So there's an M2 Ultra, M2 Max, and M2 Pro. I hate this naming scheme. It is totally unclear how you're supposed to order those in terms of performance.
Max kinda makes sense compared to the other level, since it's the full-spec part, and the others are lower-binned derivatives. Since Ultra is really two Max-grade chips welded together, seems like they should have done something like M2 Duo ... ah.
I think it's more comparable to GPU naming. 40XX gives me the generation, and the XX part (e.g. "4060"/"3080 Ti", etc gives me relative the performance within that group. Except instead of something informative, Apple just goes with an arbitrary word that means "the best."
which makes the name redundantly uninformative! So why not make the differentiating technical spec part of the name, or have something similar like M2 XXXXX where XXXXX is the number being comparable?
The average person does not care and learns the hierarchy directly from the marketing materials, not from incomprehensible (to laypeople) technical specifications.
I think it makes sense if you think about it. “Max” is pretty objective, it means the highest limit of something, so that’s the most powerful. “Ultra” isn’t very clear, but we know it’s lower than Max and higher than “not ultra”, so it’s in the middle. Since both “max” and “ultra” imply something not just better but larger, we can conclude that the plain M2 is the version targeted at more power efficient devices. Finally, Pro stands out as the only modifier clearly unrelated to computing performance, so it must have to do with “professional” features, like ECC RAM and MDM.
Can't tell if this is sarcastic or not. First, it's just wrong, as the M2 Ultra is more powerful than the M2 Max. I could easily justify these adjectives being in any order.
Everytime I think of Ultra, I think of MK Ultra - very dangerous. Max, well, he is my nephew - nice kid, not so dangerous. Pro - I am a pro, pro must be amazing. So I say, Ultra > Pro > Max. There, I solved it.
