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Apple Silicon MacBook Pro Q&A
Published July 2, 2022
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How fast is the "2022 M2" 13" Apple Silicon MacBook Pro compared to its predecessor? How fast is it compared to the MacBook Air?
In the shared press release for the 13-Inch MacBook Pro "2022 M2" -- the MacBook Pro "M2" 8 CPU/10 GPU 13" -- and the 13-Inch MacBook Air "2022 M2" -- the MacBook Air "M2" 8 CPU/8 GPU 13" -- the MacBook Air gets far more attention, a key sign that it is the more important of the two notebooks.
However, Apple does provide performance details for the 13-Inch MacBook Pro "2022 M2". Specifically, compared to the 13-Inch "2020 M1" MacBook Pro -- the MacBook Pro "M1" 8-Core 3.2 13" (2020) -- that it replaced, Apple boasts that:
- Working with RAW images in apps like Affinity Photo is nearly 40 percent faster than the previous generation, and up to 3.4x faster for users who are upgrading from a model without Apple silicon.
- Playing graphics-intensive games like Baldur's Gate 3 is also nearly 40 percent faster than the previous 13-inch MacBook Pro, and up to 3.3x faster for customers upgrading from a model without Apple silicon.
- With support for ProRes encode and decode in the media engine of M2, users can play back up to 11 streams of 4K and up to two streams of 8K ProRes video. And they can convert their video projects to ProRes nearly 3x faster than before.
With precise performance claims, it is a safe bet that the "2022 M2" MacBook Pro is faster than its predecessor and the Intel-based models before it in these selected tasks.
Photo Credit: Apple, Inc. (Apple Silicon MacBook Pro 2022 M2)
However, Apple does not really compare the performance of the 13-Inch MacBook Pro "2022 M2" and its modestly cheaper 13-Inch MacBook Air "2022 M2" contemporary. Because most users do not upgrade every year, it also is worthwhile to know how the performance of the "2022 M2" MacBook Pro compares to even earlier MacBook Pro models.
General Performance Overview
For a helpful overview of the performance difference between the "2022 M2" Apple Silicon MacBook Pro and other Mac notebooks, EveryMac.com's own Ultimate Mac Comparison makes it quick to compare side-by-side 32-bit and 64-bit Geekbench benchmark averages with all other G3 and later Macs for thousands of possible performance comparisons.
This Q&A combines Geekbench 5 benchmarks with our own independent evaluation for a deeper dive into the performance of these notebooks.
2022 M2 13" MacBook Air vs. 2022 M2 13" MacBook Pro
As the shared press release hints, the "2022 M2" MacBook Pro -- the MacBook Pro "M2" 8 CPU/10 GPU 13" -- and the 13-Inch MacBook Air "2022 M2" models -- the MacBook Air "M2" 8 CPU/8 GPU 13" and "M2" 8 CPU/10 GPU 13" -- are similar when it comes to performance-related components.
These all use the same 3.49 GHz 8-core Apple M2 processor (SoC) with the same 16-core Neural Engine, the same 100 GB/s memory bandwidth, and the same default onboard RAM and storage. The only significant difference that could affect overall performance is that the MacBook Pro is fan-cooled whereas the MacBook Air is passively cooled, so the MacBook Pro likely can operate longer before throttling is necessary to control heat output.
The Geekbench 5 benchmark confirms that the "2022 M2" MacBook Pro and MacBook Air models essentially are the same overall speed, with the MacBook Pro surpassing its MacBook Air contemporary only by a little more than 1% in single core and multicore tests.
Earlier 13" MacBook Pro vs. 2022 M2 13" MacBook Pro
The "2022 M2" 13" MacBook Pro is notably faster than the "2020 M1" 13" MacBook Pro model it directly replaced and smashes earlier 13" MacBook Pro models:
| 13" MacBook Pro | M2 MacBook Pro | Single Core | Multicore |
| "Core i5" 2.3 (2018) | "M2" 3.49 13" (2022) | +117% |
+134% |
| "Core i5" 2.4 (2019) | +103% |
+130% |
|
| "Core i5" 1.4 2 TB (2020) | +112% |
+139% |
|
| "Core i7" 1.7 2 TB (2020) | +87% |
+130% |
|
| "Core i5" 2.0 4 TB (2020) | +70% |
+111% |
|
| "Core i7" 2.3 4 TB (2020) | +58% |
+98% |
|
| "M1" 3.2 13" (2020) | +14% |
+23% |
These results demonstrate that the "2022 M2" 13" MacBook Pro continues to delivers substantial year-over-year performance gains. It is easy to see why Apple switched to its own processors.
Performance Summary
Ultimately, the "2022 M2" 13" MacBook Pro and 13" MacBook Air essentially provide the same performance and both top their immediate "M1" predecessors by a significant 14% to 23% or so in single core and multicore benchmark tasks. The performance jump is massive compared to earlier Intel-powered MacBook Pro models, as well.
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