With an 18% faster CPU, 35% faster GPU.
Yeah. Okay, Apple.
We'll be the judge of that.
(paper ripping)
Isn't that right?
Okay, so this is the brand new 13-inch M2 MacBook Pro.
And I've also got the M1 MacBook Pro here.
And both of them are the base model versions
with 8 gigabytes of RAM and 256 gigabyte SSDs.
Now, Apple made a lot of bold claims
about their new M2 chip.
And I'm guessing you also want to see
how this stacks up against its predecessor.
So, in this video I'm going to compare the two
in everything, and I mean everything,
including CPU differences, coding, Adobe workflows,
video editing, 3D modeling, gaming thermals, and more.
And at the end, we're going to see if Apple was lying
about the performance of the M2 chip
or if it is as powerful as they claim.
Okay, so first things first,
let's start with some physical differences,
which is kind of a trick question because there aren't any.
Seriously, it's the exact same chassis
down to the LCD panel, keyboard, color options and weight.
All the major differences are under the hood.
Although, on the M2 you do get support for spatial audio
and high impedance headphones
for all the audiophiles out there.
Okay.
Let's start off with some benchmarks for the CPU.
First up, we have Cinebench where the M2 MacBook Pro
was able to beat out the M1 by about 12%.
Looking at single core scores,
again, the M2 chip comes out ahead,
but only by 4% this time.
Now, single core scores are most relevant for programs
or tasks heavily reliant on single core performance
like Photoshop, for example.
So, you're not going to notice any kind
of major difference here.
Moving on to coding and development.
I ran the Xcode benchmark to see
if the extra memory bandwidth and CPU performance
would make much of a difference.
And it kind of did.
But only by 17 seconds or 11%.
So, how does this translate to a real life example?
Well, I compiled the entire Firefox source code
on both machines.
Finally, we start to see a difference
similar to what Apple claimed,
with the M2 chip finishing about five minutes
or 23% faster than the M1.
So, in terms of CPU improvements,
there's really not that much difference between the two.
Depending on the task, its anywhere from about 5 to 23%
which is still awesome for a generational improvement.
And don't forget there aren't any extra cores
or anything really that special.
Just a few minor upgrades to the architecture
and individual core performance.
And just a quick side note here,
if you're wondering about just day to day differences
between the two, so for productivity tasks
like email, web browsing or a large Google Sheets document.
There is a difference but it's really not that big.
The M2 just feels a little bit snappier.
Maybe your webpages or Google Drive docs
will blow to second faster, for example.
The best way I can show you this difference
is via a browser benchmark.
Using Safari, you can see the M2 performs about 14% better
which is about what I felt in real life.
Moving on to Adobe workflows,
let's start with After Effects.
Now, I wasn't able to run the Puget benchmark
on these Macs due to RAM limitations.
They only have eight gigabytes and the benchmark
needs at least 16 gigabytes to run.
So, I did a 2D animation render instead
that the M2 finished 18 seconds
or about 15% faster than the M1.
And in terms of live preview playback and scrubbing,
I couldn't really tell a difference here.
Maybe a slight edge to the M2.
But to be honest, most people won't be using
After Effects heavily on these MacBooks anyway
'cause they'll probably go for an M1 Pro or Max.
However, the M2 MacBook Pro does have a big advantage
over the M1 with relation to After Effects.
This is because you can spec the M2
with a 24 gigabyte unified memory option.
Whereas the M1 is capped at just 16 gigabytes.
Next, let's take a look at Premiere Pro.
The M2 does well as expected,
soundly outperforming the M1 by about 30%.
And if we break these scores down further,
you can see exactly where the M2 pulls away,
especially the standard export score and effects score.
However, most notably the live playback score
is higher on the M2
which will result in a much smoother editing experience
which is what you spend 95% of your time doing.
Now, I also did some testing in Photoshop and Lightroom
and there were really minimal differences
between the two chips.
I don't think you'll notice any kind of difference.
So, just to save time in this video,
I didn't go into that in too much detail.
Moving on to video editing,
one of the biggest differences in the M2 chip
is the addition of ProRes hardware support
and the ProRes encode and decode engines.
Now, don't forget the M1 already has something similar
but only for H.264 and HEVC.
So what this means is that if your workflow
does not consist of at least some ProRes footage,
you won't see much benefit.
And anything you do notice is from the additional
two GPU cores and doubling of the memory bandwidth.
So, starting with a real life multicam project
in DaVinci Resolve,
here we have four streams of color corrected 4K footage
from assorted GoPro, Sony, and black magic cameras.
The most important factor for video editing
is timeline performance.
So, let's look at that first.
The M2 is better at real time scrubbing.
It's smoother with less dropped frames,
but honestly not by a massive amount.
It was hard for me to tell sometimes.
When rendering out the same 20-minute timeline
in 4K and H.264, the M2 is also superior.
But again, only by about 15%.
Now, like I said before, if your workflow is based on ProRes
there will be a big difference when compared to M1.
So, I rendered a 10-minute 4K ProRes only timeline
in ProRes 422 HQ.
And just as I expected, the M2 is much, much faster here.
Next, I added stabilization to some really demanding
4K, 120 FPS footage from a Sony a7S Mark 3.
The M2 performed really well here,
finishing almost 6 1/2 minutes quicker,
which is something that will massively benefit
your workflow if you're constantly stabilizing clips.
Now, this is likely mostly due
to the increased memory bandwidth.
