The M2 is Apple’s successor to the industry changing M1 chip, which flourished into a family of variants culminating in the M1 Ultra, that’s used to power the company’s latest desktop model: the Mac Studio. Mark Wherry considers the first Mac to feature an M2—the otherwise familiar 13-inch MacBook Pro—and uncovers how its specifications relate to performance for musicians and audio engineers.
The new 13-inch MacBook Pro is a peculiar system for Apple to maintain within the company’s current product line. With the introduction of last year’s 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pro models, you could be forgiven for thinking that the 14-inch manifestation was intended to be a combined replacement for both the 13-inch and older 15-inch models. After all, with the new, fourth-generation MacBook Air is almost identically specified as the new 13-inch MacBook Pro, maintaining its reputation as the most performant notebook in the hotly contested arena of the so-called ‘ultra’ (thin) notebooks that are generally quite affordable.
However, with the announcement of a new 13-inch Mac Pro Apple has something of an oddity on its hands. This new MacBook Pro offers some of Apple’s latest notebook features, such as the company’s latest M2 silicon, and yet is simultaneously constrained by some of its grey-ist – including an overall design that hasn’t changed in nearly six years!
Naturally, there are a few external changes to observe, aren’t there? For example, the M2-based 13-inch MacBook Pro must surely include Apple’s latest MagSafe connector to supply easily detachable power, just like every other notebook in the company’s line up? No. You’re still required to use one of only two Thunderbolt 4 / USB 4 connectors for power.
But at least Apple has finally exorcized the TouchBar from the company’s full range of notebook Macs, right? Giving us back the simplicity of physical Function Keys that make using Pro Tools and Cubase far easier by default? Sadly not. The TouchBar (in Apple’s own words) gives the user “Shortcuts to success...” so they can “Do all kinds of things quicker with handy shortcuts and features.”. Right… Although, to be fair, Logic Pro’s use of the TouchBar is kind of cool, and Apple allows access to a TouchBar when using a Mac with an iPad Sidecar.
For completeness, the display is the 13.3-inch panel previously—and quite literally—seen on the M1-based predecessor, offering 2560 x 1600 pixels with support for several scaled resolutions. Achieving the same 500 nits of brightness with a wide ‘P3’ colour range, the display is anything but average, featuring True Tone technology but sadly none of the luxuriant enhancements found on some of Apple’s other products, such as the Pro Display XDR, the larger MacBook Pros, the larger iPad Pro, or even the MacBook Air.
One thing that has been improved are the images that can be captured by the 720p FaceTime HD camera. Putting aside the fact that a 720p camera in a premium notebook with price tag in excess of £1000, in 2022, is a little bit poor, Apple have added an advanced Image Signal Processor into the chain to partly make up for this indiscretion. Such a capability makes it possible to enhance the video steam thanks to computation video, which we’ve seen creeping into Apple’s product line over the last couple of years.
Thankfully, the audio playback hardware also offers improvements, such as the advanced support for high-impedance headphones via the built-in 3.5mm jack, which I’ve found to be a real benefit on the larger MacBook Pro models as well as the Mac Studio. And while you don’t get the same speaker array found on other MacBook Pros, support for Spatial Audio has been added to the existing Dolby Atmos support from the previous 13-inch model. This makes it possible to use Logic Pro’s ‘Renderer for Built-in Speakers’ when working on Atmos productions in Apple’s own music and audio creation and production application.
Don’t Judge a MacBook By Its Cover
It is, of course, relatively easy to poke fun at what the 13-inch MacBook Pro has and does not have in terms of outwardly facing specifications. So, let’s instead move swiftly along to the germane reason that the new 13-inch MacBook Pro (and, indeed, the fourth-generation MacBook Air) is interesting: the M2 chip.
Aside from providing a convenient route from London to Kent, the M2 in this context represents an evolutionary step from the M1 chip rather than the revolutionary leap some might have preferred. However, such a move is typical in the world of semiconductors, where so-called tick-tock models are often applied, such that a major ‘tick’ development is followed by a ‘tock’ revision in refinement. And this seems very much like the play Apple is making: the company put its cards on the table with the M1 and is now raising the stakes with the M2.
