[HN Gopher] What has changed in CPU cores in M3 chips?
___________________________________________________________________
What has changed in CPU cores in M3 chips?
Author : zdw
Score : 137 points
Date : 2023-11-22 13:43 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (eclecticlight.co)
(TXT) w3m dump (eclecticlight.co)
| stevage wrote:
| >If you already have an Apple silicon Mac and are wondering
| whether to upgrade to an M3 model
|
| I see comments like this in various reviews. Are there really
| people out there who would replace a Macbook Pro M1 or M2 with a
| M3 just to get something a bit faster? What are they doing that
| is so performance critical?
|
| My last Macbook Pro is a 2014. I still find it usable for
| development work, and I'm only replacing it because of other
| hardware failures.
| perfopt wrote:
| I am still rocking a 2012 MBP. I even have a PPC MacMini but it
| now runs Linux. I have no idea who is upgrading from a M1/M2 to
| M3 or why they would
| shawnc wrote:
| I work with a lot of 4K elements and video in Apple Motion,
| After Effects, and other applications. The better the chip
| the faster things go, especially previews and encoding. Every
| second ends up counting.
|
| I can see why others like me may upgrade. But I'm not going
| to bother just yet.
| youcantcook wrote:
| Funny how "genius" people on a "genius" forum can't fathom
| how people do other things than write text in a text editor.
| inferiorhuman wrote:
| You'd be surprised at just how slow running zellij in iTerm
| was on an Intel MBP. Somehow in 2023 we've managed to
| create resource hungry text interfaces.
| jrockway wrote:
| I write text in a text editor all day but would still
| upgrade my machine on a regular basis. I have a
| Threadripper and use all 32 cores everyday. I'm still
| debating on whether or not to upgrade to the new generation
| released yesterday. 4 year old CPUs are not speedy.
| JCharante wrote:
| the battery life is really good
| inferiorhuman wrote:
| Over the years I've gone through a Core2 MacBook, a 2011 MBP,
| a 2015 MBP, and now a 14" 2023 M2 Pro as each wore out
| physically over the years. Generally the charging systems and
| keyboards degraded severely by the 5 year mark. The 2015 had
| all those problems as well as janky graphics issues, but I
| used it until its SSD died recently.
|
| Aside from performance it's hard to overstate just how quiet
| the current MacBook Pro is. The 2015 got noisy pretty easily
| especially if I had to switch to the discrete GPU, and
| anything heavier than 1080p30 in Firefox would cause the fans
| to go bonkers. By most accounts the last of the Intel models
| were worse. This one? After a few hours of transcoding video
| the fans still only spin up to a quiet whisper.
|
| What I don't hear anyone talk about is the rigidity. You
| could hear the 2015 creak and flex if you picked it up with
| one hand. The 2023 just feels like a solid chunk of metal.
|
| For all of its warts, this is probably my favorite hardware
| of the bunch. The software (macos 14) is utter garbage
| though. That's the culmination of lots of poor design choices
| over the years and nearly non-existent quality control.
| zaphod420 wrote:
| I upgraded from an M1 pro to an M3 max. it's a nice upgrade.
| muro wrote:
| I'd like to do the same. I want to upgrade to 4TB SSD, as I'm
| at the limit all the time and I spend a lot of time moving
| data from the laptop to NAS and back. With the upgrade, I'll
| get a M3 max for the peace of mind - it will be ridiculously
| expensive anyway.
| LeSaucy wrote:
| I just switched from 16" 2019 i9 -> 16" M3 pro and 2 weeks
| later still stunned at how amazing of a machine it is. I do a
| lot of c++ dev for $dayjob and my current project which took
| 1m45s to full rebuild on i9 is down to ~25s on m3. Without a
| fan turning on or barely getting warm. Its _magical_. I still
| get caught off guard by the chassis being cold when first
| placed on my lap.
| littlecranky67 wrote:
| The issue is that the 2019 MBP16 were crap. Especially the
| higer i7/i9 models had thermal throttling issues when
| connected to an external monitor.
|
| My 3000EUR i7 mbp16 2019 recently died and I replaced it
| with an "interim" base model, 650EUR MacMini M2. The jump
| is huge, that freakin Mini beats my 3yo (I bought it in
| 2020) decked out MBP that constantly spun fans. While
| intended as Interim until M3 MBPs where announced, I see no
| reason to upgrade right now.
| minimaul wrote:
| I remember getting this jump accidentally - I bought a M1
| Mac Mini for porting stuff too and for testing, and
| building on it was twice as fast as my 2018 15" i7. And it
| was silent doing it. Pity it was only the 8GB base spec,
| because it would have made an amazing main machine!
| esskay wrote:
| Pro no, Air however yep, I'm one of them. Big performance boost
| from the base M1 to the M3 Pro.
| thelittleone wrote:
| Me too. I get every second generation. Air is so cheap, why
| not. The business apps I run used to require a Macbook Pro to
| run. Now the 13" air does it beautifully, and with amazing
| portability. I often have to carry 2 laptops when traveling.
