Apples M2 looks like a beast.

That’s sneaky but good to know on the storage memory storage configuration. Going to have to make sure you get one with the 2 chips and not just one.
 
That reviewer is awful. Lord. They show you the actual benchmark for like half a second, and he's sitting there blabbering on for ages.
 
serpretetsky said:
Seems like a side-grade instead of an upgrade so far.
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The benchmarks are generally ahead from the reviews I’ve seen so far, but the base storage performance limitations are frustrating if you value that extra speed. Wouldn’t affect me if I was buying, but still…
 
serpretetsky said:
Seems like a side-grade instead of an upgrade so far.
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Did you expect a revolution? When it comes to products like CPU's and GPU's, it's generally done by spending years working on a new architecture and in between you do the usually stuff like more cores, more clock speed, and better manufacturing. Once in a while a new feature maybe added but deep down it's the same architecture. AMD is still on Ryzen from 2017 and Intel is on SandyBridge from 2011. Lots of upgrades are done down the road but generally if you own a Ryzen 1700 then you won't be buying a 2700. You usually wait a few more product cycles before deciding if you need to upgrade.

So far everything I predicted about the M2 seems to be true. Worse battery but better performance both CPU+GPU. The SSD thing maybe a cost cutting measure to deal with supply shortages. Which is interesting because even for the M1 the SSD was the limitation in how fast you can work with videos. This might be a downgrade for those using these products specifically for video editing. Too bad you can't just upgrade the SSD's in them.
 
DukenukemX said:
Did you expect a revolution? When it comes to products like CPU's and GPU's, it's generally done by spending years working on a new architecture and in between you do the usually stuff like more cores, more clock speed, and better manufacturing. Once in a while a new feature maybe added but deep down it's the same architecture. AMD is still on Ryzen from 2017 and Intel is on SandyBridge from 2011. Lots of upgrades are done down the road but generally if you own a Ryzen 1700 then you won't be buying a 2700. You usually wait a few more product cycles before deciding if you need to upgrade.

So far everything I predicted about the M2 seems to be true. Worse battery but better performance both CPU+GPU. The SSD thing maybe a cost cutting measure to deal with supply shortages. Which is interesting because even for the M1 the SSD was the limitation in how fast you can work with videos. This might be a downgrade for those using these products specifically for video editing. Too bad you can't just upgrade the SSD's in them.
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Not sure why you quoted me. I think you are responding to someone else.
 
DukenukemX said:
Did you expect a revolution? When it comes to products like CPU's and GPU's, it's generally done by spending years working on a new architecture and in between you do the usually stuff like more cores, more clock speed, and better manufacturing. Once in a while a new feature maybe added but deep down it's the same architecture. AMD is still on Ryzen from 2017 and Intel is on SandyBridge from 2011. Lots of upgrades are done down the road but generally if you own a Ryzen 1700 then you won't be buying a 2700. You usually wait a few more product cycles before deciding if you need to upgrade.

So far everything I predicted about the M2 seems to be true. Worse battery but better performance both CPU+GPU. The SSD thing maybe a cost cutting measure to deal with supply shortages. Which is interesting because even for the M1 the SSD was the limitation in how fast you can work with videos. This might be a downgrade for those using these products specifically for video editing. Too bad you can't just upgrade the SSD's in them.
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It’s only a downgrade if you buy the absolute base model — anything else should perform as well as before.

Whatever the reasoning, it sucks if you can’t afford at least the 512GB spec. Not necessarily a dealbreaker, depending on your needs, but creatives will want to spend more.

One thing I’m curious about: if the rumors of M3 Macs in early 2023 are true, what do those bring to the table? That’s a pretty quick turnaround when M2 is only just reaching users. Maybe M3 is the big jump.
 
Aurelius said:
It’s only a downgrade if you buy the absolute base model — anything else should perform as well as before.

Whatever the reasoning, it sucks if you can’t afford at least the 512GB spec. Not necessarily a dealbreaker, depending on your needs, but creatives will want to spend more.

