Apple's 'M2' processor enters mass production for MacBook Pro

AppleInsider

The second Apple Silicon processor has reportedly entered volume production, and will first appear in MacBook Pro models from the second half of 2021.

Apple's MacBook Pro is expected to be the first Mac to use the forthcoming "M2" processor

A new supply chain report is backing up previous claims that Apple has rescheduled new MacBook Pro manufacturing to the second half of 2021.

According to Nikkei Asia, also the source of the previous report, the "M2" processor entered mass production earlier in April. Unnamed people said to be familiar with the matter, told the publication that it is possible this means shipments could begin as early as July.

These sources also said that the new processor is intended to be used first in the MacBook Pro. However, as it has with the M1 processor, Apple is expected to later deploy it across more of its product range.




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mattinoz

Great fairly predictable what will be interesting is what direction M2 goes?

dk49

mattinoz said:

Great fairly predictable what will be interesting is what direction M2 goes?

Eating the top Intels and AMDs for lunch! 

cpsro

Looking forward to the lower prices from Apple not having to pay the Intel tax on chips and cooling systems.
Oh wait

dewme

If this follows Apple’s (and industry) patterns the second iteration will be a significant improvement over the first release. 

First release products often incur one-time costs, startup hurdles, overhead, learning curve, and extra effort not solely related to the product itself. 

The second release tends to be what the developers really wanted for the first release product to be but didn’t have enough time, budget, and benefit of knowledge to deliver. 

The M1 is amazing but the M2 (or whatever they call it) is going to make at least one traditional cpu maker soil their pants. 

Marvin

mattinoz said:

Great fairly predictable what will be interesting is what direction M2 goes?

The efficiency of the M chips is really high. The following site tested Rise of the Tomb Raider at 1080p, very high quality settings and it gets 40FPS. That performance is pretty standard but just 7 watts of power for the GPU, 7.5 watts of power for the CPU, 16.5 watts for the whole chip.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/16252/mac-mini-apple-m1-tested/3

That gives them a huge amount of headroom. If they 2x the CPU and 4x the GPU, this will be a 40W chip and perform like an Nvidia 3060. That can go in a 16" MBP, run almost twice as fast as the highest end current Intel model while using half the power. That performance level would be around the mid-level iMac Pro and can be used for both the 16" MBP and 27" iMac.

This gives them a lot of control over inventory - MBA, 13" MBP, 24" iMac, mini and iPad Pro on the same M1 chip. 16" MBP and 27" iMac on the same M2 chip. Mac Pro either a custom high-end chip or just use multiples of the M2 e.g M2 Duo, M2 Quad. A higher end iMac model can use the higher end chips too.

For Mac Pro performance, they'd need another 2x CPU and 4x GPU but that's still under 200W and won't need anywhere near the cooling of the current model.

It's a shame it's for H2, hopefully they'll at least talk about it at WWDC in a few weeks like the M1 last year and ship sooner than the usual end of year Mac releases.

I think these models will start at 16GB memory, possibly DDR5 and go up to 64GB, 512GB SSD. If the Mac Pro uses up to 4 packages, it can go up to 256GB. I expect the entry prices to be close to where they are now although they would probably be able to drop $200-300. The highest end models can be much cheaper than they are now. Even if Apple charged $2k for the highest-end chips, that would be a huge markup over their manufacturing cost and still $5k cheaper than intel and they'd be offering iMac Pro performance at entry Pro model prices.

mobird

That doesn't sound like the Apple I know...

Marvin said:

 I expect the entry prices to be close to where they are now although they would probably be able to drop $200-300. The highest end models can be much cheaper than they are now.

barthrh

Marvin said:

It's a shame it's for H2, hopefully they'll at least talk about it at WWDC in a few weeks like the M1 last year and ship sooner than the usual end of year Mac releases.

I suspect they will. There is no harm in doing so; pre-announcing normally kills your current sales, but everyone knows it's coming so pre-announcement and possibly even pre-orders of some models won't hurt a bit.

GeorgeBMac

For all those defending the "Everything Glued together & soldered together" assembly of the MacBooks by saying "Nobody ever upgraded a computer", Andrew just called bull!

His biggest (only?) complaint about his M1 MacBook Air is that it can't meet his needs because it is frozen in time with what it came with when he bought it -- versus his MacPro which grew and developed with enhancements as his needs, wants and requirements grew.

