So Apple announced M2 during WWDC this year and it was just released this week, with reviews coming out in the last couple of weeks. No announcement for higher end SKUs (M2 Pro, Max, etc), so those are likely coming later this year or maybe next year.
Borrowing from MacRumors:
A small refresh/evolution, just updates the cores in the M1 from A14 to A15. According to Apple it came at about 18% faster CPU and about 30% faster GPU, while maintaining their efficiency.
On the CPU side, reviews suggest it gets about 1950/9000 in Geekbench for ST/MT tests, and about 1600/8700 in Cinebench R23. This is a roughly 8-10% improvement in ST and 20% improvement in MT against the M1, which is inline with what we saw from Apple's A15 (compared to A14). Almost all of the ST gains are likely coming from the increase in clock speeds, with Apple focusing on efficiency cores in this generation of iPhones (A15 efficiency cores were a significant upgrade over A14, helping push the MT scores above the gains of the increased clock speed).
A full SPEC benchmark isn't likely coming anytime soon. This brings the ST performance of each core closer to Alder lake, getting ahead of Zen 3 (and likely falling short of the upcoming Zen 4), and maintaining/extending their lead in performance per watt.
On the GPU side, which is more important because unlike the CPU, the M1 GPU wasn't very competitive, things seem to have improved more substantially.
According to The Verge, it got 29fps in shadow of the tomb raider, compared to 20fps for the M1. It's a noticeable improvement and definitely a good thing, but still nowhere near the levels necessary to compete against AMD and Nvidia.
For video encoding (fixed function), it's also getting a good speed bump, although can't compete with M1 Pro/Max but closes down the gap between M1 and M1 Pro quite a lot.
Overall seems like an evolutionary (rather than revolutionary) upgrade over the M1.
Borrowing from MacRumors:
| Apple M1 | Apple M2 | |
|---|---|---|
| Node: | TSMC 5nm (N5) | TSMC 5nm (N5P) |
| Transistor count | 16 billion | 20 billion |
| Performance cores | 4 Firestorm cores (Apple A14 generation) | 4 Avalanche cores (Apple A15 generation) |
| Efficiency cores | 4 Icestorm cores (Apple A14 generation) | 4 Blizzard cores (Apple A15 generation) |
| Clock speed | 3.2 GHz | 3.49 GHz |
| GPU | 8 cores (Apple A14 generation) | 10 cores (Apple A15 generation) |
| RAM options | 8GB or 16GB | 8GB, 16GB or 24GB |
| Memory bandwidth | 68 GB/s | 100 GB/s |
A small refresh/evolution, just updates the cores in the M1 from A14 to A15. According to Apple it came at about 18% faster CPU and about 30% faster GPU, while maintaining their efficiency.
On the CPU side, reviews suggest it gets about 1950/9000 in Geekbench for ST/MT tests, and about 1600/8700 in Cinebench R23. This is a roughly 8-10% improvement in ST and 20% improvement in MT against the M1, which is inline with what we saw from Apple's A15 (compared to A14). Almost all of the ST gains are likely coming from the increase in clock speeds, with Apple focusing on efficiency cores in this generation of iPhones (A15 efficiency cores were a significant upgrade over A14, helping push the MT scores above the gains of the increased clock speed).
A full SPEC benchmark isn't likely coming anytime soon. This brings the ST performance of each core closer to Alder lake, getting ahead of Zen 3 (and likely falling short of the upcoming Zen 4), and maintaining/extending their lead in performance per watt.
On the GPU side, which is more important because unlike the CPU, the M1 GPU wasn't very competitive, things seem to have improved more substantially.
According to The Verge, it got 29fps in shadow of the tomb raider, compared to 20fps for the M1. It's a noticeable improvement and definitely a good thing, but still nowhere near the levels necessary to compete against AMD and Nvidia.
For video encoding (fixed function), it's also getting a good speed bump, although can't compete with M1 Pro/Max but closes down the gap between M1 and M1 Pro quite a lot.
Overall seems like an evolutionary (rather than revolutionary) upgrade over the M1.