Apple M2 10-Core GPU vs Qualcomm Adreno 530

Apple M2 10-Core GPU

The Apple M2 GPU is an integrated graphics card offering 10 cores designed by Apple and integrated in the Apple M2 SoC. It uses the unified memory architecture of the M2 SoC (up to 24 GB LPDDR5-6400 with 100 GB/s bandwidth) and should offer 160 execution units.

According to Apple it offers a 25% higher performance at slightly higher power consumption. The theoretical performance is rated at 3.6 Teraflops and therefore 1 TFLOP higher than the M1 8-core GPU. In our benchmarks, the GPU was able to top the M1 with up to 40%, but still stays behind the 14-core GPU in the M1 Pro. Compared to other iGPUs from AMD and Intel, the M2 benefits greatly from the unified memory architecture and the high bandwidth.

The M2 chip is manufactured in the second generation 5nm process at TSMC (most likely N5P). The power consumption is around 13.5 Watt (in our tests under load of the MBP13) and up to 15W according to Apple.

Qualcomm Adreno 530

The Qualcomm Adreno 530 is an integrated graphics card for (mostly Android based) smartphones and tablets. It was introduced in the last quarter of 2015 and is integrated in the Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 SoC. It supports OpenGL ES 3.1 and DirectX 11.1.

The GPU uses a still unknown amount of unified shaders clocked at up to 624 MHz. In 2015 it belongs to the fastest GPU for smartphones. Compared to the predecessor Adreno 430, the 530 is especially faster in demanding benchmarks.