| So before with an MBP 16" and 2nd laptop, it was damn heavy.
| walteweiss wrote:
| I'm very curious why do you have to carry two laptops? If
| that's not the case that you carry the second laptop for
| the other person. If you use the two, then I'm very curious
| of your use-case.
| smcleod wrote:
| M1 to M2 Pro for the 96GB which is nice for LLMs/AI.
| baq wrote:
| Or you could buy a car...?
|
| Apple RAM premium is outrageous.
| infecto wrote:
| While the premium is indeed high, the total cost of the
| tool even at the premium is quite low. I think you can get
| the 14 M3 Max fairly decked out at around $5-7k. Not even
| close to a new car these days.
|
| Maybe I am in the minority but I see it as a tool. My
| workflows work well in MacOS, I like the build quality of
| the tool. My replacement timeline is generally pretty long.
| The value this tool generates is massive compared to the
| cost of it.
|
| I remember how often coworkers would joke about the cost of
| a Kinesis keyboard. They would die if they were a mechanic.
| J_Shelby_J wrote:
| Amazing that windows systems are so bad that people are
| justified in buying a $7k laptop instead of a 4x 4090 +
| threadripper super computer.
| n8cpdx wrote:
| What are you talking about? Just the four cards is $10k,
| and then you still need to buy the rest of the computer.
| And you probably can't take it with you and use it from
| the coffee shop or the couch.
|
| And yes, Windows systems are bad. They shipped broken
| TouchID for years, and they don't trust you to turn off
| OneDrive (and will re-enable at every turn). Edge just
| gave me a toolbar yesterday that looked like browser
| chrome, but was actually a GamePass ad. I'm just pulling
| the easiest examples, listen to Windows Weekly for a full
| enumeration.
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| I think GP used "windows" in lowercase to refer to all
| windowing operating systems, not just the MS one?
| infecto wrote:
| Do people actually care about costs this low for business
| use? Thats just a minor cost.
|
| Certainly there is a line to when it makes sense to
| compare costs but we are talking about sub $10k costs for
| a tool that lets say has a 3 year life for a business, so
| $3300 per year or $275 per month. I would think most of
| the individuals on this forum are generating more than
| $275 of value per month on their laptop.
|
| Its less about justifying and more that the cost is
| meaningless compared to the value. There is some
| intersection of objective and subjective analysis here, I
| don't care if you want a $10k laptop that runs linux.
| Toutouxc wrote:
| > Do people actually care about costs this low for
| business use? Thats just a minor cost.
|
| Yes, in many places outside of SV, they do. $10k is
| slightly less than what I paid for my car, it's more than
| a year of rent and is more than some (unfortunate) people
| in this country make in a year. And this is still Europe,
| a country with paved roads, fiber internet and free
| healthcare.
|
| I do my job on a $1700 MacBook, I could probably do it on
| a $300 Thinkpad and I personally could go and buy a $10k
| laptop, but my girlfriend would without doubt leave me on
| the very same day.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| Surprisingly, I care about things like battery life,
| noise and being able to put a laptop on my lap without
| the heat ensuring that there will never be any little
| Scarfaces
| scarface_74 wrote:
| Well, I can't charge $150+/hour for using a car...
| Art9681 wrote:
| A car that cheap will nickle and dime you until you've
| spend 5x its initial price. If you dont get lucky and it
| dies on you before your money was better spent by car
| mechanics.
| culi wrote:
| Why not wait for M4?
| Amorymeltzer wrote:
| Depends on your workload and what you're doing. This is an
| extreme example, but Marco Arment over on ATP discussed going
| from a top-o-the-line M1 to top-o-the-line M3, and saw his
| Xcode build time for his app (Overcast) get nearly cut in half
| (I believe he said 19 seconds to 11 seconds). For something
| that happens several times a day and is a critical and
| interruptive step in his workflow, yeah, he found it
| meaningful.
| pg5 wrote:
| I make music mostly for fun and my m1 is barely keeping up with
| Logic Pro and the plugins I'm running, which are amp sims,
| various typical mixing plugins, and virtual drums. I'm not even
| using a crazy number of tracks at any given moment.
| mnw21cam wrote:
| Given that a 7MHz Amiga 500 could mix eight tracks in CPU in
| real time, this is a very sad state of affairs. Your M1 is
| how many thousand times faster?
| troupe wrote:
| Are you sure that what the Amiga was doing with 8 tracks is
| equivalent to what Logic is doing? I'd guess there is more
| to compare than just the number of tracks involved.
| uticus wrote:
| Yes but I think there's a point: hardware horsepower is
| undoubtedly _capable_ of handling such workloads. I 'm
| not knocking on Logic, but for 'fun' projects especially
| I find it impossible to believe that the hardware listed
| is the problem.
| redwall_hp wrote:
| VSTs didn't even exist when Amgias were relevant. Each of
| those tracks was not running a virtual synthesizer,
| convolutional reverb, parametric EQ, compressor, amp sim,
| etc.. A modern DAW is simulating an entire studio worth of
| hardware, not just an eight channel mixer. One of these
| laptops can mix hundreds of tracks without issue; it's the
| plugins that require more power.
