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M2 Max vs M1 Max - Worth the upgrade?

12:02 video

Apple has finally released its second generation of Pro-level Mac chips. I compared the M2 Max 14-inch MacBook Pro with the M1 Max version, both with the low-end Max chip (in a previous video I called them “Baby Max”; I don’t know if that’s a thing).

  • M1 Max: 10-core CPU, 24-core GPU, 32 GB of memory, 1 TB SSD.
  • M2 Max: 12-core CPU, 30-core GPU, 32 GB, 2 TB SSD.

Outside

You’ll be hard-pressed to see any difference; Apple redesigned the 14-inch in 2021, so this is a spec upgrade. Left side: two Thunderbolt 4 ports (40 Gb/s), MagSafe (up to 96 W), and a high-impedance headphone jack. Right side: HDMI, another Thunderbolt 4 and an SD card slot.

The only port difference: the M2 Max has what Apple calls advanced HDMI, more like HDMI 2.1. Both can connect up to four external displays, but the M2 Max can drive an 8K display over HDMI. The keyboard and trackpad are unchanged, which isn’t bad: I love the Magic Keyboards.

Display, camera and speakers

The same 14.2-inch Liquid Retina XDR display: up to 500 nits regular, 1,000 nits sustained HDR, 1,600 nits peak, about 8,000 mini LEDs, ProMotion up to 120 Hz, P3 and True Tone. Apple doesn’t make a better display in my opinion.

In a previous video, I saw a drastic difference, with a lot of grain, between the M2 MacBook Air’s camera and the 14-inch Pro’s. Between these two Max machines, I see no difference in color, brightness, distortion or grain: both have a 1080p camera and a three-mic array. I also did a speaker test, and to my ear they sound the same.

Wireless and battery

Apple says up to an extra hour of battery with the M2 Max. Either way, I’ve never had battery trouble with Apple silicon: M1 Pro, M1 Max and regular M1s all get me through a full day. The new MacBook Pros add Wi-Fi 6E (I saw no real speed difference) and Bluetooth 5.3, which only matters with other 5.3 devices.

Casekoo sponsored this video, with its Magic Stand case, which holds the iPhone between 40° and 120° and has 48 magnets for MagSafe accessories.

Performance

Cinebench:

  • Single-core: M1 Max 1,529, M2 Max 1,630, about 6.5% more.
  • Multi-core: M1 Max 12,336, M2 Max 14,780, about 20% more, which makes sense: 12 cores versus 10.

The fans kicked on sooner on the M2 Max and revved higher, even though case temperatures were similar (38–40°C). GFXBench 4K Aztec Ruins off-screen: 107 fps (24-core GPU) versus 134 fps (30-core), about 25%, so these processors scale pretty well.

SSD speeds are a hot topic, which I think is overblown but also a little weird. My M1 Max has 1 TB and the M2 Max 2 TB, and the M2 Max got a slower read but higher write speed. Numbers over 6 GB/s don’t matter for basically any workflow.

Final Cut Pro export (an old iPhone 12 video with a heavy color grade): the M1 Max finished in 3:48 and the M2 Max in 3:46, two seconds faster. Both have two media engines, and I exported in H.264, so there’s little difference. Compared with the M2 Pro, which has one media engine, they’re about twice as fast.

So the difference between base M1 Max and base M2 Max is up to 20–25%, depending on your workflow: you may see none (like my export), or a decent gain in heavy graphics work.

Price and verdict

The M1 Max configuration started at about $3,099 (I probably paid more, since I think I had 512 GB). The M2 Max I ordered, with a 2 TB SSD, comes to an eye-watering $3,499.

If you have an M1 Max, don’t upgrade; you’d be wasting your money, unless you have a specific need, like Blender (those test results are pretty impressive). The one exception is if, like me, you made a mistake in what you ordered. My M1 Max has a 1 TB SSD, which I go through quickly, since I use the internal drive for production and archive to my NAS. You can add an external SSD (I have a 4 TB Sabrent Rocket NVMe in a USB4 enclosure, getting about 2,500 MB/s), but I wanted the convenience of 2 TB internal. I don’t need the extra six GPU cores, and the extra CPU cores are nice but I don’t see a benefit in my workflow; I’ll see the benefit of the 2 TB drive.

If you’re coming from an old Intel 16-inch MacBook Pro or something older, the M2 Max is a fantastic machine.

In this video

  • 0:00 configs, hardware, display support
  • 2:01 displays
  • 2:41 camera, mic and speakers
  • 4:28 wireless and battery
  • 5:11 performance
  • 8:50 pricing
  • 9:37 should you upgrade

Some links in this post are affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I may receive a small commission. See my ethics statement.

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