M2Pro 10vs12 Cores

[NikkoTuason]

Forgive my lack of knowledge. I’m currently in the market for a new laptop for video and graphic editing, encoding, rendering…etc.
I was wondering if there is a big difference between the M2 Pro 10 core vs M2 Pro 12 core? I can’t seem to find any benchmarks pitting these two against each other . If there’s someone who has used these two respective processors your opinion is greatly appreciated.

Thanks

 

[CheesePuff]

You will get 2 more performance cores and 3 more GPU cores, however the same media encode and decode engines and performance and same memory bandwidth, so for your use it won't yield too much of a difference. If you used multithreaded software it would be more beneficial.

 

[chris11]

Hi,

this was exactly my doubt when the machines were announced.

In the end opted for the 10 core version.

One of the main reasons was the 10 core version comes with a 67 W power adapter whereas
the 12 core version auto-upgrades to a 96 W adapter. Cool and silent operation was important
to me, so somehow the 96 W sounded scary

What I did, though, was upgrade to 32 GB of RAM and 1 TB of disk. The 1 TB is important
because the 512 GB version appears to have lower I/O.

Coming from a early 2019 15" i9 I'm perfectly happy with both, the performance and the
silent operation. I've heard the fan only once so far (multithreaded Cinebench).

-- Chris

 

[senttoschool]

Forgive my lack of knowledge. I’m currently in the market for a new laptop for video and graphic editing, encoding, rendering…etc.

Everything you listed here tells me you will benefit from the extra CPU and GPU cores. Go with the 12 cores.

 

[Swissfashion]

Forgive my lack of knowledge. I’m currently in the market for a new laptop for video and graphic editing, encoding, rendering…etc.
I was wondering if there is a big difference between the M2 Pro 10 core vs M2 Pro 12 core? I can’t seem to find any benchmarks pitting these two against each other . If there’s someone who has used these two respective processors your opinion is greatly appreciated.

Thanks

12/19 cores + 32GB RAM will make a noticeable difference in performance for your usage profile.

 

[sinsin]

Forgive my lack of knowledge. I’m currently in the market for a new laptop for video and graphic editing, encoding, rendering…etc.
I was wondering if there is a big difference between the M2 Pro 10 core vs M2 Pro 12 core? I can’t seem to find any benchmarks pitting these two against each other . If there’s someone who has used these two respective processors your opinion is greatly appreciated.

Thanks

I'm in the same boat for a machine mainly for After Effects and occasional 3D design. For the money I think it's better value the 10/16 with RAM and storage upgrades. I've found some benchmarks (in French) where the 10 core model is near in performance to M1 Max, so in real world tasks maybe it will be not so bad for $450 less.

 

[Juicy Box]

I'm in the same boat for a machine mainly for After Effects and occasional 3D design. For the money I think it's better value the 10/16 with RAM and storage upgrades. I've found some benchmarks (in French) where the 10 core model is near in performance to M1 Max, so in real world tasks maybe it will be not so bad for $450 less.

View attachment 2155921 View attachment 2155922

Based at off the benchmarks you posted, that is a 25% increase in multi-core performance. If one’s use case involves multi-core tasks, 25% could be worth the upgrade cost.

I think about how a 10% increase in CPU performance on the Intel Macs would cost a few hundred dollars for the BTO, the 12c M2 Pro upgrade could totally worth it for some.

 

[sinsin]

Based at off the benchmarks you posted, that is a 25% increase in multi-core performance. If one’s use case involves multi-core tasks, 25% could be worth the upgrade cost.

I think about how a 10% increase in CPU performance on the Intel Macs would cost a few hundred dollars for the BTO, the 12c M2 Pro upgrade could totally worth it for some.

Yeah it's a nice upgrade from the binned version but it's not an easy decision here in Canada with the upgrade costs in chip selection, RAM and storage.

 

[Swissfashion]

Yeah it's a nice upgrade from the binned version but it's not an easy decision here in Canada with the upgrade costs in chip selection, RAM and storage.

Yes, I see the priorities as follows: more RAM, then if enough money left over: more cores or larger SSD, depending on what would make your computing a better experience for yourself.

 

[i486dx2-66]

Yes, I see the priorities as follows: more RAM, then if enough money left over: more cores or larger SSD, depending on what would make your computing a better experience for yourself.

I'd flip that and say more RAM first, then larger SSD, then more cores.

Justification;
* Not every application is written to use that many cores, and even those that are don't always make good use of them, so the benefit of those extra cores is highly conditional.
* More RAM will benefit *any* application once the memory usage creeps up
* A larger SSD will benefit *all* applications, because in this case, larger capacity = more NAND chips = higher throughput

 

[Zaydax333]

Checkout this review:

GeekBench and Cinebench scores are in images below. But looks like the 12 core just runs a bit hotter/louder and you'll have slightly less battery life.
So... $300 US more for ~25% more Multi-core CPU perf

 

[dmccloud]

Those are some oddly selective test results there. Only Mx Pro variants tested on the 14" MBP and only Mx Max variants tested on the 16" models. That doesn't give you the full story regarding either M1 vs M2 or 14" vs. 16" models.

 

[dmccloud]

I'd flip that and say more RAM first, then larger SSD, then more cores.

Justification;
* Not every application is written to use that many cores, and even those that are don't always make good use of them, so the benefit of those extra cores is highly conditional.
* More RAM will benefit *any* application once the memory usage creeps up
* A larger SSD will benefit *all* applications, because in this case, larger capacity = more NAND chips = higher throughput

Regarding the larger SSD point - that would only apply if NAND module capacities remain unchanged. We're already seeing 128GB modules becoming scarce, so 256GB modules would logically be the next to fade away as NAND capacities increase across the board. That could lead to what we have seen with some of the M2 Macs, where the 256GB SSD is a single NAND instead of the dual 128GB NANDs we saw with M1 Macs - just replace 256 with 512 and 128 with 256 and you could see this exact scenario playing out again in 2-3 years

 

[i486dx2-66]

Regarding the larger SSD point - that would only apply if NAND module capacities remain unchanged.

So they better buy it quickly!