New M2 Pro and M2 Max MacBook Pro + New M2 Mac mini

[kerochan]

1 minute ago, des99 said:

It depends on what the project is doing. If it's only loading the project data, and twenty audio files from the SSD, you're aren't going to see any noticeable difference - particularly if your USB A hub is USB3 at least - it will still be a *lot* faster than a spinner.

If however, your project loaded five Kontakts, each of which is loading 50,000 samples from disk, you may get a noticeable difference in loading times, depending on how slow your slow port is. Same for streaming instruments.

Did you try benchmarking the drive connected on either port? That will tell you what you can actually get.

But like I say, if you don't mind either way, it's not an issue for you. It was absolutely an issue for me, which was why I made sure to by a USB hub that supported the full speed of the drive...

ah, I see, the project only has about 15 audio tracks and 1 software instrument track.

[analogika]

On 1/19/2023 at 5:42 PM, conanthewarrior said:

Well I managed 8 months- thats when I bought my M1 pro MBP before M2 Pro came out. 
I am very happy with the performance of the M1 pro and hope it will last a good few more years before I need to upgrade, but I am glad for people on the market for a new MBP they will get a nice performance increase. 
EDIT: I hope where I went for the binned version with just 8 cores it will update far into the future and not be forced into upgrading before necessary. I think where the M1 is already so powerful there shouldn't be any issues for a while. 

 

Welp, I just pulled the trigger on a refurbished 14" M1 Pro with 10-core CPU (8 performance/2 efficiency) and 16-core GPU. 

The other option would have been an M2 Pro with 10-core CPU (6 performance/4 efficiency) and 19-core GPU, and that would have been about 500€ over budget. 

Due to the extra 2 performance cores, the older M1 Pro actually has a slight edge in multi-core performance in GeekBench. 

I'm aware that the 40% faster Neural Engine in the M2 Pro is already being used by Logic for things like beatmapping, and the 6Ghz 6E wi-fi is probably going to be relevant at some point in a few years, but for the core job — Logic and MainStage — it seemed that having two extra performance cores should outweigh those options, even if they're 5-10% slower each on single-core performance. 

I don't see the 8K display support or Bluetooth 5.3 making a real difference within the useful life of this machine. 

Of course, if Logic's signal processing branches heavily into Metal GPU support at some point in the future, there may be a substantial advantage to having 19 of the newer graphics cores...

[Scriabin rocks]

M2 Pro is a no brainer imho assuming sufficient funds.

https://www.pro-tools-expert.com/production-expert-1/new-m2-macbook-pro-computers-we-compare-them-with-the-m1-versions

[analogika]

54 minutes ago, Scriabin rocks said:

M2 Pro is a no brainer imho assuming sufficient funds.

https://www.pro-tools-expert.com/production-expert-1/new-m2-macbook-pro-computers-we-compare-them-with-the-m1-versions

I'm not sure if you're replying to me or to the thread in general, but if you're responding to me: 

1. "Assuming sufficient funds", anything better-specced is a "no brainer". Assuming a tight budget, the choice becomes a little more complicated. 

2. Your link specifically does not reflect my particular situation: They compare the top-end 12-core M2 Pro with the top-end 10-core M1 Pro.
My choice was specifically between the BASE 10-core M2 Pro (with 6 performance cores) and the top-end 10-core M1 Pro (with 8 performance cores). 

That particular M1 Pro is actually faster overall in non-graphics tasks than the base M2 Pro, in the benchmarks they are using in your link to compare processors. This is due to the two extra performance cores. 

Graphics performance and Neural Engine are significantly faster, but the CPU itself is not. 

Given sufficient funds, I would of course have opted for the M2 Pro with 8 performance cores (and 4 efficiency cores), and got a 20% faster CPU, three extra GPU cores and the improved Neural Engine, Wi-fi 6E, HDMI 2.1, Bluetooth 5.3, and an extra hour of battery life.

But that's a full 1000€ over the cost of the refurb. 

Edited January 23, 2023 by analogika

[des99]

4 minutes ago, analogika said:

Graphics performance and Neural Engine are significantly faster, but the CPU itself is not.

I haven't looked at the stats, but I would assume M2 cores are faster than M1 cores, so single-thread performance (which is important for Logic) should be about 20% faster from the claims I've seen. That's a good thing, as each complete channelstrip can't go beyond one core.

I thought the multicore performance overall should be higher as well, despite the change in core distribution, because of improvements in the M2 cores - but if you're saying it's not, fair enough.