| pg5 wrote:
| There's a chance it's a logic bug or one plugin having some
| issues, I suppose
| smolder wrote:
| All plugins are certainly not made equal. Some I've used
| are surprisingly bad performance-wise for what they do,
| while others are just genuinely computation-heavy.
| gessha wrote:
| Did you have an Intel Mac before? If so, did you have the
| same workflow with the same amount of plugins or did you
| expand your usage based on the laptop capabilities? Just
| curious about "workflow creep" because I'm wondering if I
| should get an M[1..9].
| TheCleric wrote:
| My rule for Logic Pro is that it will expand to make any
| computer you run it on "just barely keep up".
| firecall wrote:
| Xcode and SwiftUI is one answer.
|
| I'm tempted to upgrade my M1 Pro to an M3 Max.
|
| Reports suggest id halve my build times and then some.
| culi wrote:
| ... how long are your build times? If your build times are
| high enough to really affect your productivity, I feel like
| there are much cheaper (and environmentally friendly) ways to
| halve them
| bitzun wrote:
| (Not an ios developer, have worked with ios teams) Swift
| build times are notoriously awful. I don't know if most
| developers have much influence over that.
| machinekob wrote:
| They are okish a lot slower than c but still reasonable
| if you dont use tons of generics/macros and other heavy
| stuff.
|
| Still it could be a lot better.
| willsmith72 wrote:
| like what? genuinely curious. building native apps is
| notoriously painful
| saagarjha wrote:
| Most places are unable to beat silicon advances to improve
| their build times.
| smabie wrote:
| What's the point of posting this and providing zero
| examples of how?
| culi wrote:
| How could I possibly provide any advice. Of course build
| times are gonna be very specific to each project. I could
| tell you "just rewrite it in rust" but that obviously
| wouldn't be helpful
| nivertech wrote:
| How much RAM do you need for fast Xcode + Swift UI
| development?
| c0pium wrote:
| Nobody knows.
| cvwright wrote:
| Since the release of Xcode 15 it feels like the answer is,
| "More than 16 GB".
| bhouston wrote:
| Geekbench for an M1 Pro multi-core is 11643, while the M3 Max
| (16 core) has a pref of: 21387. That would be a major upgrade
| so yeah, it is probably worth it of you can afford it.
|
| All stats from here:
| https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1i5dBe_rsiNaQATH-D-
| Pj...
| kristianp wrote:
| > Single Core Pref
|
| should be single core Perf, short for "performance"?
| righthand wrote:
| They're not doing anything critical, the people who upgrade for
| that minor bump are the fanatics who upgrade their cellphone
| every year for a minor megapixel bump. It's fashion tech to the
| benefit of non-work related needs.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| Yes because people couldn't possible have workloads that
| benefit from a 30% speed up or have bill rates that justify
| it.
| treprinum wrote:
| The option to have 128GB RAM for stable diffusion and local
| LLMs.
| moondev wrote:
| Since 8GB unified memory is "equivalent to a 16GB non Mac" Is
| 128GB unified memory MacBook basically a 256GB Nvidia GPU(s)?
| lucasyvas wrote:
| They are not equivalent - it's pure marketing BS.
| nottorp wrote:
| > Since 8GB unified memory is "equivalent to a 16GB non
| Mac"
|
| Yeah, right.
| treprinum wrote:
| Not in the machine learning world ;-) You'd need to switch
| to marketing workloads to make 8GB = 16GB.
| csydas wrote:
| it's not my thing but there are certainly tech enthusiasts and
| even brand specific enthusiasts that like details like this as
| they do try to get "the best" from their tech.
|
| so probably it's not for everyone but i guess there is value in
| knowing how big of a bump the newest model gives.
| nordsieck wrote:
| > Are there really people out there who would replace a Macbook
| Pro M1 or M2 with a M3 just to get something a bit faster?
|
| Are there really people who buy a new car every 2 years?
|
| Yes. Yes there are.
|
| Some people like to have the newest stuff and don't mind living
| paycheck to paycheck to do so. Or maybe they're rich.
| troupe wrote:
| There are some people who just waste their money, but there
| are also a wide difference in the value people get from their
| cars and computers. Someone billing $500 per hour is going to
| be a lot more willing to upgrade their computer for even a
| small improvement. They may even keep a spare computer just
| to make sure they have minimum downtime if something goes
| wrong. Someone who just uses their computer to watch youtube
| videos may be fine keeping their computer until it stops
| working.
| nordsieck wrote:
| That's totally fair as well.
|
| However.
|
| I expect that the majority of people who upgrade their
| computer regularly can't justify it as a business expense.
| But I could be wrong.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| When I got Amazoned a couple of months ago and didn't have
| a personal computer at all, a side contract fell into my
| lap where I billed $150/hour. (Don't cry for me. I found a
| full time job 3 weeks later).
