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So we have an independent review out on thermals:


It seems, as I expected and correctly assumed, the M2 is a much hotter chip. Meaning people wanting those M2 MBAs will be in for a toasty surprise.

Mind y'all, that even if the M2 MBP has issues with the fan curve right now, one can use 3rd party software to fix that or Apple can issue a firmware update to fix it. But you can't fix power draw/heat generation.
 
This video is pretty alarming: Slower SSD's in the m2 pro.
Well, it's not as it seems. Apple decided not use parallelism.

If you look at the video which exposed the logic board, in the M2 MBP, out of the 2x possible NAND chips, only one was installed. That means write/read speeds were essentially cut in half.

So what is happening is that Apple is getting cheaper NAND chips and is using 1 instead 2 and still charging crazy prices for upgrades.
 
Well, it's not as it seems. Apple decided not use parallelism.

If you look at the video which exposed the logic board, in the M2 MBP, out of the 2x possible NAND chips, only one was installed. That means write/read speeds were essentially cut in half.

So what is happening is that Apple is getting cheaper NAND chips and is using 1 instead 2 and still charging crazy prices for upgrades.
Another YouTuber (Greg’s Gadgets) tested out the SSD speeds on the M2 MBP and it was pretty much identical with the speed of the M1 SSD. He got 2300 mb/s write and 2800 mb/s read.

Since only the 256 and 512gb SSD are available, it’s either that only the 256gb model gets the slower SSD or he won the SSD lottery which I hope it’s not the latter.
 
Another YouTuber (Greg’s Gadgets) tested out the SSD speeds on the M2 MBP and it was pretty much identical with the speed of the M1 SSD. He got 2300 mb/s write and 2800 mb/s read.

Since only the 256 and 512gb SSD are only available, it’s either that only the 256gb model gets the slower SSD or he won the SSD lottery which I hope it’s not the latter.
Likely Apple is using 2x 128GB NAND or 1x 256GB NAND modules on the 256GB Mac. If the later happens, then parallelism takes a hit and read/write speeds are cut in half.
 
You can move stuff around to decrease power draw, but without a node reduction the decrease in power draw will be minimal next to negligible.

I looked into this a little more. According to Anandtech, TSMC claims that from their original 'N5' process (A14, M1) to their 'N5P' process (A15, M2), you get a 5% frequency increase for the same power. Obviously, Apple has chosen to ramp the clock speeds up more than 5%, thus higher power consumption. Interesting. And something I suppose we all should have foreseen as it was telegraphed in the difference between the A14 and A15.
 
I looked into this a little more. According to Anandtech, TSMC claims that from their original 'N5' process (A14, M1) to their 'N5P' process (A15, M2), you get a 5% frequency increase for the same power. Obviously, Apple has chosen to ramp the clock speeds up more than 5%, thus higher power consumption. Interesting. And something I suppose we all should have foreseen as it was telegraphed in the difference between the A14 and A15.
N5P allows better node utilization a la FinFET, in essence a node reduction effect. Agreed on your secondary points.
 
Posted elsewhere here as well, but just caught this thread lol. My 15 year old is coming from a mid-2013 MBP and working now wants an upgrade. Only being in high school but wanting to keep this for a number of years MBA is the choice but no clue if she needs the M2. Not doing heavy workloads, is working in a budget. Thinking below based on this scenario:

M1- 8/512
M2- 8/256

Not anticiopating using up HD space either
 
My only reason to update to a machine with an M2 processor from one with an M1 processor is that I need something in the new machine that I do not have in my current machine. The M2 to M1 performance improvement is basically negligible for most use cases (I am not referring to those using FCP or Lightroom or Photoshop etc. on an MBA who might notice the improvement, but even then it is not earth shattering). However I need 2 TB on my MBA (don't ask 🙃) and my current M1 based model is 1 TB so I need to upgrade either to an M1 MBA with 2TB (which they have now conveniently killed, much to my chagrin) or try and get the new M2 based MBA for which I will probably have to wait 6 months.

So it is not the M2 that makes the upgrade needed for me but SSD space. The improved web cam is nice but not particularly interesting. The new lighter body is nice, but again the current one is fine. The new slightly larger screen is nice, but not necessary. The MagSafe connector is a good upgrade and will probably save my machine. Improved battery life (yet to be verified) will be welcome. But that extra 1 TB is a must and the old M1 MBA would have sufficed but is no longer available. And yes I have a 1 TB OWC Envoy Express hanging off my machine at the moment to give me the space, but it is a pain to manager physically.

The M2 is an iterative and welcome update to the M1, but not a reason for which to trade your current M1 machine in my opinion. If you are hitting the end stops on performance in an M1 MBA, then I might humbly suggest you go for the 14" Pro with the M1 Pro or M1 Max, since I am not sure the M2 based machines will give you much relief.
 