Either way, they're all awesome machines, and great for running Logic! 👍

Edited January 23, 2023 by des99

[analogika]

17 minutes ago, des99 said:

I haven't looked at the stats, but I would assume M2 cores are faster than M1 cores, so single-thread performance (which is important for Logic) should be about 20% faster. That's a good thing, as each complete channelstrip can't go beyond one core.

The M2 Pro single-core GeekBench benchmark seems to lie around 1,950; the M1 Pro is around 1,750. So the difference is a little more than 10%. It's interesting that the M2 is clocked about 10% higher (3.5 GHz vs. 3.2 GHz). 

https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/search?utf8=✓&q=Apple+M2+Pro+

https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/search?utf8=✓&q=Apple+M1+Pro

 

17 minutes ago, des99 said:

I thought the multicore performance overall should be higher as well, despite the change in cores, because of improvements in the M2 cores - but if you're saying it's not, fair enough.

It is of course higher for an equal count of performance cores. 

But if you're comparing six performance cores of M2 Pro to eight performance cores of M1 Pro, the M1 Pro gets multi-core scores of around 12,500, while the M2 Pro comes in around 11,000-11,800.  

The M2 Pro with eight performance cores (the 12-core version) hits 15,000 — right in line with Apple's claimed 20% performance increase. 

 

I figured having more cores and slightly better overall performance would probably work better for Logic's distributed channel-strip loads than having fewer cores with slightly higher single-thread performance. 

Edited January 24, 2023 by analogika

[des99]

4 minutes ago, analogika said:

It's interesting that the M2 is clocked about 10% higher (3.5 GHz vs. 3.2 GHz). 

So one of the improvements in M2 is efficiency, so they can clock it higher for a similar, or better performance-per-watt figure over the M1 generation, I guess.

4 minutes ago, analogika said:

But if you're comparing six performance cores of M2 Pro to eight performance cores of M1 Pro, the M1 Pro gets multi-core scores of around 12,500, while the M2 Pro comes in around 11,000-11,800.

Thanks for breaking it down, I hadn't really seen any figures, I just knew some general things that I'd seen said. I was also a little surprised at the change up of core counts in the M2 Pro over the M1 Pro...

Edited January 24, 2023 by des99

[analogika]

Just now, des99 said:

So one of the improvements in M2 is efficiency, so they can clock it higher for a similar, or better performance-per-watt figure I guess.

Thanks for breaking it down, I hadn't really seen any figures, I just knew some general things that I'd seen said. I was also a little surprised at the change up of core counts in the M2 Pro over the M1 Pro...

The performance core counts are the same (six in the base model, eight in the higher-performance version and the Max); the M1 Pro only has two efficiency cores, while the M2 Pro has four. 

I assume it's at least in part the optimised manufacturing process and the extra efficiency cores that allow them to increase the clock frequency and still offer better battery life. 

The other differentiating factor between the M1 and M2 series is, of course, the graphics cores. 

[des99]

57 minutes ago, analogika said:

The performance core counts are the same (six in the base model, eight in the higher-performance version and the Max); the M1 Pro only has two efficiency cores, while the M2 Pro has four. 

Oh ok - I'd seen someone say the M1 Pro has six p-cores and thought that was it across the line. Mine has 8 + 2. I guess the low end one is binned to 6 p-cores in either case.

Sorry, I've only been half paying attention to the new M2's, as I'm completely satisfied with my M1... 🙂

[Scriabin rocks]

7 hours ago, analogika said:

I'm not sure if you're replying to me or to the thread in general, but if you're responding to me: 

Apologies, my  statement was blunt and in general.

I quite like this overview

 

7 hours ago, des99 said:

I haven't looked at the stats, but I would assume M2 cores are faster than M1 cores, so single-thread performance (which is important for Logic) should be about 20% faster from the claims I've seen. That's a good thing, as each complete channelstrip can't go beyond one core.

Thanks, that is useful information. I wasn't aware about this.

[analogika]

2 hours ago, Scriabin rocks said:

Thanks, that is useful information. I wasn't aware about this.

Yes, each channel strip is (currently) a single thread, so it's possible for a channel strip to overload a single core and cause a CPU overload, even if there's ostensibly still a lot of unused CPU power available. 

The workaround is to split off part of the channel strip and send it into a bus, which can be handled as a separate thread. 

Edited January 24, 2023 by analogika

[AllTheButtons]

22 minutes ago, analogika said:

The workaround is to split off part of the channel strip and send it into a bus, which can be handled as a separate thread. 

I was aware that each channel strip used a single core, but I had never thought of this workaround - very useful! Do you know if this still works when playing live? For example, if I had a power-hungry instrument plugin, and I used this trick to separate the instrument plugin from its effect plugins, would they still be on different cores when recording/monitoring, or would this only happen when playing back?