Likewise, my 9 year old i7 Thinkpad runs perfectly well and meets all of my needs -- because it's been upgraded to a 500Gb SSD, 16Gb Ram and an internal harddrive used for ongoing, real time backups.  Without those cheap and very simple to install (5 minutes or less) upgrades the machine would have been scrap

riverko

Will they make it to base it on the latest ARM v9? that would be exciting…

applecored

iMac Pro 27" with M2 should be a nice machine! 

Eric_in_CT

Have a 27" iMac from 2009 with 2TB of 7200-RPM storage; was $2600.

For about a year or so one can get an Intel 27" with 2TB of SSD (no Fusion) for about $2600.  Been waiting a long time for 2TB-No-Fusion, but haven't bought yet.

When Mx hits the 27", how much will 2TB of on-board storage be?

Given that the technology between 2009 and now is horse/buggy to SpaceX, it will be pretty impressive if it's the same $2600.

The new 24"s are pretty amazing too.  Want to see one in person of course.

[Deleted User]

GeorgeBMac said:

Likewise, my 9 year old i7 Thinkpad runs perfectly well and meets all of my needs -- because it's been upgraded to a 500Gb SSD, 16Gb Ram and an internal harddrive used for ongoing, real time backups.  Without those cheap and very simple to install (5 minutes or less) upgrades the machine would have been scrap

...I´ve had several Thinkpads over the years, and I still got one.
Sure, you can do upgrades of ram, ssd and in fact the cpu provided the fan/cooling is made for the same TDP. Sure, a new SSD might take down the power consumption a tad, but you are still stuck with the same s****y battery life and the very same s****y screen and the same miserable GPU (OR the power hog edition). You can bring extra batteries when/if moving around for sure, but you'll need 2 extra 94 wh ones to keep up with the M1 MacBook Pro 13.   

...and when you start calculating you'll probably find that the economy in it is not that much better than buying a M1 MacBook Pro 13 which will have a decent 2nd hand value and that outperforms the old TP night and day week in week out.

dk49

I am actually hoping that they build it on ARM V9, rather than V8. That itself will give it a significant boost. 

[Deleted User]

Marvin said:

mattinoz said:

Great fairly predictable what will be interesting is what direction M2 goes?

The efficiency of the M chips is really high. The following site tested Rise of the Tomb Raider at 1080p, very high quality settings and it gets 40FPS. That performance is pretty standard but just 7 watts of power for the GPU, 7.5 watts of power for the CPU, 16.5 watts for the whole chip.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/16252/mac-mini-apple-m1-tested/3

That gives them a huge amount of headroom. If they 2x the CPU and 4x the GPU, this will be a 40W chip and perform like an Nvidia 3060. That can go in a 16" MBP, run almost twice as fast as the highest end current Intel model while using half the power. That performance level would be around the mid-level iMac Pro and can be used for both the 16" MBP and 27" iMac.

This gives them a lot of control over inventory - MBA, 13" MBP, 24" iMac, mini and iPad Pro on the same M1 chip. 16" MBP and 27" iMac on the same M2 chip. Mac Pro either a custom high-end chip or just use multiples of the M2 e.g M2 Duo, M2 Quad. A higher end iMac model can use the higher end chips too.

For Mac Pro performance, they'd need another 2x CPU and 4x GPU but that's still under 200W and won't need anywhere near the cooling of the current model.

It's a shame it's for H2, hopefully they'll at least talk about it at WWDC in a few weeks like the M1 last year and ship sooner than the usual end of year Mac releases.

I think these models will start at 16GB memory, possibly DDR5 and go up to 64GB, 512GB SSD. If the Mac Pro uses up to 4 packages, it can go up to 256GB. I expect the entry prices to be close to where they are now although they would probably be able to drop $200-300. The highest end models can be much cheaper than they are now. Even if Apple charged $2k for the highest-end chips, that would be a huge markup over their manufacturing cost and still $5k cheaper than intel and they'd be offering iMac Pro performance at entry Pro model prices.

As soon as they have rolled out M1 variants (8core, 12core, 16core with matching memory/neural/gpu/++ for all Macs and have the chassises in line (New MBPs, Mac mini, and iMac Mac Pro), I reckon they will adapt a similar strategy to how they are evolving iPads and iPhones. Basically incremental updates with occasional additions of cores, new features, minor design changes and implementation of new tech. Although I can imagine 2 processor units in a Mac Pro, I anticipate 1 unit with more cores +++.

