Thursday, June 16th 2022
Apple M2 CPU & GPU Benchmarks Surface on Geekbench
The recently announced Apple M2 processor which is set to feature in the new MacBook Air and 13-inch MacBook Pro models has been benchmarked. The processor appeared in numerous Geekbench 5 CPU & GPU tests where the chip scored a maximum single-core result of 1919 points and 8928 points in multi-core representing an 11% and 18% CPU performance improvement respectively from the M1. The chip brings significant GPU performance increases achieving a Geekbench Metal score of 30627 points which is a ~42% increase from the M1 partially due to a larger 10-core GPU compared to the 8-core GPU on the M1. These initial numbers largely align with claims from Apple of an 18% CPU and 35% GPU improvement over the original M1.
Sources:
Geekbench #1, #2, #3, #4
27 Comments on Apple M2 CPU & GPU Benchmarks Surface on Geekbench
PS Something that plays games is universally known as an actual toy.
Here's a hint for you Apple - if you don't want to open your ecosystem, at least give a chance to OEMs to build linux or windows laptops based on the M CPUs. That would definitely put pressure on Intel and AMD. But enough of this nonsense ... Microsoft would never adapt Windows to M based devices, look how well Windows on ARM is doing (not). And as much as I hate Microsoft, I must admit that Windows on ARM failure is not MS fault, it's just too hard to crate new ecosystem that's competitive with existing ones: x86 with Linux and Windows, Android on ARM and Apple iOS/MacOS.
As for M2 scores, when comparing to M1 scores they do not seem to have made all that much progress in CPU. CPU scores are slightly faster but looking at some better M1 scores - in mac mini for example - singlecore result is 10% better and multicore 15% better while stated clocks are 3.5 vs 3.2 GHz, a 9% difference in favor of M2. GPU is both bigger and definitely benefits from all that additional memory bandwidth so that 35% improvement is very nice.
I'm not sure if it just full out can't or if apple isn't allowing it to hype their pro line with the more expensive chips, which actually come with the ports you'd need for work. And I know their are hoops you can jump through to kinda do it but you aren't getting multiple 4k 60hz from those jumps.
13" HP ultrabook with i5 8250U (cost when purchased 2,2k eur), 16GB RAM, 512GB NVMe
and
13" MacBook Pro M1 (cost when purchased 1,9k eur), 16GB RAM, 512GB NVMe.
I only use single monitor, so thats all i need and they both suit me there.
M1 does the same workload as HP much faster at much lower power consumption.
Speaking of games. I don't play much, but one game that runs on both of them i can compare.
both laptops closed, using external monitor and measuring only laptop+charger power draw.
on HP, lowest settings hardly reaching 60fps, consuming 30W
on M1, mid to high settings easily running 60fps, consuming 15W
I am not an apple fanboy, but to me, apple is winning by far for my workloads
Not like Microsoft had to pressure OEM's about spinning drives. www.techpowerup.com/295683/oems-under-pressure-from-microsoft-to-stop-use-of-hdds-as-boot-drives-from-2023
There's nothing wrong about having complete control over your hardware and software stack and that comes with advantages. But it also leads to artificial crippling, where apple cripples various products to force you into a high price range. With M series chips this gets bad. We know the M1 supported more than two external monitors because people jumped through hoops to make it so, but officially it does not and it's a PITA and they can take it away. So dual external monitors and standard stuff (USB, HDMI, SD card) are all mashed onto the higher end pro models that use the Pro and Max chips.
There are plenty of prosumer situations where the M2 air or M2 pro would make more sense from a usage standard but also want dual monitors. But they force you up a bracket.
Compare that Pro M1 vs an ultrabook with a Ryzen 9 6900HS, which can be had for under $2K, for your workloads.
You'd see generational lift in performance depending on what you do of course.
As we all know, intel was stagnating so it wasnt a surprise to find 2017 CPUs in laptops.
I now checked what can we get today. The best of ryzen is Lenovo thinkpad x13 with R7 5850U for almost 1,8k eur (16GB ram, 512GB nvme)
On the intel part, its the Dell latitude with i7-1185G7 for 1,7k eur. And to nobodys surprise is again a 4 core cpu.
Speaking of M1 being 8 core. If system information is showing cpu usage correctly, then i would say it never uses those 8 cores all together. Maxes out at 50% total cpu, which is probably 4 performance cores working. So technicaly is works as 4 core cpu.