In short, Apple has been able to increase performance. The efficiency of the new SoCs will be discussed in further detail in a separate article. Based on pure CPU consumption, we see a 25% higher consumption under maximum load. In the new M2 Pro, the CPU now consumes 34 watts, although the internal powermetrics utility no longer displays the package power. In the old M1 Pro with 8 P cores, we measured a consumption of 27 watts and 31 watts for the CPU cores at full load. The M2 Pro in our review device offers an efficiency cluster of 4 cores and two performance clusters of 4 cores each, so a total of 12 cores and 12 threads. For a MacBook in maximum configuration with the M2 Max, 96 GB RAM and 8 TB SSD storage, the final price is US$6,798.98. The surcharges for the SSDs also remain extremely high (for example, US$200 from 512 GB to 1 TB), considering that a fast PCIe 4.0 SSD in M.2 format is already available for around US$120. So if you want the M2 Max, you'll have to pay US$1,100 more than the basic model. The RAM prices in particular are considerable: an upgrade from 16 to 32 GB RAM will set you back US$400. Despite the increased base price, the upgrades have also become more expensive. Moreover, Apple has increased the maximum possible size of the shared RAM to 96 GB. The big difference between the M2 Pro and M2 Max is once again the integrated graphics card, which now also has significantly more cores. In single-core operation, the P-cores are able to reach up to 3,504 MHz on the M2 Pro and even up to 3,696 MHz on the M2 Max. The efficiency cores reach a maximum of 2,424 MHz and the performance cores a maximum of 3,264 MHz in multi-core operation. The notch above the display is still not particularly pretty, but functionally there are no more problems here and the display area next to the notch is superimposed on the normal 16:10, so you have more space for menu elements compared to other 16:10 panels.Īs with the last generation, CPU performance is almost identical, but the new M2 chips now support single-core boost. In practice, the automatic regulation of brightness and color temperature is extremely practical.
The black level of the mini-LED panel is just 0.02, which results in an extremely high contrast. In normal SDR mode, the brightness in the center of the screen is exactly 500 cd/m², so Apple has calibrated it very well. For example, as soon as a corresponding YouTube video starts, the panel then benefits from the higher brightness. While you usually have to activate HDR mode manually on Windows devices, it works automatically here. Furthermore, Apple is clearly the pioneer when it comes to implementing HDR. The subjective picture quality is simply outstanding and thanks to 120 Hz, moving images are displayed very smoothly. The mini LED panel also remains unchanged, but this is not a problem either. For more information, we refer to our previous reviews: As Apple only introduced the basic design in the 2021 models, no changes to the case or the input devices have been made. Our model even has 32 GB of RAM and a 2 TB SSD installed, which is why the price here rises to US$3,299.00. Our review device is the MacBook Pro 14 with the fast M2 Pro (12 CPU cores & 19 GPU cores), which is available with 16 GB of RAM and a 1 TB SSD from US$2,499.00. The prices have also increased by around US$150. At the same time, fast 6 GHz WLAN networks (Wi-Fi 6E) are now supported and, according to Apple, battery runtimes are better than before. At the heart of the new models are, of course, Apple's own M2 Pro and M2 Max SoCs, which are said to offer significantly more performance in terms of both the processor and the graphics card.
After the launch was postponed last fall, Apple has now finally presented the upgraded versions of the MacBook Pro models.