Apple M2 Benchmark, Test and specs

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The Apple M2 has 8 cores with 8 threads and is based on the 2. gen of the Apple M series series. The processor was released in Q2/2022. The Apple M2 scores 1,874 points in the Geekbench 5 single-core benchmark. In the Geekbench 5 multi-core benchmark, the result is 8,853 points.
Apple M2

CPU lineage

The segment in which we have classified the Apple M2. Here you can see if it is a desktop processor or a mobile processor or which processor may be the successor of the Apple M2.

Name: Apple M2
Family: Apple M series
CPU group: Apple M2
Segment: Mobile
Generation: 2
Predecessor: Apple M1
Successor: --

CPU Cores and Base Frequency

The Apple M2 has 8 CPU cores and can calculate 8 threads in parallel. The clock frequency of the Apple M2 is 3.50 GHz. The number of CPU cores greatly affects the speed of the processor and is an important performance indicator.

CPU Cores / Threads: 8 / 8
Core architecture: hybrid (big.LITTLE)
A-Core: 4x Avalanche
B-Core: 4x Blizzard
Hyperthreading / SMT: No
Overclocking: No
A-Core Frequency: 3.50 GHz
B-Core Frequency: 2.80 GHz

Internal Graphics

The Apple M2 has integrated graphics, called iGPU for short. Specifically, the Apple M2 uses the Apple M2 (10 Core), which has 1280 texture shaders and 160 execution units. The iGPU uses the system's main memory as graphics memory and sits on the processor's die.

GPU name: Apple M2 (10 Core)
GPU frequency: 1.40 GHz
GPU (Turbo): No turbo
Execution units: 160
Shader: 1280
Max. GPU Memory: 24 GB
Max. displays: 2
Generation: 2
Direct X: --
Technology: 5 nm
Release date: Q2/2022

Hardware codec support

A photo or video codec that is accelerated in hardware can greatly accelerate the working speed of a processor and extend the battery life of notebooks or smartphones when playing videos.

h265 / HEVC (8 bit): Decode / Encode
h265 / HEVC (10 bit): Decode / Encode
h264: Decode / Encode
VP8: Decode
VP9: Decode / Encode
AV1: No
AVC: Decode
VC-1: Decode
JPEG: Decode / Encode

Memory & PCIe

The processor can use up to 24 GB memory in 2 (Dual Channel) memory channels. The maximum memory bandwidth is 102.4 GB/s. The memory type as well as the amount of memory can greatly affect the speed of the system.

Memory type: LPDDR5-6400
Max. Memory: 24 GB
Memory channels: 2 (Dual Channel)
Bandwidth: 102.4 GB/s
ECC: No
PCIe: 4.0
AES-NI: Yes

Thermal Management

The thermal design power (TDP for short) of the processor is 22 W. The TDP specifies the necessary cooling solution that is required to cool the processor sufficiently. The TDP usually gives a rough idea of the actual power consumption of the CPU.

TDP (PL1 / PBP): 22 W
TDP (PL2): --
TDP up: --
TDP down: 10 W
Tjunction max.: 100 °C

Technical details

The Apple M2 is made in 5 nm. The smaller the manufacturing process of a CPU, the more modern and energy-efficient it is. Overall, the processor has 20.00 MB cache. A large cache can greatly speed up the processor's speed in some cases such as games.

Technology: 5 nm
Chip design: Chiplet
Socket: --
L2-Cache: 20.00 MB
L3-Cache: --
Architecture: M2
Operating systems: macOS, iPadOS
Virtualization: Apple Virtualization Framework
Instruction set (ISA): ARMv8-A64 (64 bit)
ISA extensions: Rosetta 2 x86-Emulation
Release date: Q2/2022
Release price: --
Part Number: --
Documents: Technical data sheet

Benchmark results

Verified Benchmark results
The benchmark results for the Apple M2 have been carefully checked by us. We only publish benchmark results that have been created by us or that have been submitted by a visitor and then checked by a team member. All results are based on and fullfill our benchmark guidelines.

Screenshots:

Cinebench R23 (Single-Core)

Cinebench R23 is the successor of Cinebench R20 and is also based on the Cinema 4 Suite. Cinema 4 is a worldwide used software to create 3D forms. The single-core test only uses one CPU core, the amount of cores or hyperthreading ability doesn't count.

