Most of the macs are essentially the same speed in export for these M2 CPU models, it is because they have the same neural processing unit.
I maybe a bit worried with air converting 500 photos at a time, for that might get slow as it heats up. Otherwise both should be fine with the Pro version exporting a bit faster.
If I denoise a larger amount of pictures, it already takes some while even with the MBP I have (never stopped the time). The highest number of pictures I did for denoising at once is like maybe 70. If I would do more frequently or larger files (like from the 61MP cameras), I would take the Max version of the MB next time. Exporting goes quite quick with the MBP even for higher numbers of pictures. And for exporting the fan doesn’t jump on. For denoising it does.
Every laptop in the range has 16 Neural Engine cores. From the lowest MacBook Air to the highest MacBook Pro. To get more, you have to go to the Mac Studio with M2 Ultra. (Or the Mac Pro, but why would you?)
Indeed. You can buy any of those machines and not loose or gain performance. This means that you can base your choice on other things like screen size, number and kind of ports etc.
I’ve got a M1 MacBook Air from 2020 (no built in fan, so absolutely noiseless) and it performs at least as well as the 2019 iMac that was at least double the price and burns 250 Watts max. 5K screen though…and user upgradeable RAM (those were the days…)
Ahh, yeah those were the days, indeed.