From Apple M1 to M2: Incremental or Giant Leap?
A deeper dive into Apple's M2 Chip
From M1 to M2, Apple took 2 years to release a new Apple Silicon lineup. As the second generation of Apple Silicon, is it an entirely new chip? How does it compare to everything that Apple released between the M1 and M2, i.e. M1 Pro, Max, and Ultra Model?
More importantly, is this a giant leap, or it's just an incremental update?
CPU — Incremental
I wouldn't say that the M2 is a next-gen chip because it uses the same 5-nanometer chip as the M1. I believe that Apple planned to release its new 3-nanometer chip, but TSMC (the manufacturer of M1 and M2 Chip) delayed its 3nm chip production in 2021. In other words, this is not a "full node improvement", where there is a change from a 5nm to a 3nm chip. As a result, the processor's improvement is not much from M1 to M2:
- Transistors: 16 billion to 20 billion (+25%)
- L2 Cache: 12 MB to 16 MB (+33%)
Overall, the CPU's performance is improved by 18%.