One thing I’m curious about: if the rumors of M3 Macs in early 2023 are true, what do those bring to the table? That’s a pretty quick turnaround when M2 is only just reaching users. Maybe M3 is the big jump.
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M3 is probably what the M2 was going to be before TSMC was forced to push back 3nm. Which is what the M2 was originally supposed to be built with.
 
Aurelius said:
One thing I’m curious about: if the rumors of M3 Macs in early 2023 are true, what do those bring to the table? That’s a pretty quick turnaround when M2 is only just reaching users. Maybe M3 is the big jump.
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The M2 is just M1++ because Apple couldn't get 3nm manufacturing. The current M2 is probably based on ARMv8 since I hear nothing about it having SVE2 instructions like the ARMv9 would have. Apple is either saving ARMv9 for later M2 variants or for the M3 for next year. So the M3 would probably be based on 3nm or 4mn, depending on what's available, and ARMv9 with SVE2 instructions which would make it on par with Intel CPU's with AVX512. Considering that AVX512 gives me a hard on then SVE2 should get Apple users excited. So better power efficiency, more performance, and more cores. I couldn't tell you what Apple will do with their GPU's since they kinda had to "borrow" a lot from PowerVR. PowerVR had Ray-Tracing before Nvidia, so who knows what future Apple GPU's could have, assuming Apple could extract that from Imagination since they are paying for many of their licenses.
 
DukenukemX said:
The M2 is just M1++ because Apple couldn't get 3nm manufacturing. The current M2 is probably based on ARMv8 since I hear nothing about it having SVE2 instructions like the ARMv9 would have. Apple is either saving ARMv9 for later M2 variants or for the M3 for next year. So the M3 would probably be based on 3nm or 4mn, depending on what's available, and ARMv9 with SVE2 instructions which would make it on par with Intel CPU's with AVX512. Considering that AVX512 gives me a hard on then SVE2 should get Apple users excited. So better power efficiency, more performance, and more cores. I couldn't tell you what Apple will do with their GPU's since they kinda had to "borrow" a lot from PowerVR. PowerVR had Ray-Tracing before Nvidia, so who knows what future Apple GPU's could have, assuming Apple could extract that from Imagination since they are paying for many of their licenses.
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The M1 was basically a scaled up A14, the M2 looks to be a scaled up A15.

The idea that AMD could come out with a 7700G with AVX512 makes me joyous.
That will be the base for “my daughters” mini gaming PC, that will also have all the emulators on it.
 
Lakados said:
The M1 was basically a scaled up A14, the M2 looks to be a scaled up A15.

The idea that AMD could come out with a 7700G with AVX512 makes me joyous.
That will be the base for “my daughters” mini gaming PC, that will also have all the emulators on it.
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This is why AVX512 for AMD's 7000 series chips is the most exciting feature.

https://whatcookie.github.io/posts/why-is-avx-512-useful-for-rpcs3/
From left to right: SSE2, SSE4.1, AVX2/FMA, and Icelake tier AVX-512.
Gow3Comparison.png
 
Lakados said:
With the DisplayLink drivers and a cheap external you can do up to 4 external displays in addition to the laptops screen for 5 total.

But yeah using the built in Apple stuff you are limited to 2.
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Will this work through a thunderbolt 3 dock with dual 4k 60?
 
pendragon1 said:


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Not a fan of these Apple only reviewers but at least this guy gets it. He was at least self aware enough to look at the price of a 256GB SSD that's faster than what the M2 variants are getting. Also a faster 256GB SSD is only $20 off Amazon. He also recognizes that Apple went with the slower SSD to save money, which is something a lot of Apple apologists tend to not believe Apple would ever do. You could solve a lot of these problems by simply allowing the SSD to be removable. Lots of good reasons to want the SSD to be removable besides upgrading. I also find it halirous that getting another 8GB of ram is going to cost an Apple M2 buyer +$200 more. Getting an extra 256GB of SSD storage you would also need to spend another +$200. To get a SSD as fast or faster than the M2 you at most pay $90, and that's not an extra 256GB but a whole 512GB.

