Apple has officially unveiled its new M2 Pro and M2 Max SoCs (Systems on Chip) that will be the heart and soul of the upcoming MacBook Pro and Mac Mini. These new chips are the latest in the Cupertino-based company's iteratively improving lineup of in-house developed silicon, with the first Apple M1 chip being introduced in 2020 for several of Apple's products, including the 5th generation iPad Pro and iPad Air which shipped in 2021 and 2022 respectively.

The introduction of the original M1 chip for the 2020 MacBook Air marked the first time Apple had moved away from using Intel processors in its laptops and iMacs since 2006, before which it relied on IBM PowerPC chips to drive its systems. On the other hand, Apple has been using its own silicon in mobile devices like the iPhone and iPad for quite some time, like the new iPhone 14 which runs on an Apple A15.

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The new Apple MacBook Pro lineup along with the Mac Mini are available to order, and will begin shipping on January 24th, 2023. Pricing for the new Mac Mini starts at $599 with the base M2 chip, while the M2 Pro version starting at $1299. As for the MacBook Pro - a 14-inch M2 Pro version starts at $1999, while the 16-inch M2 Max version starts at $3499. For the M2 Pro. This might be a precursor to the Apple VR headset which is rumored to drop in Fall 2023.

Apple's first big announcement for 2023 is exciting, especially for those who have been holding out for a big upgrade. The tech giant has not been pulling any punches, either - just last year, it claimed that the Apple M1 Ultra outperforms the GeForce RTX 3090, while remaining fairly vague on the testing methods it used to arrive at this conclusion. Apple touts a whopping 40% increase in Photoshop image processing over the M1 Pro, as well as a 25% increase in code compiling with Xcode. The base M2 Pro is also said to have up to 19 GPU cores - that's more than double on the original M1's 8 cores.

While this news might not be all that interesting to the gaming community, Apple's constant push towards more powerful and efficient has made its platform more and more gaming friendly, with graphically intense titles like Resident Evil Village and Metro Exodus now running natively. Just recently Apple added support for Joy Cons with iOS 16, making it possible to play games from the steadily growing Apple Arcade library, and presumably via Steam Link as well.

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