5G in the MBPs would not be met with heavy resistance from the users. Pretty certain of that.

seanj

GeorgeBMac said:

For all those defending the "Everything Glued together & soldered together" assembly of the MacBooks by saying "Nobody ever upgraded a computer", Andrew just called bull!

His biggest (only?) complaint about his M1 MacBook Air is that it can't meet his needs because it is frozen in time with what it came with when he bought it -- versus his MacPro which grew and developed with enhancements as his needs, wants and requirements grew.

Likewise, my 9 year old i7 Thinkpad runs perfectly well and meets all of my needs -- because it's been upgraded to a 500Gb SSD, 16Gb Ram and an internal harddrive used for ongoing, real time backups.  Without those cheap and very simple to install (5 minutes or less) upgrades the machine would have been scrap

Only a tiny percentage of people tinker with the computers, it’s a niche market that’s similar to those that add nitrous oxide to their cars...
Most people just want a computer they can do things with, rather than do things to, in other words a consumer product. With Apple they get that, which is why customer satisfaction is so high.

If you have a 9 year old Thinkpad then you’re probably either running XP (good luck browsing the Internet securely) or you’re running Linux. If it’s the latter then if you happy with a limited number of professional applications then that’s fine.

Peza

Will be interested to see how it performs, and if it runs Starcraft 2 better.

Peza

seanj said:

GeorgeBMac said:

For all those defending the "Everything Glued together & soldered together" assembly of the MacBooks by saying "Nobody ever upgraded a computer", Andrew just called bull!

His biggest (only?) complaint about his M1 MacBook Air is that it can't meet his needs because it is frozen in time with what it came with when he bought it -- versus his MacPro which grew and developed with enhancements as his needs, wants and requirements grew.

Likewise, my 9 year old i7 Thinkpad runs perfectly well and meets all of my needs -- because it's been upgraded to a 500Gb SSD, 16Gb Ram and an internal harddrive used for ongoing, real time backups.  Without those cheap and very simple to install (5 minutes or less) upgrades the machine would have been scrap

Only a tiny percentage of people tinker with the computers, it’s a niche market that’s similar to those that add nitrous oxide to their cars...
Most people just want a computer they can do things with, rather than do things to, in other words a consumer product. With Apple they get that, which is why customer satisfaction is so high.

If you have a 9 year old Thinkpad then you’re probably either running XP (good luck browsing the Internet securely) or you’re running Linux. If it’s the latter then if you happy with a limited number of professional applications then that’s fine.

Well considering it's global PC market share, many would say the Apple Mac computer is also a niche product and market.

omasou

Sure hope the M2 supports dual 6K, 5K and 4K monitors.

Fidonet127

GeorgeBMac said:

For all those defending the "Everything Glued together & soldered together" assembly of the MacBooks by saying "Nobody ever upgraded a computer", Andrew just called bull!

His biggest (only?) complaint about his M1 MacBook Air is that it can't meet his needs because it is frozen in time with what it came with when he bought it -- versus his MacPro which grew and developed with enhancements as his needs, wants and requirements grew.

Likewise, my 9 year old i7 Thinkpad runs perfectly well and meets all of my needs -- because it's been upgraded to a 500Gb SSD, 16Gb Ram and an internal harddrive used for ongoing, real time backups.  Without those cheap and very simple to install (5 minutes or less) upgrades the machine would have been scrap

For every point, there is a vast majority of people who never upgrade the internals of their computers. You can rally and complain about that all you want, however there are millions of computers including Apple that haven’t been upgrade for years. Our 2014 Air and Mini are some of those. Apple is selling more ASi Macs than Intel Macs and every one of them are all soldered together. Apple knows their market. Rather than scrapping them, Macs do have a high resale value. 

[Deleted User]

seanj said:

If you have a 9 year old Thinkpad then you’re probably either running XP (good luck browsing the Internet securely) or you’re running Linux. If it’s the latter then if you happy with a limited number of professional applications then that’s fine.

No. An old (4 core) TP runs Windows 10 just fine, and there's quite a few things you can do with then professionally with Linux on them too. 

The caveats wrt performance CAN be boot-times, editing images and movie stuff, compiling code and working with big documents/spreadsheetsystems/presentations and so on. 

OS and applications are more and more oriented towards more cores and more threads, so you might get acceptable performance for 4 cores + 4 threads, but the applications are increasingly capable of handling way more and handles it differently with more cores.

And what happens when the performance gets better? They add more and heavier functionality, higher GPU demand, AI-esque stuff and so on.

Welcome to molasses.