|
| I recouped the cost of the M2 MacBook Air 24GB RAM/1TB in
| less than 15 hours worth of work - taking my after tax rate
| into account.
|
| My work was not compute intensive so the Air was fine. But
| I would definitely pay for a 30% improvement at that bill
| rate.
| cglace wrote:
| You need to be rich to afford a new computer every 3 years?
| brucethemoose2 wrote:
| At Apple's prices, yeah.
|
| I sit on desktops for 5 years+ with modest opportunistic
| upgrades, and I consider that extravagant.
|
| I think people forget that $4k+ for a computer is Quadro
| workstation territory.
| cglace wrote:
| I guess if you are paying 4k+ for your computer it makes
| sense to push out your next purchase. I'm usually paying
| ~2k.
| brucethemoose2 wrote:
| IDK. My 3090/7800X3D desktop, assembled new, was ~$2K.
| That's a very premium computer.
|
| And that's with the general Nvidia price gouging these
| days, and paying a premium for ITX as well.
|
| $2K is very expensive for a PC.
| Art9681 wrote:
| $4k is a little or a lot depending on your circumstance.
| Assume three individuals that make the same income.
|
| - One of them supports a family of 3 on one income. - One
| of them is single and supports only themselves. - One of
| them is married with dual-income and no kids.
|
| This has nothing to do with wealth.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| There are also those who can afford it but don't see the
| value add. There better be some serious value add for me
| to spend $4k IMO. Others are a bit loose with their money
| which is their prerogative.
|
| I really only upgrade if my current PC cannot do a thing
| that I need it to do.
| fulafel wrote:
| Median household income globally is about $10k, it's about
| 2 months household income worth.
| petercooper wrote:
| Or maybe they work with computers in a business full time and
| the price of a new computer is minor compared to the income
| it's used to produce, especially if it's tax deductible, such
| that it's a valid business decision if the improvements are
| barely more than marginal.
| rsynnott wrote:
| M2, no, virtually none. The earliest M1s are three years old
| now, so may be up for replacement under some corporate refresh
| policies. A lot of corporates still _kind_ of live in the past,
| hearkening back to a time when a three year old laptop was
| largely unusable (and might well be _physically_ falling apart;
| general manufacture quality of this sort of thing has improved
| a lot in the last 20 years).
|
| In the late noughties I worked for a smallish company where
| engineers got MBPs and everyone else got mid-range PC business
| laptops (I think Dell or someone?) The failure rate on the PC
| laptops was just astonishing; they were practically disposable.
| The failure rate of the MBPs was higher than you'd see today,
| though not as bad. Replacing machines in under 3 years was the
| norm because many of them didn't _work_ after 3 years.
| Detrytus wrote:
| Three years is also when AppleCare expires. That's enough for
| some people/corporations to upgrade
| nagisa wrote:
| Two to three years is also when laptops become a 0 value
| asset in the books in at least some jurisdictions (not sure
| about the US tho.) At which point it makes a ton of sense
| to get rid of it (e.g. sell or give it away to the
| employee.)
| abakker wrote:
| my 3 year old corporate HP feels like its been at end of life
| since the windows 11 upgrade. The 2 year old M1Max MBP feels
| indestructible and still has hilariously long battery life
| and crushes basically everything I ask of it.
| OnlyMortal wrote:
| I might mention that many at HP use Macs at home.
| JCharante wrote:
| > The earliest M1s are three years old now, so may be up for
| replacement under some corporate refresh policies.
|
| Yup. It's hmm should I upgrade now or wait next year for a
| juicy M4 model? (some corporate refresh policies let you buy
| your old work computer at a heavily reduced price, giving you
| an incentive to get a good work computer)
| kristianp wrote:
| Macrumors says buy now, based on the expected wait time for
| an update from Apple. But we already know it would be at
| least a year until the M4 would be released.
|
| https://buyersguide.macrumors.com/#MacBook_Pro_16
| deskamess wrote:
| > The earliest M1s are three years old now, so may be up for
| replacement under some corporate refresh policies
|
| If anyone knows where I can be downstream of these M1's
| (website, other old stock websites) please let me know. I
| would like to procure 1 or 2 on the cheap. Esp an M1 Pro.
| wombat-man wrote:
| I've only used it to get a phone, but backmarket has a lot
| of old apple machines listed. I'm real tempted to get a
| 2013 trashcan mac pro, but I just don't know what I would
| do with it.
| deskamess wrote:
| That's a good site. Unfortunately, they do not ship to
| Canada. Will need to look at them later when I visit the
| US. I have a service that provides a US address but no
| immediate trips planned.
| wombat-man wrote:
| Whoever I bought the phone from shipped it real slowly,
| and backmarket doesn't seem to have a lot of control over
| that. So if you decide to do that, be sure to order a
| couple weeks ahead of time at least.
| deskamess wrote:
| Thanks. Good to know. Will plan accordingly.
| drdebug wrote:
| I believe SSDs are soldered onto the motherboard for M1
| laptops + M1 mac mini, I wonder how bad of an issue it is
| when considering used M1s.