To begin with, the M2 sees the M1’s performance and efficiency cores—known by their codenames as Firestorm and Icestorm—replaced with the improved ‘Avalanche’ and ‘Blizzard’ cores first seem in Apple’s mobile-focused A15 chip. This was introduced last year, in 2021, to power the iPhone 13 Pro and Pro Max. A variant of the chip with one of the five GPU cores disabled, was employed in the regular iPhone 13, mini, and SE models. Such a lineage shouldn’t be surprising, since ‘Firestorm’ and ‘Icestorm’ had been introduced with the A14 chip, used to power the previous generation of iPhones.
Like the M1, the M2 has eight CPU cores (comprising four performance cores and four efficiency cores), with similar L1 caches offering 192 and 128kB for instructions for the performance and efficiency cores, and 128 and 64kB for data, respectively. The efficiency cluster has the same 4MB shared L2 cache as the M1, although the performance cluster now has larger L2 cache of 16MB (up from 12MB), and both chips offer the same additional system-level cache (think L3 cache) of 8MB.
More importantly, when it comes to memory, the M2 can address up to 24GB Unified Memory in 8GB increments when ordering, such that you can purchase models with either 8, 16, or 24GB of 128-bit wide LPDDR5 (6400MT/s) memory that’s accessible to the entire chip. This is an improvement over the LPDDR4X (4266MT/s) memory used in the original M1 and sees the M2 starting with the same basic memory technology as previously used by the M1 Pro. The M1 also had a 128 -bit memory bus, but with a bandwidth of 68GB/s, where the M2 increases this to 102GB/s with its larger 256-bit bus. (The M1 Pro still offers about twice this figure at 204GB/s with a 128-bit memory bus).
Putting the M2’s System on Chip (Soc) in context with the M2’s System in Package, where the SoC is packaged with the system’s Unified Memory.
A Game of Chips
So how do these specifications contribute to the measurable performance of the new, M2-based 13-inch MacBook Pro? Starting with the now-ubiquitous Geekbench tests, the M2 scores 1766 and 8982 in the single-core and multi-core performance tests respectively. It’s worth noting that my own single-core result was much lower than the equivalent score of 1896 listed on the Geekbench Browser. Also, as a comparison, the previous M1-based 13-inch MacBook Pro scored 1766 and 7563 in the same tests.
One simple reason for the performance increase is that the M2 is clocked around 10 percent faster at 3.49GHz than its predecessor, which had a clock speed of 3.2GHz. However, given we’re past the point where a processor’s clock speed was a useful indication of performance, the increase in multi-core performance particularly, is more likely down to the ‘ultrawide’ microarchitecture used in the performance cores.
In considering the width of a microarchitecture, I should first caveat the following descriptions with the disclaimer that they’re deliberately oversimplified since this publication isn’t called Microarchitecture Expert – for a good reason! But we’re essentially talking about the number of instructions that can be executed simultaneously given the available execution units.
The M1’s microarchitecture allowed for eight instructions to be decoded at the same time on both performance and efficiency cores, and there’s probably a good chance that the ‘wide’ efficiency cores on the M2 are similarly specified. And while Apple doesn’t release many numbers to describe the abilities of its custom silicon, by referring to the M2’s performance cores as having an ‘ultrawide’ microarchitecture, this sort of implies we’re talking of a decoder capable of handling more than eight instructions in a single cycle.
Now without getting into deeper water when it comes to modern processor design, wider microarchitectures allow for more instructions to be executed simultaneously, which is generally a good thing. However, it turns out that keeping the pipeline usefully busy becomes increasingly non-trivial as the width of the instruction decoder increases, which could slow down performance. Although, given that audio is stored as a contiguous stream of numbers and buffers, and processes many simple and repetitive instructions that can fit into an L1 instruction cache, this kind of modern microarchitecture design is bizarrely perfect for the needs of musicians and audio engineers.
Moving onto the onboard graphics processing, which is accelerated, as before, with a combination of the GPU and the custom Media engines. The Media engine now supports 8K H.264, HEVC, and ProRes/RAW codecs, using separate video decode and encode engines, with an additional engine reserved for ProRes/RAW encoding and decoding. As already seen with the previous M1 family, the Media engine offers superlatively smooth playback for video, which will benefit anyone working with video; whether that’s the simple playback of a video track within a music and audio application, or more obviously with an application like Apple’s own Final Cut Pro or Blackmagic’s DaVinci Resolve.
