New MacBook Pro 14″ and 16″: Apple goes up to M2 Max speed

Apple held a “surprise” computer keynote during which the manufacturer unveiled a new Mac mini with M2 chip (which has the luxury of a price €100 below its predecessor)… but also, new MacBooks Pro 14″ and 16″ equipped with M2 Pro and M2 Max chips. The arrival of the brand new M2 Pro and M2 Max chips pushes the performance and autonomy of these machines to new horizons.

Apple explains in a press release: “Powered by the M2 Pro and M2 Max – the world’s most powerful and energy-efficient chip in a pro notebook – MacBook Pro performs demanding tasks like rendering effects up to 6 times faster than the fastest Intel-based MacBook Pro, and calibration up to 2x faster. Thanks to the unprecedented energy efficiency of Apple chips, MacBook Pro battery life now reaches 22 hoursan absolute record on Mac”.

Two new M2 chips: M2 Pro and M2 Max

The great novelty of this generation are therefore the M2 Pro and M2 Max chips. Thanks to the first, the 14″ and 16″ MacBook Pros of 2023 can carry a 10 or 12-core CPU, up to 200 GB of memory bandwidth, up to 32 GB of unified memory and a 10-core GPU. Apple talks about 20% higher CPU performance than on M1 Pro and up to 30% better GPU performance.

The neural engine, dedicated to AI, sees its performance increase by 40% – and the chip is generally optimized to streamline, among other things, video editing. In the case of the M2 Max, your Mac may be entitled to a 12-core CPU that is 20% more powerful than its M1 Max counterpart. The GPU part can go up to 38 cores (+30% performance compared to M1 Max), and the memory bandwidth goes up to 400 GB/s.

On the configuration side, the most demanding professionals will now be able to equip them with up to 96 GB of unified memory. In addition, the M2 Max models benefit from twice the ProRes acceleration “which greatly increases the speed of playback and transcoding of multimedia content”.

The 14″ and 16″ MacBook Pro evolve in continuity

These new models also inherit the latest generation WiFi 6E connectivity, a more advanced HDMI standard that allows them to connect to 8K screens. For the rest, the fundamentals of the 14″ and 16″ models are still there, from the design to the rest of the technical sheet.

There is indeed a superb Liquid Retina XDR screen, which combines the color precision of IPS technology with the particularly high dynamic rendering of a fine matrix of thousands of small LEDs (10,000 in all) which act in concert to deliver a ratio contrasts close to OLED technology.

There’s also a 1080p FaceTime HD webcam, a six-speaker audio system, three Thunderbolt 4 (USB Type-C) ports, an SDXC card reader, and a MagSafe 3 magnetic charging port that could one day save your Mac from damage. a nasty fall if someone were to trip over the charging cable…

New MacBook Pro 14″ and 16″: maximum power comes at a price

Unfortunately, unlike Mac minis, customers of the latest 14″ and 16″ MacBook Pros with M2 Pro and M2 Max chips will have to accept a price increase. The cheapest 14″ model indeed sees its price increase by 150 € while the cheapest 16″ model now costs 250 € more than its equivalent which was until now the cheapest on the Apple Store. Here are the prices of these new machines as communicated by Apple:

• MacBook Pro 14″ M2 Pro – 10-core CPU, 16-core GPU, 16GB Unified Memory, 512GB SSD : from €2,399
• MacBook Pro 14″ M2 Pro – 12-core CPU, 19-core GPU, 16GB Unified Memory, 1TB SSD : from €2,999
• MacBook Pro 14″ M2 Max – 12-core CPU, 30-core GPU, 32GB Unified Memory, 1TB SSD : from €3,699

• MacBook Pro 16″ M2 Pro – 12-core CPU, 19-core GPU, 16GB Unified Memory, 512GB SSD : from €2,999
• MacBook Pro 16″ M2 Pro – 12-core CPU, 19-core GPU, 16GB Unified Memory, 1TB SSD : from €3,229
• MacBook Pro 16″ M2 Max – 12-core CPU, 38-core GPU, 32GB Unified Memory, 1TB SSD : from €4,149

The new models are delivered to customers, Apple Stores and Authorized Resellers from Tuesday, January 24, 2023. They are already available for pre-order on the official website.