| rsynnott wrote:
| Can't imagine it's a big issue; the SSD on my 7.5 year
| old Skylake MBP is cheerfully claiming 96% lifetime
| remaining, and seems to be fine. The days of SSDs self-
| destructing after a couple of years seems to be largely
| behind us, at least for consumer applications; even low-
| end stuff has a decent practical lifetime these days.
| IntelMiner wrote:
| I've been trying to get our IT manager to bend the knee on
| our own policy
|
| We ship our laptops off to some company who gives us some
| nominal amount for I assume the scrap value of the machine,
| then we can donate it to a charity
|
| I'd be happy to "buy" an M1 Air with a cracked screen and
| run it as a headless Asahi Linux box for a hundred bucks or
| something. But he won't budge
| droopyEyelids wrote:
| This is hard to change because its a policy that affects
| finance, legal, infosec, and it.
|
| Finance has been depreciating those laptops as capital
| assets and if youre going to buy one from the company
| that means its not depreciated, and they need to amend
| their taxes.
|
| Legal and security are concerned about the data and dont
| know how to prove the encryption really worked and the
| keys are gone, but the recycling company has insurance
| and certifications "proving" they dispose of things
| properly.
| repiret wrote:
| You don't need to amend your taxes to sell a fully
| depreciated asset.
| sroussey wrote:
| Sometime you can accelerate depreciation, so you would
| have to amend in that case.
| alexjplant wrote:
| Last I checked loaded M1 Airs were going for $600 on
| FleaBay.
|
| I was all set to upgrade to an M3 Pro until I saw the weird
| SKU binning for the higher memory models and remembered
| that my M1 Air still does everything that I need it to do
| and more. I originally bought it strictly for music
| production but have since used it more generally as I have
| to use Apple machines for work... I'll probably end up
| keeping it for another two years and swinging back to a
| nice Thinkpad with Mint or similar as my dev machine as
| there are insane deals on 7840-based Lenovos right now.
| Swizec wrote:
| > A lot of corporates still _kind_ of live in the past,
| hearkening back to a time when a three year old laptop was
| largely unusable
|
| With the amount of nannyware and spyware these corporations
| load up on your laptop it actually _does_ feel pretty
| unusable. The difference in performance between my personal 4
| year old laptop and my corporate 3 year old laptop is
| ridiculous.
|
| The corporate laptop has so many antiviruses and stuff
| running all the time that it feels like a 2000's era windows
| machine that's been exposed to the internet for too long.
| theyeenzbeanz wrote:
| My current jobsite still uses vista era laptops with 4GB of
| memory, a battery that dies within minutes if not plugged in,
| and a painfully slow spindle drive. A 3 year old computer
| would be a luxury here.
| caycep wrote:
| My M1 Pro still feels super fast...
|
| the corporate thing reminds me of my professor back in
| college - they'd upgrade him to the latest/greatest Power Mac
| each year, only for him to boot it up and terminal into his
| VMS machine and launch min...
| dylan604 wrote:
| Don't forget that corps also have financial reasons for
| constant upgrades. Buying new hardware is a great way to
| reduce taxable profits. There's also the amortization on
| write offs, and other accounting words I've heard people say
| but don't pretend to fully grok.
|
| Also, decent way to lessen the beatings to improve moral
| since who doesn't like getting new hardware?
| wil421 wrote:
| My wife "stole" my M1 Air. At the time, it was good to see a
| comparison between the M1/M2. I order custom spec ones but for
| someone who doesn't they may want to buy a generation old to
| save me.
|
| However, I agree on the phrasing. The amount of people who are
| upgrading yearly is much smaller than people who would buy a
| generation older Mac to save money.
| Retr0id wrote:
| The M1/M2/M3 base models all have only 8GB of RAM. Someone who
| cheaped out on a first-gen model to test the waters (even if
| they didn't necessarily go for 8GB) might now be looking to
| upgrade, and if they're buying used then all three CPU
| generations are worth considering.
| JanSt wrote:
| This is me
| jghn wrote:
| I have an 8GB M1 Air for the sole reason that I was so
| excited I decided to go with the model I could get on release
| day instead of waiting a month. Not the wisest decision.
|
| I figured I'd replace it at M2, and then at M3. But to be
| honest even with the 8GB it's fine enough still. I don't use
| it for much heavy lifting but it works ok-ish for that in a
| pinch. And for day to day personal use it's fine. So every
| year I go through the cycle where I *want* to replace it and
| then convince myself I don't really need it. I already have a
| monster machine for my work stuff, having extra horsepower
| for my personal machine would be nice but ....
|
| I'm sure M4 is the generation I'll upgrade. Just wait :)
| adestefan wrote:
| I recently bought my wife a new Air and the only reason why
| I went with the M2 version was the nicer screen. Otherwise
| the M1/8GB would be more than fine for what she needs.
| goosedragons wrote:
| Apple also still sells everything but the M1 Pro/Max/Ultra
| brand new in various devices too.