In considering Geekbench’s Metal score, testing both graphical algorithms and general-purpose GPU computation tasks, the M2 scores a significant 30715 when compared to the M1’s 21414 result. Some of this is due to the fact the M2 simply has better hardware: a 10-core GPU, with a larger L2 cache, and the ability to process at a rate of 3.6 teraflops, which is capable of 111 gigatexels or 55 gigapixels per second in terms of throughput. By comparison, the M1 offers an eight-core GPU capable of handling 2.6 teraflops, processing 82 gigatexels or 41 gigapixels per second.
Does The M2 Go To 11?
Although such performance metrics are quite interesting, let’s move on and see how these translate into what’s possible with music and audio software. Beginning with Apple’s own Logic Pro (10.7.4), I recreated a test Apple themselves have detailed for their own comparisons: create a 44.1kHz/24-bit project, add a track (in this case stereo), put an instance of Amp Designer (with the Britannica Crunch preset) in an insert slot on that track, and play audio. And then, keep adding similarly configured tracks until the system falls over.
I’m assuming Apple use Amp Designer because such guitar amplifier simulators usually employ convolution-based processing, which is generally more computationally intensive than, say, your average non-modelled dynamics algorithm. And it’s a somewhat decent baseline, since multiple instances of model-based plug-ins are more likely to be used on multiple tracks than reverbs, as an example.
I repeated this test four times to see what the maximum performance was based on how Logic Pro’s Audio Engine Processing Threads parameter is configured. With 8 Threads selected, four of them are rendered on the four high-performance cores, with the remaining four are handled by the efficiency cores. This achieved a stunning 246 tracks playing simultaneously. With 6 Threads selected (four performance and two efficiency), 243 tracks could be played simultaneously. The number of tracks playing dropped to a still respectable 205 tracks with 4 Threads (using only the four performance cores), and by dropping to just 2 Threads (and thus only two performance cores), achieved a maximum of 137 tracks.
Moving on to Pro Tools, Avid still hasn’t released a Universal Application to support both native and Intel-based code. This means, of course, that Pro Tools and any plug-ins used within a Session continue to take a performance hit when running under macOS’s Rosetta 2 binary translation layer. Also, unlike Logic Pro, Pro Tools no longer features an option to specify how its audio engine utilises multiple performance and efficient cores.
Nonetheless, I set up a similar test to the one used for Logic Pro, creating a new 44.1kHz/24-bit Session, adding a stereo audio track with an instance if Eleven Lite using the default preset, and adding more similarly configured tracks before playback became impossible. In this case, I was only able to reach nine audio tracks, and, in fairness, more testing could be carried out to better understand this result; although, running under Rosetta 2 means that some of the advanced optimisations aren’t available, such as AVX 512 instructions.
Finally, I looked at Cubase (although these results would also be applicable to Nuendo), which has been available as a Universal Application since the release of version 12. With ASIO Guard disabled, I could play 35 stereo tracks (in a Project configured for 44.1kHz / 24-bit audio) using VST Amp Rack with the Big Clean Reverb. However, with ASIO Guard enabled (which enables a kind of look-ahead processing model), the situation changed dramatically.
With ASIO Guard set to low, normal, and high, I achieved track counts of 72, 80, 92, respectively. And with that latter test, should you have any lingering doubts concerning the presence of fans in the system, well they’re most definitely there! However, to be fair, it took this level of CPU exploitation (flooring all CPU cores to 100 percent usage) to get them to turn on, and the fans deployed are nowhere near as obnoxious as the cooling systems used by previous, Intel-based MacBook Pros.
Need for Speed
When it comes to internal storage, the 13-inch MacBook Pro once again comes with 256GB as standard, although can be ordered with larger 512GB, 1TB, or 2TB options. Now, if you’ve been reading any of the online hysteria surrounding the disk performance rather closely, including on this esteemed site, you might have some real concerns about the performance possible with the base model. And indeed, if we consider the results being reported by Blackmagic Design’s aptly named Disk Speed Test, the latest M2-based MacBook Pro seems to be more tortoise than hare when compared with the previous model.