EDIT - also, does this trick work when sending the output of the channel through a bus, or does it only work for sends?

Edited January 24, 2023 by AllTheButtons

[analogika]

AFAIK (David can certainly confirm or deny this), yes, MainStage works the same way, and yes, the bus channel strip is a separate entity, whether you use an aux send or route it directly to the bus. 

[rafesco]

Apparently, the new M2 powered Macs also suffer from a slower SSD due to the use of a single NAND storage device, versus multiple chips on the M1 generation, including the Pro and Max lineup, even for 512GB storage options.

This is causing the 512GB SSD Macs to reach Read/Write speeds of ~3.2GB/s as opposed to 4.7GB/s in the previous generations, which is quite a sad downgrade.

For 512GB models, is this something that could impact music production in Logic a lot?
 

I’m considering getting myself an M2 Pro Mac Mini - I’ve been waiting for this one since the M1 Pro Macbooks were launched - but now I’m afraid the M1 Max Mac Studio or even a M1 Pro Macbook might better bang for the buck. Not sure if the M2 Pro performance increase is worth the SSD downgrade.

 

Thanks! 🙂

[David Nahmani]

2 minutes ago, rafesco said:

For 512GB models, is this something that could impact music production in Logic a lot?

Not really. Audio doesn't require that much sustained speed, the drive is mostly accessed in bursts. For example 400 stereo audio tracks (48kHz 24 bit) playing simultaneously require less than 1GB/s of data streaming. 

[des99]

I agree - a fast external SSD like the Samsung T7 is already plenty for audio, and compared to the internal MBP SSD, it's already a lot slower.

So don't think of the new ones as "slow", more as "not quite as screaming fast as the other ones, but still plenty damn fast". I think it's a non issue in practical terms, just your numbers benchmark lower. Perhaps it could mean you could only stream 1000 audio tracks rather than 1200, and if that's a non-starter for your needs, then I wish you success producing your next Hollywood blockbuster, and you're well out of my pay-grade... 😉

[rafesco]

Thanks for your reply guys! If SSD speed is not a big deal in audio, guess the M2 Pro might indeed be the strongest contender for my studio then 🙂

I do look forward to hearing some feedback on running Logic projects with the new chips in the meantime! 

[analogika]

On 1/25/2023 at 3:12 PM, rafesco said:

Thanks for your reply guys! If SSD speed is not a big deal in audio, guess the M2 Pro might indeed be the strongest contender for my studio then 🙂

I do look forward to hearing some feedback on running Logic projects with the new chips in the meantime! 

As mentioned above, the 10-core M1 Pro is actually slightly faster than the 10-core M2 Pro.

Its performance cores are slightly slower, but because it has eight of them, while the entry level M2 Pro only has six, it still comes out ahead for pure CPU power. 

The 10-Core M2 Pro gets you:

• faster SSD (from 1TB versions and above; the 512GB is slower than the M1 Pro)
• faster graphics
• faster Neural Engine
• 6 GHz wi-fi
• Bluetooth 5.3
• HDMI 2.1 with support for 8K displays
• slightly better battery life

but slightly lower CPU performance and higher price.

[redgreenblue]

Yeah, this is kind of a Tempest in a Teapot that apple haters and people who start every conversation with 'Well, actually' will use to moan about as if they EVER use the blazing speed that the faster drives have. 

1 hour ago, rafesco said:

Thanks for your reply guys! If SSD speed is not a big deal in audio, guess the M2 Pro might indeed be the strongest contender for my studio then 🙂

I do look forward to hearing some feedback on running Logic projects with the new chips in the meantime! 

 

[fisherking]

my original plan has been to wait for a more-pro silicon imac, but i may just get the top-line mini, like the specs, ports, price...

if i do that, a new imac will drop the day after i get all set up; that's how tech works 🤣

but seems time to jump into logic/FCP with a silicon mac (i already have an M2 air for non-logic stuff), and the mini seems like a good deal.

[onewave]

Sure is tempting to look at the 12 core M2 pro machines, since nobody on this thread has mentioned it, how about considering the Lpddr5 memory speed on M2...

" The biggest change of which is support for much higher memory clockspeeds; based on Apple’s figures, the M2 is running at 6400Mbps/pin (LPDDR5-6400), which is up significantly from the 4266Mbps/pin (LPDDR4x-4266) memory clockspeeds of the original M1. The net result is that, on the SoC’s 128-bit memory bus, the M2 has 100GB/second of memory bandwidth to play with, a 50% increase over the M1 (~68GB/sec)."

https://www.anandtech.com/show/17431/apple-announces-m2-soc-apple-silicon-updated-for-2022

I've heard this is a much faster spec and makes the whole M2 infrastructure move data faster.

