Apple Unveils New Mac Mini and MacBook with M2 Chipsets

UTC by Bhushan Akolkar · 3 min read
Apple Unveils New Mac Mini and MacBook with M2 Chipsets
Photo: Apple Inc

The new Mac devices from Apple feature the most powerful processors built by the company.

On Tuesday, January 17, Apple Inc (NASDAQ: AAPL) introduced new Mac devices which come featured with the M2 Max and M2 Pro chipsets. These are the most powerful processors that apple has produced to date and will feature in the new Mac Mini and MacBook Pro laptops.

The two new sets of MacBook Pro laptops come with 14-inch and 16-inch display units, both of which can now be configured using the latest processors. The M2 Max and M2 Pro chipsets feature more powerful GPU and CPU units with 96GB of unified memory. Apple claims that both these chipsets come with “industry-leading” power efficiency.

The newly updated Mac mini computers will also feature the M2 and the M2 Pro chipsets. With the launch of its latest Mac minis, Apple will no longer sell the Intel version of this computer. It means Mac Pro will be the last computer that can be configured with Intel processors.

This is quite a surprise launch by Apple and not part of the company’s scheduled announcements every year. Back in October 2022, Apple’s chief financial officer, Luca Maestri, had warned regarding the slowing sales of Macs on an annual basis. It could also be due to the fact that Apple didn’t ship these computers in time during the holiday season.

Also, the launch of the updated Macs comes along with an uncertain economic environment in the market. Consumer spending has been low recently due to rising inflation as well as fears of a potential recession.

The Mac Mini featuring an M2 chip starts at $599 and the one with M2 Pro starts at $1299. Similarly, the 14-inch MacBook Pro starts at $1,999 while the 16-inch MacBook Pro model costs $2,499.

More About M2 Pro and M2 Max Chips

The M2 Pro is the latest in line of Apple chipsets and features the second-generation 5-nanometer process technology. Also, the M2 Pro chipset comprises 40 billion transistors, 20% more than M1 Pro, and offers 200 GB of unified memory bandwidth.

The 10 and 12-core CPUs of M2 Pro have four high-efficiency cores and more than eight high-performance cores. It results in a multi-thread CPU performance that is reportedly up to 20% faster than the 10-core CPU in M1 Pro. Apple claims that using the M2 Pro, the Xcode is 2.5x faster compared to the fastest Intel-based MacBook Pro. Similarly, the graphic speeds up to 30% faster than the M1 Pro.

The M2 Max is the more powerful of the two chipsets and comes with 67 billion transistors, 3x more than M2 and 10 billion more than M1 Max. The M2 Max offers 400 GB of unified memory bandwidth with an additional 96 GB of fast unified memory.  It comes with the same 12-core CPU as available in M2 Pro.

Both the M2 Pro and M2 Max feature Apple’s next-generation Secure Enclave. They also come with Apple’s latest 16-core Neural Engine which can conduct 15.8 trillion operations per second and is nearly 40% faster than the previous generation.

The Neural Coire Engine helps to accelerate several machine learning tasks such as voice recognition, video analysis, image processing, and much more.

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