M2 Manages to Rack up to a 19 Percent Improvement Over the M1 in CPU Workloads
Heading over to Geekbench, Apple’s M2 managed to obtain a single-core score of 1919 and multi-core score of 8928. The device that was tested, featured 16GB of unified LPDDR5 RAM, with the CPU supposedly operating at a base frequency of 3.49GHz. In the single-core test, the M2 scores 12 percent faster than the M1, with the multi-core results showing a 19 percent improvement. To provide a better comparison, we have listed the scores obtained by both chipsets below.
M2 - single-core 1919, multi-core 8929 M1 - single-core 1720, multi-core 7474
Keep in mind that both the M1 and M2 feature the exact CPU configuration, where four cores are dedicated to performance while the remaining four are focused on power efficiency. Irrespective of the number of cores, and their exact nature, Apple mentioned during its WWDC 2022 keynote that the M2’s improved architecture meant users would see improved performance, and that is what we are witnessing in the images below. However, the most significant improvement lies in the graphics, and since the M2 can be equipped with up to 10 GPU cores, Apple’s latest custom silicon registered a Metal score of 30627, making it 50 percent faster than the numbers obtained by the M1, which were 20440. The performance gains could be the result of Apple using faster unified RAM, as the company claimed that the memory controller can operate at a bandwidth of 100GB/s, making it 50 percent faster than the M1. Also, an improved architecture led to these improvements, despite the fact that the latest SoC is mass produced on TSMC’s second-generation 5nm process, whereas the M1 was fabricated on the first-generation 5nm node. It appears that Apple’s charts were right all along, as the technology giant advertised that the M2’s CPU performance increased by 18 percent compared to the M1, though on this occasion, the multi-core saw a 19 percent improvement. Keep in mind that Geekbench performs synthetic workloads that may not represent the entire picture. There are multiple scenarios where the M2 could significantly outperform the M1 or disappoint potential buyers looking to purchase the new MacBook lineup powered by the latest custom silicon. We will provide routine updates on these benchmarks, so stay tuned.
