MacBook Air M2 GPU Performance REVEALED! EXCLUSIVE!!

We have A15’s Graphics performance numbers… so here’s what it means for M2!

AppleInsider is reporting, via Twitter leaker FrontTron that the Apple A15, or at least an early SOC from the production, around July has been tested and it seems that the A15 GPU is 13.7% faster than A14 which is a decent jump offering peak scores of 198 frames per second in Manhattan 3.1. For comparison the Samsung Exynos 2200 with AMD’s mRDNAs seem to be peaking around 170.7 frames per second on the same test.

What I found far more interesting however is what happens when this GPU Performance is scaled to what we’d expect in an M2.

I’m expecting that the M2 will be the first Mac Apple Silicon chip too use the cores and GPUs from the A15 generation, and it seems likely that it will launch in the much rumoured redesigned MacBook Air M2 in the spring of 2022, most likely March or April.

Based on Mark Gurman’s report that M2 will contain 9-10 GPU cores, which would presumably be entry level and full spec, as with the 7 & 8 core M1 models, a 13.7% per core speed bump would actually give nearly 50% faster graphics overall. You can check my maths, the M1 scores 21168 in Geekbench’s metal test. Divide by 8 for the per core score, multiply by 1.137 and then multiply that by 10 cores, giving 30,085. That moves the needle from AMD RX 550 and GTX 980 TI right up to GForce GTX 1080 TI territory and the Radeon Pro 570. Very respectable for an integrated graphics solution going into a thin, light and most surprisingly, FANLESS Laptop. It’s worth bearing in mind of course that Nvidia cards aren’t particularly well optimised for Metal though! Regardless of the comparisons though, the M1 right now is pretty capable, and 42.1% speed increase is nothing to be sniffed at chip vs chip, though the M1X with 16 or 32 core GPUs, albeit using A14 generation graphics cores will still be much, much faster than the 8 Core M1. And we could see them next week!

In other news, there’s an updated model number for Apple’s MagSafe chargers, just added to the FCC database, the A2548. Its thought that the new version of the charger could feature stronger magnets for attachments and alignment, though there was some controversy and concern over iPhone 12 Magnets being strong enough to affect pacemakers and other electronic health hardware.

There is a possibility of course that Apple is addressing the issue by moving more of the magnetism to the charger or external MagSafe component like the case and minimising the magnetic force on the iPhone side of the interface, making it more of a passive partner in the pairing.

What would you want to see added to MagSafe before you’d be happy with a true portless iPhone?

And Finally before your questions, VMware has announced they will no longer pursue ESXi compatibility and support for the 2019 Mac Pro models, another nail in the coffin for Intel Macs but also a kick in the teeth for those who bought these expensive machines.

ESXi is the bare metal hypervisor tech that installs directly onto servers to partition hardware allowing as I understand it the server to run multiple virtual machine instances to that a number of users can work simultaneously over the network.

So a bit of a pain, but as VMware is owned by Dell, is anyone really surprised that they’re not heavily investing in supporting the Mac Platform? WE DIDN’T NEED YOU ANYWAY!

Of course the biggest news of the day will most likely be the Apple Event invites and everyone trying to work out what they mean, so as soon as that drops, I’ll try to get the news out as quickly as I can. Failing that the biggest news of the day will be why there’s no September 14th event if they don’t turn up. Right, into your questions!

Evan Rodgers
#icaveanswers What are your plans for a livestream on iPhone day?
And…

Josh
#iCaveAnswers are you going to do a live video when the apple event happens?

Lars Andersen
​#icaveanswers Will the rear cameras larger sensor on the top tier iPhone 13 make better night photos only or will they also have a greater resolution and optical zoom?

Da Gr
iCaveAnswers iPad mini going to be rebranded as iPad Air mini?

GadgetLab (@GadgetLabTweets
#icaveanswers Everyone is saying that the M1X MacBook Pro will be coming in October or November. Why are you still thinking that it will be in September?

Randomness r
#icaveanswers do you think AirPods 3 will get spatial audio and longer battery life? That’s all I care about I’ve had the 1srt gen AirPods and the battery life is crap now! Also when do you think apple will release a notch less iPhone ? 2024/2025? I just bought a 11 pro max 512gb for 800$ got an awesome deal and I love this big size waiting for a notch less to upgrade from the 11 pro! Thanks for the show keep up the good work! Wunderbar