Apple's new MacBook Pro with M2 Max packs up to 96GB of RAM (also: Mac mini M2)

[Commodus]

Apple has introduced its long, long-expected 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pro refresh with M2 Pro and M2 Max chips. They're faster and last longer on battery, but they also support more memory. The M2 Max models support up to 96GB of RAM — that's more than rivals (64GB is often the limit), and Apple even claims its MBPs can handle creative scenes that are too large for Windows portables. You also get Wi-Fi 6e, HDMI 2.1 (8K support!) and a few other niceties at the same price as before.

 

There's also a huge Mac mini update. Not just the M2, there's finally an M2 Pro model. Better monitor support (up to three screens) and four Thunderbolt ports, too. The base M2 system is also cheaper than before at $599, although it still starts with 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD.  

 

Quote

 With up to 96GB of unified memory in the M2 Max model, creators can work on scenes so large that PC laptops can’t even run them.

Apple is being hyperbolic, I'm sure, but the 96GB of RAM is a huge deal if you're working with very large media/3D/data projects. And this is simply a welcome update that should help the MBP stay competitive with the latest Windows laptops in terms of raw performance.

 

The Mac mini update might be the real game changer. The lower price makes it a better "my first Mac" system, but the M2 Pro version is huge if you've wanted a fast headless Mac desktop without splurging on the Mac Studio. Might even be my next computer.

 

Source: Apple

[Lightwreather]

Summary

In a press release involving a 9-minute YouTube video that’s practically the same thing as in an event, Apple has announced refreshed MacBook Pros and Mac mini, the latter of which has also received the M2 Pro treatment. Apple claims that the M2 Pro has double the amount of transistors the M2 shipped with and nearly 20 percent more than the M1 Pro and that “is able to process images in Adobe Photoshop up to 40 percent faster than with M1 Pro, and as much as 80 percent faster than MacBook Pro with an Intel Core i9 processor.” The M2 Max chip has the same 12-core CPU as the M2 Pro, but much like the M1 Max, it really pushes the GPU power more. Apple claims the M2 Max is up to 30 percent faster than the M1 Max in graphics and can apparently “tackle graphics-intensive projects that competing systems can’t even run.”

Edit: Forgot the Prices

The new 14-inch MacBook Pro with M2 Pro starts at $1,999, with the 16-inch model starting at $2,499. Both are available to order online today and will start shipping and appearing in Apple stores on January 24th.

The Mac mini has a lower starting price of $599, and is available to order today, with availability beginning Tuesday, January 24th.

 

Quotes

• Macbook Pros:

  Quote

  Chips aside, the latest MacBook Pro models now include Wi-Fi 6E3 and a “more advanced HDMI” (probably HDMI 2.1) that supports 8K displays up to 60Hz and 4K displays up to 240Hz.

  

   

• Mac Mini: 

  Quote

  The Mac Mini is Apple’s next computer to get the bump up to the M2 chip — and this time around, it’s being offered with the Pro version of Apple’s processor, too. The new model was announced this morning in a press release, with a starting price of $599, and is available to order today, with availability beginning Tuesday, January 24th.

  The Mac Mini’s baseline configuration includes the M2 chip, 8GB of RAM, and 256GB of storage. It features an HDMI port, gigabit ethernet, and a standard headphone jack, alongside two USB-A ports and two Thunderbolt 4 (USB-C) ports on the rear of the device — an upgrade from the Thunderbolt 3 ports on the previous generation.

  The standard M2 Mac Mini can support up to two displays (one display of up to 6K / 60Hz over a Thunderbolt connection and a second display of up to 5K / 60Hz over Thunderbolt or a 4K / 60Hz over HDMI), while the M2 Pro variant can support either three displays (two displays up to 6K / 60Hz over Thunderbolt, and one 4K / 60Hz display over HDMI) or a single 8K display, making it the first Mac Mini to do so.

  For wireless connectivity, both versions of the new Mac Mini support Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3.

   

My thoughts

This just appears to be a minor spec bump, with the performance improvements that seems rather vague. But aside from that I'm glad that the Mac mini is getting some love here with a version that houses an M2 Pro chip, so one doesn't have to opt for the more expensive Studio to get a little bit more performance from a Desktop machine. That being said, we're gonna have to wait for independent reviews before we can see how much faster the M2 actually is.