Intel Core i3-13100 Intel Core i3-13100
4C 8T @ 4.50 GHz
1751
Intel Core i3-13100F Intel Core i3-13100F
4C 8T @ 4.50 GHz
1751
Intel Core i5-12490F Intel Core i5-12490F
6C 12T @ 4.60 GHz
1729
Apple M2 Apple M2
8C 8T @ 3.50 GHz
1695
Apple M2 Ultra (76-GPU) Apple M2 Ultra (76-GPU)
24C 24T @ 3.50 GHzNot verified
1695
Apple M2 Ultra (60-GPU) Apple M2 Ultra (60-GPU)
24C 24T @ 3.50 GHzNot verified
1695
Apple M2 Max (30-GPU) Apple M2 Max (30-GPU)
12C 12T @ 3.50 GHz
1695
Show all Cinebench R23 (Single-Core) results



Cinebench R23 (Multi-Core)

Cinebench R23 is the successor of Cinebench R20 and is also based on the Cinema 4 Suite. Cinema 4 is a worldwide used software to create 3D forms. The multi-core test involves all CPU cores and taks a big advantage of hyperthreading.

Intel Core i3-1220P Intel Core i3-1220P
10C 12T @ 2.70 GHz
8811
AMD Ryzen 7 1700X AMD Ryzen 7 1700X
8C 16T @ 3.60 GHz
8805
AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 1700X AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 1700X
8C 16T @ 3.60 GHz
8805
Apple M2 Apple M2
8C 8T @ 3.50 GHz
8714
Apple M2 (8-GPU) Apple M2 (8-GPU)
8C 8T @ 3.50 GHz
8714
Intel Core i9-9880H Intel Core i9-9880H
8C 16T @ 3.40 GHz
8657
Intel Core i7-9700F Intel Core i7-9700F
8C 8T @ 3.80 GHz
8540
Show all Cinebench R23 (Multi-Core) results



Geekbench 6 (Single-Core)

Geekbench 6 is a benchmark for modern computers, notebooks and smartphones. What is new is an optimized utilization of newer CPU architectures, e.g. based on the big.LITTLE concept and combining CPU cores of different sizes. The single-core benchmark only evaluates the performance of the fastest CPU core, the number of CPU cores in a processor is irrelevant here.

Intel Core i9-13900H Intel Core i9-13900H
14C 20T @ 5.40 GHz
2617
Intel Core i9-12900K Intel Core i9-12900K
16C 24T @ 5.20 GHz
2560
Intel Core i7-12700KF Intel Core i7-12700KF
12C 20T @ 5.00 GHz
2551
Apple M2 Apple M2
8C 8T @ 3.50 GHz
2536
Apple M2 (8-GPU) Apple M2 (8-GPU)
8C 8T @ 3.50 GHz
2536
Apple A16 Bionic Apple A16 Bionic
6C 6T @ 3.46 GHz
2531
Intel Core i7-12700K Intel Core i7-12700K
12C 20T @ 5.00 GHz
2528
Show all Geekbench 6 (Single-Core) results



Geekbench 6 (Multi-Core)

Geekbench 6 is a benchmark for modern computers, notebooks and smartphones. What is new is an optimized utilization of newer CPU architectures, e.g. based on the big.LITTLE concept and combining CPU cores of different sizes. The multi-core benchmark evaluates the performance of all of the processor's CPU cores. Virtual thread improvements such as AMD SMT or Intel's Hyper-Threading have a positive impact on the benchmark result.

AMD Ryzen 9 6900HS AMD Ryzen 9 6900HS
8C 16T @ 3.80 GHz
9768
Intel Core i5-13400 Intel Core i5-13400
10C 16T @ 4.10 GHz
9712
Intel Core i5-13400F Intel Core i5-13400F
10C 16T @ 3.90 GHz
9712
Apple M2 Apple M2
8C 8T @ 3.50 GHz
9691
Apple M2 (8-GPU) Apple M2 (8-GPU)
8C 8T @ 3.50 GHz
9691
AMD Ryzen 7 5700X AMD Ryzen 7 5700X
8C 16T @ 4.20 GHz
9687
Intel Core i7-11700KF Intel Core i7-11700KF
8C 16T @ 4.50 GHz
9658
Show all Geekbench 6 (Multi-Core) results



Geekbench 5, 64bit (Single-Core)

Geekbench 5 is a cross plattform benchmark that heavily uses the systems memory. A fast memory will push the result a lot. The single-core test only uses one CPU core, the amount of cores or hyperthreading ability doesn't count.

Intel Core i9-11900K Intel Core i9-11900K
8C 16T @ 5.30 GHz
1878
Intel Core i9-11900KB Intel Core i9-11900KB
8C 16T @ 5.30 GHz
1878
Intel Core i9-11900KF Intel Core i9-11900KF
8C 16T @ 5.30 GHz
1878
Apple M2 Apple M2
8C 8T @ 3.50 GHz
1874
Apple M2 Ultra (76-GPU) Apple M2 Ultra (76-GPU)
24C 24T @ 3.50 GHzNot verified
1874
Apple M2 Ultra (60-GPU) Apple M2 Ultra (60-GPU)
24C 24T @ 3.50 GHzNot verified
1874
Apple M2 Max (30-GPU) Apple M2 Max (30-GPU)
12C 12T @ 3.50 GHz
1874
Show all Geekbench 5, 64bit (Single-Core) results



Geekbench 5, 64bit (Multi-Core)

Geekbench 5 is a cross plattform benchmark that heavily uses the systems memory. A fast memory will push the result a lot. The multi-core test involves all CPU cores and taks a big advantage of hyperthreading.