| kzrdude wrote:
| Used market is full of those 8 GB models
| a_vanderbilt wrote:
| This is what happened in my case. I had an 8GB Air and while
| the CPU performance was incredible, it lacked the RAM to
| fully take advantage of it. I upgraded to a 16GB M2 Mac Mini.
| I consider it to be the perfect UNIX machine for my use case.
| If I need to access it on the go I remote in from a cheapo
| laptop.
| jonpurdy wrote:
| I replaced a 16GB Intel MacBook Pro with an 8GB refurb M1 Air
| and regretted it within weeks. (Due to the initial claims
| about M1 using less memory and that the M1 destroyed my
| Intel's Javascript performance.)
|
| Turns out that my 8GB machine would slow down significantly
| when hitting the RAM limit. This was expecially noticeable
| when running Final Cut Pro (almost unusable) or Photo
| Mechanic + Photoshop (I'd have to quit one to run the other).
| I tolerated this situation until the M2 Airs came out and I
| maxed it to 24GB RAM, and have been beyond happy with it
| since then!
|
| My partner now has my 8GB M1 and it works perfectly for her.
| cglace wrote:
| I replaced my M1 macbook pro because with 16 GB of ram I was
| constantly swapping.
| nottorp wrote:
| Most average HNers should get 32 or 64 Gb. You _can_ use a 16
| Gb machine but you 'll be limited.
|
| I bought a M2 Mac Mini with 16 Gb to test the platform.
| There's a Studio with 64 Gb in my future ;)
| scarface_74 wrote:
| You assume that "most HNers" use their computers outside of
| work and a work provided laptop for anything processor or
| memory intensive.
|
| I use mine exclusively for a side contract and that's the
| only reason I bought it. I'm either using VSCode with
| Python or Node and occasionally to build Lambdas in a
| Docker Amazon Linux 2 container.
|
| If I need more compute than that on my side project, I spin
| up a Cloud 9 instance on my client's account.
| nottorp wrote:
| If you only do Facebook you don't need a computer at all?
|
| "Most HNers" mess with things I think.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| So you think most "HNers" spend most of their waking time
| outside of work on computers outside of gaming?
|
| The last thing I want to do is look at a computer for
| free and do anything "productive" after spending all day
| at work.
| pjmlp wrote:
| Yes, people with too much money to spare like a couple of Mac
| podcasters.
| antigirl wrote:
| Not everyones a developer. M1 vs M3 performance boost for video
| editing seems like a decent upgrade. I'm still on M1 and I
| spent PS4k+ on specced up MBP 14 inch. Its not struggling but
| it doesn't perform well when editing 4k with one layer of
| effects in DaVinci.
| mikece wrote:
| I was wondering about the improvement for photo and video
| editing, but that would be more of a function of the GPU than
| the CPU, wouldn't it? I certainly need more than 8GB of RAM
| for photo editing... memory pressure slows down Photoshop and
| Lightroom.
| baz00 wrote:
| I was going to change my M1 for an M3 because I like the black
| one :)
| have_faith wrote:
| Chaotic Neutral
| JCharante wrote:
| mkbhd's review is that the m3 isn't black enough to be
| considered black.
| baz00 wrote:
| It's black enough for me!
| Detrytus wrote:
| That's for your local BLM chapter to decide, not you!
|
| Also, isn't using a black laptop by non-black person an
| act of cultural appropriation?
|
| Apple should at least test your familiarity with Critical
| Race Theory before selling you one. /s
| browningstreet wrote:
| It's contextualizatipn positioning. And a few.
|
| Marques Brownlee has been rocking an M1 Pro laptop and ordered
| an M3. Which he cancelled after he got his review unit. He's
| got enough money to not think hard about it but he cancelled
| anyway. Which stands as an interesting data point.
| bhouston wrote:
| I upgraded from a MacMini M1 (Geekbench multicore pref: 8425)
| to an MacMini M2 Pro with 12 cores (Geekbench multicore pref:
| 14431.) That was definitely worth it.
|
| The only upgrade for the M3 line I would make would be to an M3
| Max 16 core (Geekbench multicore pref: 21387) or an upcoming M3
| Ultra 32 core (probably a Geekbench multicore pref: ~30000),
| but it is very expensive and probably not available in the
| MacMini form factor, so I will hold off for now.
|
| All stats from here:
| https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1i5dBe_rsiNaQATH-D-Pj...
| smcl wrote:
| I know the whole "carbon footprint" thing was designed to allow
| big companies and governments to pretend that 7 billion people
| need to individually decide to change their lifestyles, to
| fully understand the environmental implications of the various
| consumer choices they make _and_ assumes that environmentally-
| friendly options are already available in all cases ...
|
| But the carbon footprint of some people I see here must be
| astronomical.
| eric__cartman wrote:
| I at least hope they sell/give away those machines to keep
| them in circulation. I'd be a real shame to have modern and
| environmentally expensive hardware like that be torn apart
| for scrap metal in a recycling facility. Many tech companies
| love the "eco-friendly" trade in programs that essentially
| serve to take working, used devices out of circulation.
