Picture: Apple.
Apple yesterday unveiled its new in-house M2 chip, designed specifically for Macs. This chip opens the second generation of Apple Silicon.
Introduced at WWDC 2022, the M2 chip features an 18% faster CPU, 35% faster GPU, faster neural engine, and 50% more memory bandwidth than the generation former.
It will be available on the MacBook Air and the 13-inch MacBook Pro.
Since 2020, Apple has gradually reduced its use of Intel chips in favor of its in-house chips built from Apple Silicon.
More power for less energy
The M2’s system-on-chip (SoC) is designed using second-generation 5-nanometer technology. It consists of 20 billion transistors, an increase of 25% over the M1.
Compared to its predecessor, the M1 chip, the new M2 chip offers 18% higher multicore CPU performance. According to Apple, its processor even offers almost twice the performance of the latest laptop chip, at equal power.
Highlighting the energy efficiency of its own silicon, Apple says the M2 chip offers almost 90% of the maximum performance of the latest 12-core laptop chip while consuming only a quarter of its power.
Improved graphics performance
The M2 also features Apple’s next-generation GPU, which now has up to 10 cores. Combined with a larger cache memory and wider memory bandwidth, the M2 GPU can significantly improve graphics performance. These are up to 25% higher at the same power level as the M1, and up to 35% higher at max.
Compared to graphics cards integrated into the latest laptop chip, the M2’s GPU delivers 2.3x faster performance at the same power level.
Additionally, the M2 enables the maximum performance of the PC chip using only one-fifth of the power.
one more thing
The M2 chip also incorporates Apple’s latest custom SoC technologies, including its Secure Enclave and next-generation Neural Engine.
The new chip also features Apple’s next-generation multimedia engine, including a higher-bandwidth video decoder that supports 8K H.264 and HEVC video.
Source: ZDNet.com