Intel Core i7-7820X Intel Core i7-7820X
8C 16T @ 4.30 GHz
8916
Intel Xeon E5-2697 v4 Intel Xeon E5-2697 v4
18C 36T @ 2.80 GHz
8903
AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 6860Z AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 6860Z
8C 16T @ 2.70 GHz
8883
Apple M2 Apple M2
8C 8T @ 3.50 GHz
8853
AMD Ryzen 5 7640U AMD Ryzen 5 7640U
6C 12T @ 3.50 GHzNot verified
8853
Apple M2 (8-GPU) Apple M2 (8-GPU)
8C 8T @ 3.50 GHz
8853
Intel Core i5-1340P Intel Core i5-1340P
12C 16T @ 1.80 GHz
8822
Show all Geekbench 5, 64bit (Multi-Core) results



iGPU - FP32 Performance (Single-precision GFLOPS)

The theoretical computing performance of the internal graphics unit of the processor with simple accuracy (32 bit) in GFLOPS. GFLOPS indicates how many billion floating point operations the iGPU can perform per second.

Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy
Qualcomm Adreno 740 @ 0.72 GHz
3681
Intel Core i7-8709G Intel Core i7-8709G
AMD Radeon RX Vega M GH Graphics @ 1.19 GHz
3656
Intel Core i7-8809G Intel Core i7-8809G
AMD Radeon RX Vega M GH Graphics @ 1.19 GHz
3656
Apple M2 Apple M2
Apple M2 (10 Core) @ 1.40 GHz
3550
Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2
Qualcomm Adreno 740 @ 0.68 GHz
3482
AMD Ryzen 7 7735HS AMD Ryzen 7 7735HS
AMD Radeon RX 680M @ 2.20 GHz
3379
AMD Ryzen 7 7736U AMD Ryzen 7 7736U
AMD Radeon RX 680M @ 2.20 GHz
3379
Show all iGPU - FP32 Performance (Single-precision GFLOPS) results



Estimated results for PassMark CPU Mark

Some of the CPUs listed below have been benchmarked by CPU-monkey. However the majority of CPUs have not been tested and the results have been estimated by a CPU-monkey’s secret proprietary formula. As such they do not accurately reflect the actual Passmark CPU mark values and are not endorsed by PassMark Software Pty Ltd.

AMD Ryzen 7 1800X AMD Ryzen 7 1800X
8C 16T @ 3.80 GHz
15531
Intel Xeon Silver 4116 Intel Xeon Silver 4116
12C 24T @ 2.60 GHz
15510
Intel Xeon Silver 4116T Intel Xeon Silver 4116T
12C 24T @ 2.60 GHz
15510
Apple M2 Apple M2
8C 8T @ 3.50 GHz
15472
Apple M2 (8-GPU) Apple M2 (8-GPU)
8C 8T @ 3.50 GHz
15472
Intel Core i5-1235U Intel Core i5-1235U
10C 12T @ 2.50 GHz
15472
Intel Xeon E5-2640 v4 Intel Xeon E5-2640 v4
10C 20T @ 2.80 GHz
15420
Show all Estimated results for PassMark CPU Mark results



Blender 2.81 (bmw27)

Blender is a free 3D graphics software for rendering (creating) 3D bodies, which can also be textured and animated in the software. The Blender benchmark creates predefined scenes and measures the time (s) required for the entire scene. The shorter the time required, the better. We selected bmw27 as the benchmark scene.

Intel Core i9-9880H Intel Core i9-9880H
8C 16T @ 3.40 GHz
242.2
Intel Core i9-9980HK Intel Core i9-9980HK
8C 16T @ 3.40 GHz
251.2
Intel Core i7-5960X Intel Core i7-5960X
8C 16T @ 3.20 GHz
254.1
Apple M2 Apple M2
8C 8T @ 3.50 GHz
277
Apple M2 (8-GPU) Apple M2 (8-GPU)
8C 8T @ 3.50 GHz
277
AMD Ryzen 5 2600X AMD Ryzen 5 2600X
6C 12T @ 4.00 GHz
278.4
Intel Core i7-6850K Intel Core i7-6850K
6C 12T @ 3.60 GHz
279.7
Show all Blender 2.81 (bmw27) results



Benchmarks


News and articles for the Apple M2

Most popular processors in the first half of 2022
Posted by Stefan on 2022-07-05
In the past we had repeatedly written about our most popular processors. Since this format was quiet popular, I would like to continue this today and introduce you the most popular processors in the first half of 2022.

