage modules, respectively. And, as I noted, Apple still sells at least three Macs models that use the same 128GB SSD storage modules the M1 13" MacBook Pro used so it does not seem to be a critical supply chain constraint that drove the decision.

At this point, I am inclined to believe they went to a single 256GB module to lower their costs to maintain the same $1299 price that the M1 model sold for.

 

[Kayakphotos]

I usually roll my eyes at the things that we get fired up with around here, but I have to admit that I am with the consensus opinion on this one. Having a product perform worse is simply uncalled for in my opinion, especially when all the elements are designed by Apple. It's not like they can blame intel for introducing an inferior chipset...

I'm not in the market for this product anyway as an M1 air owner, but as someone who owns the 256gb model of the air, I know that I would have been frustrated to find out something like this. I have 16GB of RAM, which would minimize the effects to some extent, but it would still irk me a lot to see a decrease in performance from a previous year.

 

[sevoneone]

I think where this is going to sting the most is for people that do a lot of video editing. Anyone on a budget probably wouldn't hesitate to save $200 and just CTO the base model with 16GB of RAM since most video editing still uses external drives. I am going to guess that even with 16GB there is still going to be a bottleneck as the data for the video you are encoding still has to load/swap from disk to RAM to be encoded.

I am curious though, does the bottleneck that shows up in the benchmark exporting 4k HEVC video only show up when the data is being both read and written to the internal SSD? What if I am reading from an external SSD and writing to the internal or vise versa?

 

[magbarn]

I'm pretty sure every PC manufacture is offering even 128Gb SSD for there laptops. And 4Gb of RAM. And Celeron CPUs.

Dell Latitude 3120 is such an example.

For less than half the price and you can at least upgrade the SSD.

 

[magbarn]

Apple moves literally millions of these every year (they claim it is the second-best selling laptop, period, after the Air) so you can be pretty sure that they kept the old case for reasons other than because they have them lying around in a warehouse in Shenzen.

And you can order this 13" M2 MBP with 1TB or 2TB of storage, which use paired 512GB or 1TB storage modules, respectively. And, as I noted, Apple still sells at least three Macs models that use the same 128GB SSD storage modules the M1 13" MacBook Pro used so it does not seem to be a critical supply chain constraint that drove the decision.

At this point, I am inclined to believe they went to a single 256GB module to lower their costs to maintain the same $1299 price that the M1 model sold for.

Ram and SSD prices have fallen to below pre-pandemic levels. They should be able to sell the same SSD performance or throw a bone and make 512gb the base storage with 1TB as the upgrade.

 

[7149041]

Is this te famous "M2 laptop faster than the Mac Pro"? 😏

 

[portland-dude]

Not sure why there's another post about this. In the past, I remember seeing smaller capacity of SSD has a lower speed rating than larger capacity, SanDisk and Samsung. In this case, I don't really see this as a dealbreaker or issue.

Yep. The last gen MBA 11 inch versus 13 had the same “issue”. Just different SSD modules.

 

[Stridr69]

Dang! Apple is good at selling old crap in a newer shell.
It’s like those food packages that adverts with “Now with a new improved receipt!”, which means ”Got worse to save costs, added more artificial junk“.

Apple should reuse the old Intel Inside slogan, but with…
Apple - Junk Inside!

Now THAT'S a great take....

 

[babyexercise]

A lot of people don't know specs and just believe M2 would be fastest. Apple focus on selling old laptop with new mark up price to these non technical people.

 

[sevoneone]

Ram and SSD prices have fallen to below pre-pandemic levels. They should be able to sell the same SSD performance or throw a bone and make 512gb the base storage with 1TB as the upgrade.

Any Mac that has a base price over $1,200 should have a 512gb SSD standard.

Whoever at Apple is working on the M2 updates for the iMac, take note of all of this. Because you currently have to be in $1,699 before you can get a desktop with Ethernet and 512gb of storage...