| 2143 wrote:
| For my personal machine I have a relatively new ThinkPad
| running linux that works perfectly well for everything that I
| do.
|
| Ever since it came out I _want_ to buy a MacBook with these
| new chips as my personal machine. But I haven 't yet bought
| one because I don't _need_ one.
|
| Or I'll buy it when my ThinkPad dies. (Weird laughter).
|
| And then over here I read about people replacing laptops
| every other year or so, and I wonder why I am the way I am.
| nocoiner wrote:
| I did something fairly out of character for myself and replaced
| a six-month-old M2 MBP with a brand new MBP with an M3 Max. I
| attribute it to three factors:
|
| 1. I went with 16 GB of RAM on the M2 and sort of regretted it
| from day one. I have 36 GB on the M3 and feel much more
| comfortable about that in a machine I plan to use for the next
| 5-7 years.
|
| 2. Apple gave me what I thought was a very generous trade-in
| offer on the M2 - something like 90% of what I paid for it,
| even after half a year's use. At that value, it basically felt
| like a wash going from the old computer to a new one, and I was
| just paying for the substantial upgrade on the old machine
| (Max-level processor, bigger SSD, quite a bit more memory).
|
| 3. I thought the darker color looked neat. That said, it's much
| subtler than I imagined, and I wouldn't have considered this as
| a factor.
|
| Of course, the truly hilarious thing is that I don't do
| anything at all intensive on my computer so I'd be just fine
| with just about anything. But what can I say, I like to know I
| could if I wanted to.
| binkHN wrote:
| > 1. I went with 16 GB of RAM on the M2 and sort of regretted
| it from day one. I have 36 GB on the M3 and feel much more
| comfortable about that in a machine I plan to use for the
| next 5-7 years.
|
| Very fair; part of the reason I went with 64GB on my
| ThinkPad, and Apple makes this configuration almost cost
| prohibitive.
| jmnicolas wrote:
| It's not *almost* cost prohibitive, here (in France) a max
| spec Apple laptop cost about 8500EUR. Ridiculous.
| robotresearcher wrote:
| That's a lot of money for a laptop. But its roughly the
| same as single intercontinental business class flight.
|
| Computers are very, very cheap.
| mahkeiro wrote:
| 8500EUR for a business class flight? Maybe first class.
| nicoburns wrote:
| > But its roughly the same as single intercontinental
| business class flight.
|
| And most people (even in first world countries) never go
| on a single one of those in their lives. Even most
| businesses never purchase one.
| baal80spam wrote:
| I can't think of ANY airplane ticket that costs 5000 EUR,
| not to mention 8500.
| switch007 wrote:
| Oh very easy to find. London to San Francisco, AA,
| business class, this Monday returning Thursday, 9700 EUR.
| Not even a flexible ticket
|
| Google Flights says that's a typical price
|
| Direct with BA is EUR14k
|
| Though neither of course a price a business would usually
| pay, due to contracts for special pricing and booking a
| bit more in advance
| gwervc wrote:
| Apple prices in France are insane, partially because of
| how Apple adapt the dollar to euros, and the 20% VAT.
| Heck, at the time I got my 16Gb 14" M1 Pro _plus_ an
| iPhone 11 mini for 50EUR cheaper in Japan than just the
| laptop in France, in part thanks to a generous "back to
| school" offer.
| Detrytus wrote:
| What do you mean by max spec? In my country the 16inch,
| M3 Max, 128GB RAM, 8TB SSD is 9666 EUR[1] - France seems
| a lot cheaper.
|
| [1] My country does not use EUR, i calculated it based on
| the current exchange rate.
| james33 wrote:
| Game engines can be pretty hefty (especially the big 3D ones
| like Unity or Unreal), you can always find benefit from faster
| CPU/GPU/RAM with this type of dev work. This is the only reason
| I'm tempted to upgrade my M1 Max.
| rickette wrote:
| Yeah, most M-series are plenty fast I think. Just upgraded from
| a 2018 Intel Macbook to the M3 Max and the change is very
| noticeable. Hope and plan to keep using this machine again for
| 5+ years or so.
| petercooper wrote:
| Different strokes for different folks, but I have a higher bar
| than "usable" for tools that my income relies upon. A moderate
| improvement in experience (whether performance, screen, storage
| speed, or merely that a key on the keyboard no longer "feels
| weird") warrants frequent upgrades of my main machine, yes.
| anovikov wrote:
| Compilation speed difference between 2015 15" mbp and M1 Pro
| 14" was truly profound. I could compile in a time it takes to
| make and drink a coffee what previously took half night.
| swalsh wrote:
| I have a MacBook pro m1. I'm considering an upgrade, but not
| for CPU. What I really need is more memory. This computer is
| not capable of doing any real load of development work without
| running out of memory. It's insanely frustrating.
| VoodooJuJu wrote:
| Consooming <NEW PRODUCT> is critical, the performance
| capabilities are just a nice bonus.