I don't think x86 PC's have anything to worry about if this is the sort of malarkey that Apple is still doing to their customers. It's so bad that Apple doesn't even get a grade. It wouldn't be so bad if Apple had upgradable ram and storage, but I guess this is acceptable to Apple users?
 
DukenukemX said:
Not a fan of these Apple only reviewers but at least this guy gets it. He was at least self aware enough to look at the price of a 256GB SSD that's faster than what the M2 variants are getting. Also a faster 256GB SSD is only $20 off Amazon. He also recognizes that Apple went with the slower SSD to save money, which is something a lot of Apple apologists tend to not believe Apple would ever do. You could solve a lot of these problems by simply allowing the SSD to be removable. Lots of good reasons to want the SSD to be removable besides upgrading. I also find it halirous that getting another 8GB of ram is going to cost an Apple M2 buyer +$200 more. Getting an extra 256GB of SSD storage you would also need to spend another +$200. To get a SSD as fast or faster than the M2 you at most pay $90, and that's not an extra 256GB but a whole 512GB.

I don't think x86 PC's have anything to worry about if this is the sort of malarkey that Apple is still doing to their customers. It's so bad that Apple doesn't even get a grade. It wouldn't be so bad if Apple had upgradable ram and storage, but I guess this is acceptable to Apple users?
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You act as if you’re making shocking revelations here, or that they’ll actually matter to most people. Sorry, but they aren’t and they don’t.

Yeah, it’s unfortunate the base MBP M2 has a slower SSD setup, and of course money likely played a role. The system is an odd duck in Apple’s lineup and shouldn’t really exist. My hunch is that the SSD cost-cutting is actually aimed at keeping the Air M2’s price in check.

But the question is whether or not you’ll really notice. If you’re a creative pro who really depends on storage speed… you probably either got more than 256GB or went straight to the 14-inch MBP. You’re not going to see much advantage for everyday use. Still unfortunate, but not the end of the world.

And as for memory and storage upgrades… we know. It’s old news, and not even unique to Apple. Some PC vendors charge less for upgrades, but there’s almost always some markup. And upgradeability? It’s nice, but it’s not often easy these days and not possible at all with numerous Windows laptops, not just Macs. Apple can at least point to its SoC design as a reason; what excuse do Windows vendors have?

That’s not to say that a $200 memory or SSD upgrade isn’t painful, but it’s not the dealbreaker you pretend it is. Again, Apple has been growing ahead of the market ever since the first M1 Macs arrived. The company isn’t scaring away customers.
 
Aurelius said:
You act as if you’re making shocking revelations here, or that they’ll actually matter to most people. Sorry, but they aren’t and they don’t.
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I think sometimes Apple fans will overlook the obvious in order to promote their favorite product. I wouldn't need to point it out if it wasn't already done so often by Apple.
Yeah, it’s unfortunate the base MBP M2 has a slower SSD setup, and of course money likely played a role. The system is an odd duck in Apple’s lineup and shouldn’t really exist. My hunch is that the SSD cost-cutting is actually aimed at keeping the Air M2’s price in check.
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Considering that fast 256GB SSD's are extremely cheap, to the point that you can find it on Amazon for $20, I highly doubt that it was done to keep the cost down. More likely to encourage buyers to purchase the 512GB. Remember that the SSD in these devices are soldered to the main board and that actually further reduces the cost to manufacture, just like in the PS5.
But the question is whether or not you’ll really notice. If you’re a creative pro who really depends on storage speed… you probably either got more than 256GB or went straight to the 14-inch MBP. You’re not going to see much advantage for everyday use. Still unfortunate, but not the end of the world.
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The main point of buying a M series based Macbook is for it's video editing capabilities. It's been stated that the limiting factor is the SSD, so it will be noticeably worse than the M1 based products. For every other task you won't notice a difference but you didn't buy these for other tasks.
And as for memory and storage upgrades… we know. It’s old news, and not even unique to Apple. Some PC vendors charge less for upgrades, but there’s almost always some markup. And upgradeability? It’s nice, but it’s not often easy these days and not possible at all with numerous Windows laptops, not just Macs. Apple can at least point to its SoC design as a reason; what excuse do Windows vendors have?
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I just installed a 1TB SSD in a new HP Ryzen based laptop and it was plug and play. I cloned the HDD over to the SSD and erased the HDD and make it an extra drive. I did the same thing to a Levovo based Ryzen laptop as well. Both have upgradable ram as well. There are laptop manufacturers besides Apple that make upgrades impossible but that's because they're trying to copy Apple. It simply makes them more money to buy a laptop with upgrades that must come from the factory than to buy the base model and just upgrade it. The 512GB SSD 13inch Macbook Pro with 8GB of ram and 8 core M2 is $1500. While this Asus ROG Zephyrus 14" with 1TB SSD 16GB ram RTX 3060 and 8 core Ryzen 5900HS can be had for less than $1,400. I should note that it is still upgradable. Before you point out that Apple better battery life and blah blah blah, like you said it isn't noticeable. But 1TB storage and twice the amount of ram is noticeable.
That’s not to say that a $200 memory or SSD upgrade isn’t painful, but it’s not the dealbreaker you pretend it is. Again, Apple has been growing ahead of the market ever since the first M1 Macs arrived. The company isn’t scaring away customers.
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If Apple keeps it up they definitely will scare off customers.
 