With more than 2 million page views per month, CPU-Monkey is one of the biggest comparison sites for processors and is currently available in 16 languages.
Apple M2 Pro with more CPU cores and production in 3 nm ?
Posted by Stefan on 2022-06-28
After Apple surprisingly presented the normal Apple M2 processor as the first successor to the Apple M1 already in June 2022, the Apple M2 Pro and the Apple M2 Max may follow in autumn. The difference in performance compared to the basic version could be even greater this time and range from 25 to 40 percent.

In this article we describe how Apple could realize this and why the price should also go up.
Apple M2 vs Apple M1 - What are the differences?
Posted by Stefan on 2022-06-09
During WWDC 2022 on June 6th, 2022 Apple surprisingly presented its new Apple M2 processor. This will initially be installed in a completely revised Apple MacBook Air with 13.6 inches, a even thinner form factor and new colors. Apple also updated the already known (old) Apple MacBook Pro 13.3 with touch bar.

Many leakers had counted on Apple not presenting its new second-generation M processor until the fall. But things turned out differently. And there is very likely a reason for that: the improvements in the Apple M2 are limited compared to the predecessor.

The Apple M2 is an unannounced processor from the manufacturer Apple. According to various sources, it will be announced by Apple as the successor to the successful Apple M1 processor around the second quarter of 2022 and should be delivered in the third quarter of 2022.

Its pretty certain that Apple uses an identical chip layout for the Apple M2, which again consists of 4 fast performance cores and 4 efficient CPU cores. Apparently, the processor is again manufactured in 5 nm, but the refreshed TSMC N4P process is probably already being used. According to the Taiwan manufacturer, this should be about 11 percent more powerful or 20 percent more efficient.

It is believed that Apple is using an intermediate level that increases both performance and efficiency. The clock frequency of the processor will therefore be around 3.4 GHz, which is an increase of 200 MHz compared to the Apple M1 (+ 6%). The integrated graphics (iGPU) of the Apple M2 will receive a major upgrade. Various sources assume 9 to 10 GPU cores here, which means 160 shaders when fully equipped with 10 GPU cores in the small Apple MacBook Pro 14.

The installed or soldered RAM should be upgraded from LPDDR4X-4266 to LPDDR5-6400, similar to the Apple M1 Pro and Apple M1 Max. Above all, the memory bandwidth and thus the iGPU benefit from this. Since there was criticism of the maximum number of addressable external monitors on the Apple M1 (these were addressed by Apple in the M1 Pro and M1 Max), it is conceivable that the Apple M2 now has 2 external monitors (in addition to the integrated notebook display) in can address high resolution.

With the Apple M2, the manufacturer from Cupertino has another interesting mobile processor on offer that has high performance and doesnt make it easy for the competitors AMD and Intel.


Leaderboards

In our leaderboards, we have clearly compiled the best processors for specific categories for you. The leaderboards are always up to date and are regularly updated by us. The best processors are selected according to popularity and speed in benchmarks as well as the price-performance ratio.


Popular comparisons

1. Apple M2 Apple M1 Apple M2 vs Apple M1
2. Apple M2 Intel Core i7-1195G7 Apple M2 vs Intel Core i7-1195G7
3. Apple M2 Intel Core i9-12900K Apple M2 vs Intel Core i9-12900K
4. Apple M2 Apple M1 Pro (10-CPU 14-GPU) Apple M2 vs Apple M1 Pro (10-CPU 14-GPU)
5. Apple M2 AMD Ryzen 9 5900X Apple M2 vs AMD Ryzen 9 5900X
6. Apple M2 Intel Core i9-13900K Apple M2 vs Intel Core i9-13900K
7. Apple M2 Intel Core i7-12700H Apple M2 vs Intel Core i7-12700H
8. Apple M2 Apple A14 Bionic Apple M2 vs Apple A14 Bionic
9. Apple M2 Apple M1 Max (24-GPU) Apple M2 vs Apple M1 Max (24-GPU)
10. Apple M2 Intel Core i5-10210U Apple M2 vs Intel Core i5-10210U
11. Apple M2 Intel Core i9-11900KF Apple M2 vs Intel Core i9-11900KF
12. Apple A15 Bionic (5-GPU) Apple M2 Apple A15 Bionic (5-GPU) vs Apple M2
13. Apple M1 Pro (10-CPU 16-GPU) Apple M2 Apple M1 Pro (10-CPU 16-GPU) vs Apple M2
14. Apple A16 Bionic Apple M2 Apple A16 Bionic vs Apple M2
15. Intel Core i7-12700K Apple M2 Intel Core i7-12700K vs Apple M2


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