Apple announced an updated 13-inch MacBook Pro with Apple’s next-generation custom M2 chip which also powers the new MacBook Air. The new 13-inch MacBook Pro is basically a processor refresh, with the same design and other hardware features as the prior generation.

Apple’s M2 chip, which uses second-generation 5-nanometer technology, outperforms the M1 in every way, with an 18% faster CPU, a 35% more powerful GPU, and a 40% faster Neural Engine. It also has 50% greater memory bandwidth than the M1, as well as up to 24GB of fast unified memory.

With a faster 8-core CPU and 10-core GPU, working with RAW images in apps like Affinity Photo is nearly 40 percent faster than the previous generation, and up to 3.4x faster for users who are upgrading from a model without Apple silicon, according to Apple.

Apple claims that playing graphics-intensive games like Baldur’s Gate 3 is approximately 40% faster than on the previous 13-inch MacBook Pro, and up to 3.3x faster for customers switching from a non-Apple model.

Users can play back up to 11 streams of 4K and two streams of 8K ProRes video with support for ProRes encode and decoding in the M2 media engine, and they can convert their video projects to ProRes roughly three times faster than previously, according to Apple.

On a single charge, the 13-inch MacBook Pro can play video for up to 20 hours. The 13-inch MacBook Pro also supports up to 24GB of unified memory and 50 percent more memory bandwidth thanks to the M2 chip.

M2 13-inch MacBook Pro price & availability

The 13-inch MacBook Pro will be available to order beginning next month, with costs starting at $1,299 (and $1,199 for education) for the base model in the United States.