It will indeed be interesting to see what results M2 12-core Pro users will have with plugins once the machines have been used in productions in the coming weeks. 

Always the big downside with updating a new computer is drawback of dealing with the usual third party software issues. For this reason alone I've stuck with the M1 base model, at least till all of my hardware / software will work on Ventura, this could take much longer still... So yes M1 pro / max is a great value !!!

 

[analogika]

Okay, so add "faster RAM" to that list above… 

Dammit. 

In other news, I hadn't considered that I qualify for Education discount, which puts the 12-core M2 Pro at just 350€ above budget. I see a return in my near future… 

[David Nahmani]

6 minutes ago, analogika said:

Okay, so add "faster RAM" to that list above… 

Done. 😉 

[analogika]

Just now, David Nahmani said:

Done. 😉 

…and well, I might add! 😃

[kerochan]

 

  You can clearly hear the Mac Mini M2 Pro hissing away, around 8.30.     totally useless if its in the same room you are recording!   My mac mini m1 is silent, even with 100 +Logic tracks & plug ins.     I am hoping the Mac Mini M2  (not Pro ) is silent?

[des99]

27 minutes ago, kerochan said:

You can clearly hear the Mac Mini M2 Pro hissing away, around 8.30.     totally useless if its in the same room you are recording! 

He mentions a Premiere test at that point, so I'm guessing he was fully loading the CPU, *and* the GPU.

If I do that to my MBP M1 Pro, the fans will indeed come on, as the combined power draw of the CPU and GPU will heat things up and kick in the fans.

But Logic, even running fully loaded, isn't stressing the GPU at all, and therefore those workloads won't turn the fans on - it's only the CPU running hot, not the GPU, and thus the fans aren't needed. I've never heard my fans come on running Logic, under any conditions. I've only ever had them come on once, with intensive batch graphics processing tasks.

So if that's your main concern, that the fans will be running using Logic causing you to not be able to record, it's certainly not the case with my M1 Pro, and the thermal environment in a MBP is probably more constrained than the Mini - so I don't think it's much of a concern at all.

Of course, we'll be getting more user reports as they get into people's hands, to see for real. I don't think the M2's are pulling much more power than the equivalent M1s, otherwise we'd see battery lives for the M2 laptops tank, and they haven't.

Edited January 25, 2023 by des99

[kerochan]

1 minute ago, des99 said:

He mentions a Premiere test at that point, so I'm guessing he was fully loading the CPU, *and* the GPU.

If I do that to my MBP M1 Pro, the fans will indeed come on, as the combined power drawer of the CPU and GPU will heat things up and kick in the fans.

But Logic, even running fully loaded, isn't stressing the GPU at all, and therefore those workloads won't turn the fans on - it's only the CPU running hot, not the GPU, and thus the fans aren't needed. I've never heard my fans come on running Logic, under any conditions. I've only ever had them come on once, with intensive batch graphics processing tasks.

So if that's your main concern, that the fans will be running using Logic causing you to not be able to record, it's certainly not the case with my M1 Pro, and the thermal environment in a MBP is probably more constrained than the Mini - so I don't think it's much of a concern at all.

Of course, we'll be getting more user reports as they get into people's hands, to see for real. I don't think the M2's are pulling much more power than the equivalent M1s, otherwise we'd see battery lives for the M2 laptops tank, and they haven't.

yep, reassuring.  I think it is best to wait for more reviews.   

[fisherking]

I rarely hear the fans on my intel imac... just sometimes when bouncing (or exporting from final cut). but i expect them to sound like... fans. same with the M2 mini, and, in fact, every computer that has fans.

youtube is a great resource for tips, reviews, information. it's also a dumping ground for ranters, whiners, 'sky is falling' videos. 

the challenge is to sort out which is which.

[kerochan]

7 minutes ago, fisherking said:

i rarely hear the fans on my intel imac... just sometimes when bouncing (or exporting from final cut). but i expect them to sound like... fans. same with the M2 mini, and, in fact, every computer that has fans.

youtube is a great resource for tips, reviews, information. it's also a dumping ground for ranters, whiners, 'sky is falling' videos. 

the challenge is to sort out which is which.

yep true.

Though I NEVER hear my fans on my Mac Mini M1, and its vital as its in my recording space. 

[David Nahmani]

1 minute ago, kerochan said:

Though I NEVER hear my fans on my Mac Mini M1, and its vital as its in my recording space. 

Then doing the same work you would likely never hear the fans on the Mac mini M2 as well.