36 Macworld • January 2022MAC
M2 VS M1 PRO:
NO COMPARISON
The M1 Pro is built for software that
can take advantage of multi-core
processing and GPUs. If you’re a pro
who uses CPU-intensive apps, don’t
wait, invest in an M1 Pro MacBook
Pro now. Based on what we know
about the M2, it will offer a decent
improvement over the M1 and creep
a little closer to the M1 Pro, but not
enough to anywhere near matching it.
But for common tasks, the M2
could be still faster than Apple’s
flagship processors. The M1 Pro’s
single-core performance is essentially
the same as the M1 (which is
expected, since the
M1 Pro is based on
the M1), and if the
M2 follows the path
of the A15, single-
core speed will be
a bit faster than
all of the M1 chips,
including the Pro
and the Max.
If the idea that
the M2’s single-
core performance
could be better
than the M1 Pro
piqued your
interest, an M1Pro – and probably any subsequent
Pro chip – is overkill for what you
do in the first place. Single-core
performance is important for common
apps such as Mail and Photos, so
the speed gains there could be
more worthwhile than the multi-core
performance of the M1 Pro. But the
M1 is already great for that stuff, so
we’d recommend one of those unless
you’re interested in the MacBook Air’s
rumoured redesign – at which point
the chip doesn’t really matter.
There’s also the question of the
13in MacBook Pro: Will Apple decide
to keep it, and if so, will it get an M2?
The current model has the sameThe 14in MacBook Pro has a great screen, but it wouldn’t be
anything without the M1 chip.