Oh and it appears they dropped the base price on the Mini

Sources

The Verge: One Two

Apple

[WhitetailAni]

It's nice to see Apple is paying attention to the Mac mini again.

Mac mini 2014 being the latest model for 4 years...

[nOm nom NOM3]

I never thought I would see laptops shipping with more than 32gb of memory ever. 

I wonder why they decided to do 96 and who they expect to need that (and buy a mac to do their thing)

 

[yolosnail]

That Mac Mini looks tempting...

 

And it makes the inevitable price cuts on the M1 look even more tempting!

[Curufinwe_wins]

40 minutes ago, nOm nom NOM3 said:

I never thought I would see laptops shipping with more than 32gb of memory ever. 

I wonder why they decided to do 96 and who they expect to need that (and buy a mac to do their thing)

 

6 channel memory, 16 per channel. Just a natural result of the chip architecture 

[Commodus]

42 minutes ago, nOm nom NOM3 said:

I never thought I would see laptops shipping with more than 32gb of memory ever. 

I wonder why they decided to do 96 and who they expect to need that (and buy a mac to do their thing)

 

There have been laptops with 64GB of RAM for a while, but anything beyond that has been tricky.

 

As for the audience, it's larger than you think. Audiovisual editors (music, photos, video) love RAM, especially if they're working with very high-res formats like 8K video and RAW images. It's practically essential for working with 3D models. And if you're crunching a lot of data, such as for an AI project, more memory helps.

[nOm nom NOM3]

I understand why having a lot of memory is good for certain tasks, Im just stuck on the apple macbook needing that much memory. 

all I ever see those products used for are writing papers and general photo/video editing, and I thought that the applications made for those people were fairly light and well made. 

 

Maybe I just dont see the people who were asking for this in the day to day repairs world

 

[Commodus]

1 minute ago, nOm nom NOM3 said:

I understand why having a lot of memory is good for certain tasks, Im just stuck on the apple macbook needing that much memory. 

all I ever see those products used for are writing papers and general photo/video editing, and I thought that the applications made for those people were fairly light and well made. 

 

Maybe I just dont see the people who were asking for this in the day to day repairs world

 

Macs are very common in the pro creative world. They thrive on software like Adobe's Creative Suite (think Photoshop/Premiere/Lightroom), Final Cut Pro, DaVinci Resolve, audio workstations like Ableton, Logic Pro and Reason... you get the idea. Go to a recording studio or TV production house and you'll probably see at least some Macs.

 

Unless you work at an Apple store, you're unlikely to see those people coming in for repairs. Many company-owned Macs will also be serviced either by the IT department or an AppleCare business plan.

[igormp]

16 minutes ago, nOm nom NOM3 said:

I understand why having a lot of memory is good for certain tasks, Im just stuck on the apple macbook needing that much memory. 

all I ever see those products used for are writing papers and general photo/video editing, and I thought that the applications made for those people were fairly light and well made. 

 

Maybe I just dont see the people who were asking for this in the day to day repairs world

 

They are meant for the same kind of people who bought Precision portable workstations, Z books or the lenovo equivalent. They're not that common, but they do exist.

[AlTech]

They should have kept the Mini at $699 and gave the base model 16GB of RAM.

 

I'm very disappointed that Apple continues to sell 8GB RAM computers in 2023.

[igormp]

7 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

I'm very disappointed that Apple continues to sell 8GB RAM computers in 2023.

That plenty for most people who only browse social media, email and youtube

[Supreme Calamitas]

512gb + 16gb ram for $2000, same config in Germany for €2400

 

Enough said

[D13H4RD]

Feeling pretty eh on this one.

 

Been using my M1 Max 16" since November, and I still haven't got anything significant to complain about it. 96GB of RAM is nice to have but as someone who predominantly uses their MacBook Pro for photography, that's very overkill (though I understand that there are workloads that absolutely benefit from the RAM).

 

Everything else is pretty eh. This is absolutely a release designed to get holdouts still on Intel MacBook Pros to upgrade. 

[AlTech]

31 minutes ago, igormp said:

That plenty for most people

Using what exactly?

 

For Chrome or Firefox that's not enough RAM and for any other program besides Apple Mail and Safari it's also not enough RAM.

31 minutes ago, igormp said:

who only browse social media, email and youtube

 

And I'm sure a VW Golf with a speed governor permanently locked to 30mph is all that most people will ever need out of a car but there's a reason car manufacturers don't permanently lock their cars to 30mph.

