When the 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros landed earlier this week, there was some confusion on the spec sheet about the number of encryption engines on the M2 Max. Apple has cleared things up: the M2 Max processor has the same media engine as the M1 Max.
When the page originally went live it stated that the M2 Max processor on the 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro only had one video encoding engine and ProRes encoding and decoding engine, despite the M1 Max having two of each . Adding to the confusion was the M2 Max press release, which touted the chip’s “two video encoding engines and two ProRes engines, delivering up to 2x faster video encoding than M2 Pro.”
Apple has now clarified in the MacBook Pro tech specs that the M2 Max does indeed have twice the video encoding and ProRes engines of the M1 Pro and M2. The M1 chip does not have a video encoding engine or ProRes encoding and decoding engine. The M1 Max also packs more graphics cores and memory than the M2 Pro, with a 30- or 38-core GPU and up to 96 GB of memory.
Foundry
So if you spend $3,000 or more on a MacBook Pro with an M2 Max processor, rest assured that the media engine will indeed be faster than the M2 Pro.