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Oh look a Macbook Pro killed itself and also destroyed the unrecoverable SSD. Apparently this is a common problem on Macs. You sure you Apple users don't want removable SSD storage? The data is gone and the Macbook is a very expensive paper weight.

 
DukenukemX said:
I highly doubt that it was done to keep the cost down. More likely to encourage buyers to purchase the 512GB.
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That and I think the rate of defects on these things is MUCH higher than what Intel / AMD have.
 
kac77 said:
That and I think the rate of defects on these things is MUCH higher than what Intel / AMD have.
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Looking more into this and yea there's a problem with M1 devices and excessive SSD wear. What Louis Rossmann mentioned was a different SSD issue where some other component fails and suddenly 13 volts is sent straight to the SSD NAND thus killing it. There's apparently a swap issue where it's causing the SSD's to wear out much faster than it should. Though I doubt a slower SSD in the M2 would solve this problem as it seems to be software related. Most likely Apple made the OS more aggressive on the M series products in order to produce that snappiness that people perceive, but more than likely that snappiness comes at the cost of SSD wear. The problem is more pronounced in 8GB models, which would make sense if there's not enough memory to cache what's needed to make things more snappy.

https://www.macrumors.com/2021/02/23/m1-mac-users-report-excessive-ssd-wear/

This guy tells you about it though he's a bit apologetic as he claims that M1 users are pushing their M1's harder than they did to Intel's just to see what they can do. :cautious: I swear all these Apple YouTuber reviewers are cringe. He blames all sorts of things from third party software maybe incorrectly reporting the amount of data written to Chrome to legacy x86 code.


This is pretty much what every M1 owner does when something doesn't perform correctly on their device.
6luehe.jpg
 
DukenukemX said:
I think sometimes Apple fans will overlook the obvious in order to promote their favorite product. I wouldn't need to point it out if it wasn't already done so often by Apple.

Considering that fast 256GB SSD's are extremely cheap, to the point that you can find it on Amazon for $20, I highly doubt that it was done to keep the cost down. More likely to encourage buyers to purchase the 512GB. Remember that the SSD in these devices are soldered to the main board and that actually further reduces the cost to manufacture, just like in the PS5.

The main point of buying a M series based Macbook is for it's video editing capabilities. It's been stated that the limiting factor is the SSD, so it will be noticeably worse than the M1 based products. For every other task you won't notice a difference but you didn't buy these for other tasks.

