(Tom’s Guide) It’s been over a month since the MacBook Pro M2 and MacBook Air M2 were officially unveiled. The new Air is available for pre-order now, starting at $1,199, and there’s a lot of anticipation for this laptop.
While our M2 MacBook Air hands-on review is now live (and very positive), would-be buyers are keen to know whether it delivers on the promised 20% speed boost over the previous generation. And thanks to a new listing on the Geekbench benchmarking site, it looks like we can confirm Apple’s figures.
As spotted by Mr. Macintosh on Twitter(opens in new tab), the listing(opens in new tab) shows the 3.49GHz Apple M2 chip producing a single-core score of 1,899 and offering multi-core performance of 8,965. For comparison, the site’s average M1 MacBook Air scores(opens in new tab) are 1,706 for single-core and 7,420 for multi, meaning a boost of 11.3% and 20.8%, respectively.
Of course, despite having a ‘2’ in the title, the chip isn’t the most powerful in Apple’s computing arsenal. That honor goes to the M1 Ultra which in the Mac Studio, achieves scores of 1,754 and 23,356 in the two tests(opens in new tab). These scores will only likely be bettered when Apple releases the M2 Pro, M2 Max and M2 Ultra chips.
But it’s important to emphasize that said M1 Ultra chip would set you back at least $3,999 in the Mac Studio. The 2022 MacBook Air, meanwhile, starts at $1,199 and, like its predecessor, is completely fanless.
And if you’re not entirely convinced, one other interesting data point for you. As spotted by MacRumors(opens in new tab), these scores are actually superior to the base model Mac Pro tower and its 8-core Intel Xeon W processor. Yet said desktop will still cost you $5,000 more directly from Apple(opens in new tab), reminding us once again how truly impressive Apple Silicon is proving to be.