[HumdrumPenguin]

I wonder if people who actually need more than 64gb of RAM don't always buy desktops.

[Lightwreather]

11 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

For Chrome or Firefox that's not enough RAM and for any other program besides Apple Mail and Safari it's also not enough RAM.

I don't know, I'm able to run Logic Pro with multiple tracks of some pretty resource intensive orchestral plugins (Not too heavy mind you), and/or MuseScore 4 with MuseSounds with the entire 60-piece Orchestra plus a couple synths, extra woodwinds and Choirs on the base model 2021 MBA.

 

I mean, unless you're keeping multiple baker's dozens of tabs open in the background, it realistically doesn't get beyond 2-3 GB. I'm saying this from experience with a 4GB, HDD Core 2 Duo device in 2021, and an 8GB MBA and Dell optiplex beyond that. ftr, I use FF, Edge and Safari. I will admit I don't have more than say 5 tabs opens usually, unless I'm doing a research project or something but even then it handled the 20 or so tabs quite well. You're seriously underestimating the capacity of these Browsers including Chrome to conserver resources.

[saltycaramel]

1 hour ago, AluminiumTech said:

They should have kept the Mini at $699 and gave the base model 16GB of RAM.

 

I'm very disappointed that Apple continues to sell 8GB RAM computers in 2023.

 

I wanna add that adjusted for inflation 699$ dollars from November 2020 are like 800$ in 2023 dollars.

 

So at 599$ Apple has slashed the price by 200$ if adjusted for inflation. Pretty good deal for all the people that don’t need more than 8GB+swap, and institutions buying thousands of these in bulk. No need to force 16GB onto everyone, yet.  (12GB as the new base tier in the M3 generation would be nice tho)

[saltycaramel]

2 hours ago, Commodus said:

Apple is being hyperbolic, I'm sure, but the 96GB of RAM is a huge deal if you're working with very large media/3D/data projects. 

 

I think the biggest deal is that this is shared memory.

 

So if you’re currently using 16GB as RAM, you’d still have 80GB available as VRAM for the GPU. That’s bananas. No PC mobile workstation can match that. 

[igormp]

41 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

For Chrome or Firefox that's not enough RAM and for any other program besides Apple Mail and Safari it's also not enough RAM.

Except it is? Most commonly sold configs are 8gb ones, be it apple or not.

 

It may not be enough for you, but don't assume everyone's use case is like yours.

41 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

And I'm sure a VW Golf with a speed governor permanently locked to 30mph is all that most people will ever need out of a car but there's a reason car manufacturers don't permanently lock their cars to 30mph.

That comparison doesn't make sense, but if you want to go in the same vein, I see no reason why most people would buy a bugatti to commute to work.

 

35 minutes ago, HumdrumPenguin said:

I wonder if people who actually need more than 64gb of RAM don't always buy desktops.

I know some people who work offshore oil rigs and require such portable workstations, but yeah, I guess most people like that would go for a desktop indeed, but there's still a market for such niche anyway.

[suicidalfranco]

27 minutes ago, saltycaramel said:

wanna add that adjusted for inflation 699$ dollars from November 2020 are like 800$ in 2023 dollars.

and a 3000€ salary in 2020 adjusted for inflation is 3000€ in 2023.

[Kisai]

The Mini hits almost all the checkboxes I'd want.

 

Only needs:

[ ] AV1 hardware encoder

[ ] 32GB ram standard

 

When someone does a teardown I'd be interesting in knowing if the memory or storage are soldered or proprietary again.

 

[igormp]

4 minutes ago, Kisai said:

When someone does a teardown I'd be interesting in knowing if the memory or storage are soldered or proprietary again.

 

RAM is likely soldered, otherwise they wouldn't be able to get all of that bandwidth in a dense package. CAMM isn't really a standard as of today, sadly.

[saltycaramel]

My number one checkbox to wait 2 years for the M2 Mini was getting HDMI 2.1 to connect it at 4K 120Hz to my 77” LG oled tv. 

Fortunately I was not disappointed. 

[igormp]

Wait, I just notice, are they using those new 48Gbit ddr5 modules? I thought those weren't available yet.

 

I hope those become available in ddr4 dimm version too, but that's a wishful thinking lol