Some rumors are circulating that Apple will soon release a Mac with an Apple M2 chip. How fast will it be?
Some say that the M2 will be slightly slower than the M1 Pro and M1 Max. However, Jason Cross from Macworld predicts that an upgrade from M1 to M2 is like an upgrade from A14 to A15.
"M2 versus M1 is like A15 versus A14. M1 is based on the basic architecture of the A14, then increased the number of high-performance CPU cores (from two to four) and the number of GPU cores increased (from four to eight)," explains Cross.
So, according to Cross, to predict the M2's ability, we can assume that its performance will follow the same pattern, namely an increase from A14 to A15, with a faster number of CPU cores and more GPU cores.
"As for M2 Max, we assume using the same scale as M1 to M1 Max. CPU cores will be replaced to 2 efficient and 8 performance, while GPU cores are increased four times from M1," he added.
However, Cross will not include the performance gains obtained from TSMC's new 4nm process used in the M2. That can increase performance, extend battery life, or a combination of both.
From this assumption, if M1 has a single core score of 1706 on Geekbench 5, then M2 is estimated to have a score of 1829. As for multi-core, if M1 scores 7391, then M2 is estimated to be 8837.
While for the M1 Max, the single core score is 1,747 and the M2 Max is estimated to have a score of 1,873. For multi-core, the M1 Max score is 12,238, and the M2 Max is expected to hit 14,632.
The score of almost 9000 for multicore on the M2 is quite high for a thin laptop like the MacBook Air. Meanwhile, the score that reaches 14,000 for the M2 Max makes it faster than the Core i9 Alder Lake which has 14 cores, with (supposedly) much lower power consumption.