In testing my own review model (the base model with 8GB storage and 256GB storage), I observed read and write results of 1538 and 1542 MB/s respectively. This is obviously less impressive than the results obtained from the original M1 13-inch MacBook Pro, released nearly two years ago, as demonstrated in a video from Max Tech (which can be viewed on YouTube). Here, they record read and write benchmarks of 2900 and 2215 MB/s, which is very much in line with my own testing at the time using AJA’s System Test Lite: 2824 and 1904 MB/s.
Now, before we go any further, these numbers are terrible, right? So bad that we can expect to see them accompanied by the sight of angels trembling and demons lamenting, can’t we? The stars being thrown back to earth, the sun turning black, and, well… Maybe we should just consider these numbers from a more practical, audio perspective.
Taking a 96kHz mono, uncompressed, audio stream, captured at a 24-bit resolution as an example, this requires a data rate of 0.27MB/s, which is rather insignificant by modern standards. But if you divide the 1538MB/s read speed of the M2-based 13-inch MacBook Pro by this meagre number, you’d have a theoretical bandwidth capable playing back 5600 96kHz/24-bit audio streams.
This simple chart illustrates the number of tracks that can be either played back or recorded simultaneously on both the M1- and M2-based 13-inch MacBook Pros.
96kHz is the highest sampling rate supported by Dolby Atmos, which is why I chose this, although 48kHz remains the most commonly used sample rate in audio post-production, with some musicians still hanging onto 44.1kHz. In this latter case, the theoretical bandwidth would allow for nearly 12,000 audio streams! And considering Atmos in 7.1.2 (10 streams), we could divide our stream counts by 10 to give us 560 7.1.2 playback tracks (or 1122 10-stream tracks).
So, while there’s no way to ignore the elephant in the bandwidth that is the slower speed of the base model, M2-based 13-inch MacBook Pro internal SSD—after all, the M1 equivalent from nearly two years ago almost offers double the read and write speeds—we also need to think about these numbers in the real world. For example, when did your last project require the playback of more than 5600 96kHz/24-bit/mono simultaneous streams of audio, let alone over 10,000? And I’m purposely referring to these audio blocks as streams, given that the calculations would be as true for standard playback tracks, or voices in disk-based sampler.
When it comes to recording, however, I’m not sure I’m aware of a system that can provide over 5000 simultaneous mono inputs, or from where such a need would arise for this to be seen as a limitation. Obviously recording and playing back at the same time involves combinations of read and write operations that reduce the theoretical maximum on both sides, but probably not to the point it would become a problem, even if you happen to be recording on a base model 13-inch MacBook Pro power by an M2.
Conclusion
Trying to write an elegant closing to this review was never going to be an easy task. For example,how does one begin to reconcile the latest with the gray-est? The simplest answer would be someone who wants the latest technology but is prepared to order something better-specified than the base configuration, whilst preferring the unchanged form-factor. It could be that you just happen to really like the way in which the Touch Bar adds to your workflow, or maybe it’s just the convenient similarity to your existing setup?
Obviously, the elephant in the room is the new MacBook Air, which features mostly the same internals, but with huge external improvements to audio (a four-way speaker system), visuals (both in the newer, slightly larger 13.6 display, as well as the anything-would-be-better 1080p FaceTime HD camera), and just the fresher, more brutalist design language. However, the MacBook Air also has a smaller, 52.6-watt‑hour lithium‑polymer battery, as opposed to the 58.2 watt-hour alternative found in the 13-inch MacBook Pro that will give you at least another hour of use. And, the MacBook Air’s base model, priced at £1199, has an M2 chip with eight graphics cores, as opposed to the ten found on more expensive configurations or for £100 more with a 13-inch MacBook Pro as standard.
For some users, these two specifications won’t really matter; after all, a slight reduction in graphics performance isn’t going to significantly impact music and audio applications – if at all. And so, in many ways, the more relevant comparison would be the base model 13-inch MacBook Pro and the older 14-inch model introduced last year. Here, a £700-difference gets you (comparing the 13- to the 14-inch), a larger Liquid Retina XDR display, an M1 Pro than still outperforms the base M2, twice the amount of Unified Memory (8 to 16GB) and storage (256GB to 512GB), the four-speaker system, and all the other modern tweaks such as MagSafe.
The choice is yours.