I just installed a 1TB SSD in a new HP Ryzen based laptop and it was plug and play. I cloned the HDD over to the SSD and erased the HDD and make it an extra drive. I did the same thing to a Levovo based Ryzen laptop as well. Both have upgradable ram as well. There are laptop manufacturers besides Apple that make upgrades impossible but that's because they're trying to copy Apple. It simply makes them more money to buy a laptop with upgrades that must come from the factory than to buy the base model and just upgrade it. The 512GB SSD 13inch Macbook Pro with 8GB of ram and 8 core M2 is $1500. While this Asus ROG Zephyrus 14" with 1TB SSD 16GB ram RTX 3060 and 8 core Ryzen 5900HS can be had for less than $1,400. I should note that it is still upgradable. Before you point out that Apple better battery life and blah blah blah, like you said it isn't noticeable. But 1TB storage and twice the amount of ram is noticeable.

If Apple keeps it up they definitely will scare off customers.
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Care to link this claimed $20 256GB SSD? And while upsells are certainly a thing, the performance here is dictated by the number of chips, not their quality; if Apple was only interested in upsells, it could’ve easily used cut-rate parts.

Video editing is a major factor, but not the only one. I use a Mac for image editing and juggling a lot of simultaneous apps… SSD performance will only partly influence someone like me. And if speed is absolutely critical to your work… you’re not buying an entry-level 13–inch laptop from anyone.

Laptop upgradeability only matters to a subset of the market, like it or not. Is it neat that you can up the RAM or SSD? You bet. But the absence isn’t going to hurt Apple’s sales one iota, and you know it. Everyday customers don’t pry open their laptops as a general rule; creative pros tend to buy extra headroom from the start.

Also, if you depend on replacing an internal SSD as your safeguard instead of having a real backup solution like an external drive or cloud storage (preferably both)… you’re not going to get very far in the professional world.
 
Aurelius said:
Care to link this claimed $20 256GB SSD? And while upsells are certainly a thing, the performance here is dictated by the number of chips, not their quality; if Apple was only interested in upsells, it could’ve easily used cut-rate parts.

Video editing is a major factor, but not the only one. I use a Mac for image editing and juggling a lot of simultaneous apps… SSD performance will only partly influence someone like me. And if speed is absolutely critical to your work… you’re not buying an entry-level 13–inch laptop from anyone.

Laptop upgradeability only matters to a subset of the market, like it or not. Is it neat that you can up the RAM or SSD? You bet. But the absence isn’t going to hurt Apple’s sales one iota, and you know it. Everyday customers don’t pry open their laptops as a general rule; creative pros tend to buy extra headroom from the start.

Also, if you depend on replacing an internal SSD as your safeguard instead of having a real backup solution like an external drive or cloud storage (preferably both)… you’re not going to get very far in the professional world.
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I really wish the parts weren’t soldered though, proprietary interface custom mounts go right ahead. But soldered makes repair work harder than it needs to be.
 
Aurelius said:
Care to link this claimed $20 256GB SSD?
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It was in pendragon1's video of the M2. Right about here at 7:31. I actually watch the videos people post here.

And while upsells are certainly a thing, the performance here is dictated by the number of chips, not their quality; if Apple was only interested in upsells, it could’ve easily used cut-rate parts.
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You are paying a lot of money to have one NAND chip missing, among other things.
Video editing is a major factor, but not the only one. I use a Mac for image editing and juggling a lot of simultaneous apps… SSD performance will only partly influence someone like me. And if speed is absolutely critical to your work… you’re not buying an entry-level 13–inch laptop from anyone.
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Sounds like an apology for the poors using Apple products.
Laptop upgradeability only matters to a subset of the market, like it or not. Is it neat that you can up the RAM or SSD? You bet. But the absence isn’t going to hurt Apple’s sales one iota, and you know it. Everyday customers don’t pry open their laptops as a general rule; creative pros tend to buy extra headroom from the start.
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I don't think you understand the problem. If the SSD were to fail then you're screwed. You can't repair it. You can't get your data back. All SSD's will eventually fail, this is a fact. It's not just about upgrades but something that for most PC users is common. Like I said before the M series products had an unusually high amount of use for everyday tasks, which means they'll fail faster. Also as Louis Rossmann pointed out there are moments when 13 volts can go straight to the SSD and kill it, because this is a known problem with Apple MacBooks.
Also, if you depend on replacing an internal SSD as your safeguard instead of having a real backup solution like an external drive or cloud storage (preferably both)… you’re not going to get very far in the professional world.
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You can't have users that don't know how to upgrade or replace their SSD also know enough to backup. Real world seldom works like that. I deal with people who often want their data back but of course didn't back it up. This includes Apple users who still own Macs that have removable storage. The ones that don't well... this video is still true for Apple today.

https://youtube.com/clip/Ugkx4qCInlTjKklJwD74pWumkOkhz_AT3Ds_
 
Ifixit took apart the M2 and it's basically an M1 with downgraded storage. Can't swap the M2 motherboard and stick it into the M1.

