Apple M2 vs. M1: All You Need to Know About Second-Generation Apple Silicon

From the debut of Apple silicon in the M1 chip two years ago, it was clear that the transition away from using Intel CPUs in Macs would require more than just a single line of processors akin to the A-series chips that power iPhones and iPads. Apple offers too many variations of Macs for one chip to satisfy all of them.

So this week at WWDC, Apple introduced the M2, a true second-generation bit of silicon to succeed the M1 processor that originally debuted in the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro in 2020. It will be available first in a brand-new version of the MacBook Air and in a refresh of the 13-inch MacBook Pro. 

The M1 is an extraordinarily capable processor by 2020 standards, but silicon engineering moves at a breakneck pace. So, two years later, the M2’s unveiling should have you, the Mac user, questioning whether or not you should upgrade from a laptop running first-generation Apple silicon. To understand the differences between the two chips and what they mean for your workflows, we need to get a bit technical. But after we’re done comparing the specs, the decision should be pretty clear-cut. Let’s dive in. 

What's New in the Apple M2 vs. M1? The Processing Improvements

First, let's have a look at a spec-summary version of the new M2. As with the original M1, the M2 is debuting in a single base version, and presumably enhanced ones (like the Pro, Max, and Ultra variants) will follow over time...

The several different versions of the M1 range from the base model that powers the $999 MacBook Air up through the M1 Ultra available on the upper configurations of the $3,999 Mac Studio. They offer vastly different performance capabilities, but all of them use a common microprocessor architecture, which the semiconductor industry generally refers to as the 5-nanometer production process. (As with 5G networks, 5-nanometer doesn’t actually refer to any specific measurement; it’s a general term for a new, improved generation.)

The reason that M2 is a true second-generation chip is because it uses a new production process, which Apple is somewhat cryptically referring to as “second-generation 5-nanometer technology.” Chip companies are traditionally a bit cleverer, with AMD often referring to its generational advances as “Zen Plus” instead of second-generation Zen. But in this case, the M2 has some snazzy new specs to back up its second-generation claims.

First, it has more transistors—the building blocks of a microprocessor—than the M1 does. It's a 25% boost, to 20 billion total transistors in the M2, which enables Apple’s silicon engineers to improve the chip features that users care most about. The first two features relate to memory, a common bottleneck for pretty much any modern computing device. The M2 has both more memory bandwidth and a higher memory ceiling than the base M1 does (24GB, up from 16GB), which should enable everything from fewer hangs and crashes to faster app loading times.

Second, the new production process apparently enables the M2 to run some of its cores at faster clock speeds than those in the M1. How much faster? We don’t know; Apple doesn’t specify detailed clock speeds for its chips, a position that Intel is also taking with its 12th Generation “Alder Lake” CPUs. That’s partly because cutting-edge processors run different cores at different speeds.

Also, like before, the chip design is split between high-performance and high-efficiency cores, which are dynamically deployed onto different kinds of workloads. The efficiency cores are slower, for less-demanding workflows, while performance cores are there when you need them.

This situation hasn’t changed from the M1 to the M2, but Apple does say that the M2’s performance cores are “faster” and its efficiency cores are “significantly enhanced” enough to claim an 18% boost for multithreaded workloads, which involve things like rendering video or editing photos. 

Apple M2 vs. M1 Graphics Improvements

While the first M2 chip's processing cores are speeding up, the overall number of cores remains the same, at a total of eight. Meanwhile, the graphics portion of the chip actually grows, with a maximum of 10 cores, two more than in the M1. (The entry-level 2022 MacBook Air has eight graphics cores, while all models of the 13-inch M2 MacBook Pro, and an upticked version of the 2022 Air, have 10.) 

Because computing resources are shared across the entire chip, the increased memory bandwidth of the M2 also helps the graphics cores, with Apple claiming that the M2 has 25% higher graphics performance than the M1 at the same power level, and up to 35% better performance at its maximum power. 

Impressive, but you should, perhaps, care less about the graphics improvements than about the general processing improvements, especially if you’re considering the M2 MacBook Air instead of the MacBook Pro. There are two reasons for discounting graphics gains.

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First, laptop graphics processing matters most to gamers, and serious graphics-intensive gaming isn’t much of a thing on the Mac. Graphics power can also be important to creative professionals who are editing multimedia projects, using programs that benefit from GPU acceleration to augment CPU power. But they’re better served by the far more powerful graphics capabilities of the 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models. 

Second, the graphics performance of the M1 is already excellent when compared with competing graphics solutions from Intel. The M1-powered MacBook Air was twice as capable as equivalent integrated graphics in Intel’s “Tiger Lake” Core i5 and Core i7 chips when we tested it two years ago. And while Alder Lake graphics has improved somewhat, we expect relative performance to be roughly similar compared with the M2. We’ll have to wait until we test the first M2 MacBooks in PC Labs to know for sure. But the upshot is that a 1.25x graphics boost over the M1 is far from a headlining feature.

The Apple M2 vs. the Apple M1 Max: Plenty of Daylight Between

There’s one final difference between the M2 and M1 worth noting, which only pertains to a subset of Mac buyers, but is a significant one. If you are considering one of the larger MacBook Pro models mentioned above, you probably needn’t factor in either of the two M2 laptops that were just announced. Why? Despite their first-generation architecture, the M1 Pro and the M1 Max are souped-up versions of the M1 that should still continue to outperform the M2. 

The M1 Pro has more memory bandwidth and more cores than the M1 or the M2, making it the obvious choice for users who know they need extra computing and graphics power. And the M1 Max goes even further, with four times the bandwidth of the M2. If you’re a member of the niche of Mac power users for whom this stuff matters, there likely will be no contest between the MacBook Pros with M1 Max chips and the entry-level MacBook Air or MacBook Pro with the basic M2. 

So, as promised, here’s an early answer, based on the initial specs, about who should get a Mac with an M2 and who should stick with the M1: If you’ve already got an M1 MacBook Air or an M1 MacBook Pro, the performance differences between them and the new M2 models probably won’t prove to be worth upgrading. (We should be able to confirm whether our early analysis is correct in the coming weeks, as we get M2 MacBook samples into PC Labs.) And if you’re eyeing an M1 Pro or an M1 Max because you know you need the extra horsepower, the M2 is likely to be a pass, at least until Apple rolls out future upticked iterations.

For everyone else, especially those who are looking to upgrade to the new MacBook Air from a laptop that’s more than two years old, the M2’s performance advances arguably justify the price premium that the 2022 MacBook Air commands.