So from the comment section, the general consensus is that if you already have an m1 mac, you don't have to upgrade to the m2. But how about those who are on the market for a macbook?

I'm looking between a 14inch m1 macbook pro (512gb/16gb) at SGD2,999.00 and a 13inch m2 macbook pro (512gb/16gb) at SGD2,479.00.

My wife's just going to do mostly office stuff and some simple video editing, while I'll do some frontend dev stuff (react, next, node, etc).

Will it be ok to try and save that SGD500 and go with the smaller more recent m2?
 
But will it speed up the Russian ransomware, so I can give up and go outside sooner? 🤪🤬
 
For all the old-timers, this isn't like G4 to G5. It's more like G3/333 to G3/500.
Not sure this is a very good analogy... actually tbh I'm not 100% sure what you mean here.

333 -> 500 would have been quite a big jump (50%+), whereas a G4 to G5 at similar clockspeeds wouldn't have been much of anything for the vast majority of tasks.

...and the M1 vs M2 is only a modest bump.
 
Not sure this is a very good analogy... actually tbh I'm not 100% sure what you mean here.

333 -> 500 would have been quite a big jump (50%+), whereas a G4 to G5 at similar clockspeeds wouldn't have been much of anything for the vast majority of tasks.

...and the M1 vs M2 is only a modest bump.

I think what he’s meaning that the transition to the G4 from the G3 didn’t require a lot of overhaul. It wasn’t a significant jump, whereas the G4 to the G5 required some elbow grease. For example, booting into OS 9 was completely not possible since the G3/G4 came from the same base: PowerPC 750, the G5 was the 970 and pretty different. It was the prelude to the Intel transition if you look at it now.

The G4 was basically a G3 with AltiVec and some newer features. While my parents 2004 eMac was faster and better than their old 1999 iMac, once I maxed out the RAM to 1GB, you wouldn’t have known the difference for basic tasks. The brakes would’ve hit for certain processor features found on the G4 and the G3 would be stopped. Going from the M1 to M2, everything works as it should. The same was true from the G3 to the G4.

The G5… aside from no OS 9 (Classic mode), some minor tweaking and reworking needed to be done for apps to run on it. There is a mountain between the 750/74XX and the 970. The latter was a server grade processor derived from POWER4, plus it was entirely 64 bit where the others were 32.

The M1 to M2 is similar to the G3 to G4 in terms of transition.
 
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I was really impressed with the M1.
This wasn't a huge leap and frankly, I'm a bit disappointed that they had to crank the clock up by 10% to get that improvement. It's a risky move, considering you can't just do that with every upgrade.

But all considered, it's not even one of those horribly lazy Intel upgrades from the days before Ryzen.
It's just a decente incremental upgrade. You don't need it if you have an M1, it's welcome for everyone else.
What? It's a new chip! Cuz you don't want one you shouldn't be advising people with misinformation. CPU ^ 18%. GPU ^ 35%. SELL YOUR M1s PEOPLE AND MOVE ON UP!
 
What? It's a new chip! Cuz you don't want one you shouldn't be advising people with misinformation. CPU ^ 18%. GPU ^ 35%. SELL YOUR M1s PEOPLE AND MOVE ON UP!
A) calm the heck down.
B) you should never use benchmarks without mentioning the source.
C) you should never use benchmarks without mentioning the test that’s been used.
D) you should never use a single benchmark, always compare at least two or three, they rarely give the same result
E) you should never just trust benchmarks provided by the manufacturer. They usually choose the one that gives the best result. See point G).
F) you should mention if the benchmark is single core or multicore.
G) you should mention... what the benchmark even is about! You picked Apple's very ambiguous power/performance benchmarks, not just the raw power ones that most people care about. You probably didn't even know that. Well, that kind of benchmark claimed the Mac Studio has a GPU as good as a 3090 and... it's just not true for the maximum power, it is in a low-consumption scenario that's very convenient for Apple but not what most GPU users care about.
H) it’s a new chip but surely not a complete architectural change like the M1.
I) it’s a new chip but not even a complete generational redesign. All CPU manufacturers use about the same structure for two or three generations before making any major changes (M2 has the same NM process and same core count).
J) you shouldn't just trust me but read basically all relevant tech reviewers agreeing is a welcome but ultimately unimpressive update, nothing to sell your computer for.

In conclusion, you've made a long list of very noob mistakes, replied rudely and called my post misinformation. You can save this for the next time you try to talk about CPUs and GPUs. You're welcome.
(And if you were being sarcastic, as I hope, you still just passed as rude).
 
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So, the MBP-M2 is slower SSD and hotter (throttling) chip than its M1 version. Is the story the same with the MacBookAir-M2?
 
If you have a M1 Mac you really don’t need this. Heck, if you have a Mac as far back as 2017 you don’t need this. Upgrade only when Apple stops supporting your Mac with macOS releases.
Well stated point on the longevity of Apple products.
 
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