 
The first MacBook Air M2 reviews are out, and they suggest what you'd largely expect. It's not going to make you rush to upgrade from an M1 Air, but the M2 is enough of a jump that, combined with a better design, it should represent a better buy if cost isn't a sore point.

The storage speed limits for the 256GB model are a concern, and it does seem like M2 generates enough heat during long workloads that the 13-inch MBP might make more sense than it did last year (due to the active cooling). But the things people said about the Air M2 last month remain true now: the design is so much better overall that you'd need a very specific use case to skip the Air in favor of the 13-inch Pro M2. It'll take a while before we see some real-world Air M2 vs. comparable Windows laptop tests, but there's still a pretty easy selling point here: it's reasonably speedy, long-lasting, absurdly thin and fanless.

 
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Aurelius said:
The first MacBook Air M2 reviews are out, and they suggest what you'd largely expect. It's not going to make you rush to upgrade from an M1 Air, but the M2 is enough of a jump that, combined with a better design, it should represent a better buy if cost isn't a sore point.
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The purpose of the M2 is to update the original M1 to attract people who are still on the fence on buying one. The M1 Pro, Max, and Ultra are still much faster than the M2. Maybe eventually we'll see M2 Pro's and Max's but Apple might go straight to M3.
The storage speed limits for the 256GB model are a concern, and it does seem like M2 generates enough heat during long workloads that the 13-inch MBP might make more sense than it did last year (due to the active cooling). But the things people said about the Air M2 last month remain true now: the design is so much better overall that you'd need a very specific use case to skip the Air in favor of the 13-inch Pro M2. It'll take a while before we see some real-world Air M2 vs. comparable Windows laptop tests, but there's still a pretty easy selling point here: it's reasonably speedy, long-lasting, absurdly thin and fanless.
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I don't see the point of buying the Air M2 when the Macbook Pro 13 is clearly superior. They cost the same other than the lowest cost Air being $100 cheaper but also missing 2 GPU cores.
 
DukenukemX said:
I don't see the point of buying the Air M2 when the Macbook Pro 13 is clearly superior. They cost the same other than the lowest cost Air being $100 cheaper but also missing 2 GPU cores.
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Learn to use the configurator. They cost the same when you add the two cores back, it’s a $100 upgrade. Or in other words $1299 vs $1299.

The Air has more ports. Updated sound, mics, cameras, and lighter. There is literally no reason to buy the 13” Pro. It should have been discontinued.
 
UnknownSouljer said:
Learn to use the configurator. They cost the same when you add the two cores back, it’s a $100 upgrade. Or in other words $1299 vs $1299.

The Air has more ports. Updated sound, mics, cameras, and lighter. There is literally no reason to buy the 13” Pro. It should have been discontinued.
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The 13"Pro has a fan. It won't thermal throttle on the Macbook Pro.
 
DukenukemX said:
The 13"Pro has a fan. It won't thermal throttle on the Macbook Pro.
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First off, your opinion on this is the definition of moot. Even if I paid you 50 million dollars you wouldn’t move to a Mac.

Secondly, as Aurelius noted, you’d have to have a very specific use case in which thermal throttling could even become an issue. If you’re doing multi hour renders, I guess it could matter. But then that begs the question of why you didn’t buy a 14” MacBook Pro in the first place or any other machine for that matter?

tl;dr: if you need the kind of power that would cause an M2 to throttle without fans, you’re already buying the wrong machine for your use case. You need something faster than an M2.
 
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