Apple Announces M2 Chip For New Apple Silicon Macs

Apple launched Apple Silicon to much fanfare in October 2020, with the first generation chip named ‘M1’. Now, Apple is debuting its second-generation custom Mac chip architecture, unsurprisingly named M2. M2 chip arrives first in the brand new MacBook Air.

Apple says CPU performance is 18% faster. You can now get 50% more memory bandwidth than M1, with up to 24 GB total RAM. There are also now 10 total GPU cores, with up to 35% better graphics performance than M1.

M2 is built on the same five nanometer process as M1, as rumored.

Apple says that the M2 chip can compete with high-end laptop PC chips at a fraction of the power, delivering 90% of the performance of a 12-core Intel CPU at a quarter of the power.

The Media Engine cores inside the M2 have also been significantly upgraded.