The GPU is able to access that eight gigabytes of RAM
twice as fast as the M1.
And of course, the extra two GPU cores don't hurt either.
I thought I'd also test Final Cut Pro
but this time with no ProRes and only H.264.
The render finished in exactly the same amount of time
which doesn't really surprise me
as Final Cut is already highly optimized
for Apple's Silicon.
So, it seems like the major benefit of the M2 over the M1
is of course that additional hardware support
for ProRes footage.
But you will also see improvements in other things.
Most notably GPU intensive stuff
like stabilization and working with footage
outside what the M1 and M2 chips are optimized for.
Now, I can't forget about my audio production peeps.
So, here's a quick test on Logic Pro.
I kept copying the same track over and over
and playing them simultaneously
until I got the system overload warning.
On the M1 MacBook Pro,
I got to 66 tracks before the warning
and on the M2 MacBook Pro, I was able to reach 69.
Nice.
So, it seems like there's not much difference here
for audio production, at least at the moment.
Moving on to 3D workflows, let's start with blender.
I'm using the 3.2 version here.
And when running the CPU benchmark,
there doesn't seem to be much of a difference.
The GPU benchmark on the other hand tells a different story.
The M2 is noticeably more powerful
but how does this translate to real life?
Here's the barbershop demo scene.
The M2 rendered this six minutes or 25% faster than the M1.
I saw the same results when using other 3D modeling software
like Octane X and also Cinema 4D Redshift.
It just seems that with anything 3D related,
the M2 will be around 25% better than the M1
which is impressive in its own right,
but it is a fair amount less than the 35% Apple claims.
Now, let's also have a brief chat about gaming.
In a nutshell, the difference is
about the same as 3D workflows.
The M2 chip gains about a 25 to 30% performance boost
over the M1 resulting in a more enjoyable gaming experience.
Now, if you're asking why I'm not testing Apple Silicon
and metal optimized games like "Baldur's Gate 3"
or "World of Warcraft", for example,
it's because those are actually quite difficult to benchmark
and get accurate results for.
I know that "Tomb Raider" isn't 100% metal optimized
but the benchmark tool just does a really good job
of showing differences between two systems.
So, does all this extra performance come at a cost?
Well, kind of.
In terms of temperature and fan noise,
both MacBooks were pretty much the exact same.
I didn't notice any major differences.
However, there was a difference when it came to power draw.
During an extreme stress test
where I maxed out both CPU and GPU to 100%,
you can see that not only are the CPU performance cores
on the M2 clocked higher, but the GPU cores are as well
which usually results in better performance.
Not only that, the M2 package seems to be using
roughly four to five watts more than the M1
while performing the exact same task.
Now, this might not sound like a lot
but when you calculate it,
you realize that the M2 chip is actually using
about 24% more power than the M1 when under full load.
Now, this will have a negative effect on the battery life
but don't forget that the M2 typically finishes tasks
about 25% quicker than the M1.
So, it kind of evens out
or might not even be an issue at all
if your laptop is attached to a charger.
And this extra power draw
is only when doing intensive tasks.
For surfing the web or just general productivity,
both laptops are about the same.
And don't forget that the test I just showed you
was a pretty extreme example.
So, you probably won't get close to that very often at all.
So, what does all of this mean?
Did Apple just jack up the clock speed
and the wattage on the M1?
Chucking another two cores on there
and slap an M2 sticker on it?
Well, kind of.
But there are also some other improvements.
The increased unified memory bandwidth,
the ProRes encode and decoders
and other slight optimizations
do result in significant improvements in many areas.
And especially in tasks like compiling code.
That's a fair amount quicker.
Gaming, you're going to see an instant 30% boost in FPS,
which is very, very noticeable for most gamers.
And just in general, things like 3D modeling.
Again, that 20 to 30% boost is going to be a welcome addition
to most people's workflows.
But it's not quite the 35% for the GPU that Apple claims.
And I'm not going to lie, this annoyed me a little bit,
because I just wish Apple
was a little bit more truthful here.
Like sure, you're only getting
12 to 18% CPU performance boost
or maybe 20 to 30% on the GPU,
but that's still a massive generational leap from M1.
And Apple should just be happy of that
and proud with the performance
they've introduced with the M2,
instead of fudging and fluffing up these numbers
and those graphs making to seem more powerful
than what it actually is.
I just think Apple should be happy
with what they've managed to achieve here,
because at the end of the day
it's still a really impressive result.
Now, let's also have a quick chat
about the value difference now between the M1 MacBook Pro
and the M2 MacBook Pro.
Now, obviously you can't buy the M1 MacBook Pro
new from Apple anymore, it's been replaced by the M2.
But you can still buy the M1 on the secondhand market.
And you can typically get a lightly used M1 MacBook Pro
for two to three, sometimes $400 less
than a brand new M2 MacBook pro.
Now, if you ask me if that $300 price difference
between a used M1 MacBook Pro
and a brand new M2 MacBook Pro is worth it?
Eh, it kind of depends on your workflow.
So, if you will see a significant improvement,
for example your code compiling or your gaming,
I think it's a worthwhile investment.
But if you're just someone who's going to be using it
for productivity tasks,
or just as a laptop to do general stuff,
I would go with the used M1 MacBook Pro.
But apart from that, guys, hopefully you enjoyed this video.
It took me a very long time to make.
It's actually four in the morning right now
as I'm recording this.
So, make sure you subscribe to show your appreciation.
But apart from that, thanks for watching.
And I'll catch you in the next one.