| Eric_WVGG wrote:
| I picked up a 16gb M1 Pro about as soon as they came out. It
| was unbelievable for the first year, basic React web stack
| work.
|
| Now I'm working on a project that requires about six Docker
| images, and we made a questionable choice about Typescript
| packages for typing our API responses. The Docker consumes most
| of my RAM, and even when it's turned off, there's a visible
| different in the IDE between mine and my M2 equipped coworkers
| whenever a document that uses this dumb lib is opened.
|
| So anyway I'm picking up an M3 Max next week.
| grecy wrote:
| Selling the M1? My email is in my bio. Thanks
| steve1977 wrote:
| When you need a high end laptop for web development, what a
| sad state of affairs...
| mikece wrote:
| Because, JavaScript.
| jocaal wrote:
| No, in this case it is docker. Last I remembered, docker
| on macs run in a VM
| smolder wrote:
| An alternative to leaning on your laptop that way is to use a
| 2nd headless system to do builds, run tests, host containers,
| etc. It can be more economical over time and better DX to use
| this [semi-] dumb terminal approach, depending on specifics
| of your workflow.
| n8cpdx wrote:
| People here are jumping through hoops to justify these
| purchases. I don't get it.
|
| It is completely OK to want to have nice things in your life.
| It is OK to invest in yourself. It is OK to place a high value
| (2021 vs 2023 Mac) or any value (2014 Mac vs 2023 Mac) on your
| time.
|
| Maybe the shocked reactions are a result of currency
| conversions, but when you factor in trade in value, the M1 to
| M3 upgrade isn't much more expensive than an iPhone.
|
| Over the course of two years, the Mac is no more expensive than
| a gym membership (actually quite a lot less depending on the
| gym) and probably gets a lot more use.
|
| But there I go justifying again. If personal computing is your
| hobby or your passion, you should spend your hard-earned money
| on what you want.
| smolder wrote:
| It's not about about having "nice things" or affordability
| for me. I try to minimize upgrades mainly out of concern for
| e-waste and other externalities of manufacture, and because
| setting up the environment on new hardware is a time sink.
| Picking appropriate hardware for a use case is also part of
| that. I won't buy a threadripper workstation to game & watch
| YouTube on, for instance. It's okay to be passionate about
| responsible spending, too.
| toast0 wrote:
| > and because setting up the environment on new hardware is
| a time sink
|
| If you replace your laptop, don't you just restore a backup
| and you're ready to go?
|
| Wipe the old machine and sell it and you're net the same
| amount of ewaste.
| smolder wrote:
| Essentially, yes, I'd transfer the account or restore
| from backup, but depending on the hardware change there
| may be other yak shaving to do.
|
| I don't believe putting a used laptop on the market is
| necessarily cutting down e-waste in the same way as not
| purchasing one, though you make a good point.
| ajross wrote:
| > My last Macbook Pro is a 2014
|
| For those curious: this is running a 3.7GHz 4-core Haswell.
| That's very roughly the performance that you'd get from a
| contemporary Alder Lake-N (the E-cores only variant). c.f. this
| very reasonable mid-range $450 Chromebook:
| https://store.acer.com/en-us/acer-chromebook-314-cb314-4ht-3...
| flohofwoe wrote:
| Unfortunately some very useful Metal profiling/debugging tools
| [1] are only available on the latest hardware. Funny enough
| this was always the main reason for me to update, not
| performance (e.g. not being able to debug Metal shaders on my
| old Intel Mac was one important reason to finally upgrade to an
| M1 Mac).
|
| Otherwise I'm still entirely happy with my 2021 minspec M1 MBP.
|
| [1] https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/tech-talks/111374
| semireg wrote:
| If spinning up a dev build on my M1 took 18 seconds, M2 takes
| 13 seconds, and an M3 takes 8 seconds... and I do this 50-100x
| per day, then the time saving can certainly be worth it.
| crazygringo wrote:
| > _What are they doing that is so performance critical?_
|
| Anything related to multimedia processing.
|
| Whether it's video encoding or live audio processing or
| rendering or whatever.
|
| M1 might be more than fast enough for emails and web
| development, but multimedia is a whole different beast.
|
| People forget that the "Pro" refers to media professionals, not
| development professionals. Remember the Touch Bar? It was
| designed for artists and editors for things like color
| selection and scrubbing and sound control, not for programmers.
| tjoff wrote:
| And why on earth would you do that on a laptop to start with?
|
| I'm sure apple not having decent desktops for a decade leaves
| a mark. I guess I'm surprised people put up with it.
| Retr0id wrote:
| Why _wouldn 't_ you want do to that on a laptop? Especially
| one with a bunch of hardware accelerated codec support and
| very decent HDR display.
| crazygringo wrote:
| For the same reason literally everybody else uses laptops
| -- so you can take your work on the go.
|
| You don't think sound producers visit different studios
| each week?
|
| You don't think video editors have to get work done while
| they travel?
|
| You don't think multimedia professionals work both at the
| office and home like the rest of us?
|
| Why _wouldn 't_ you do it on a laptop if you can?
| tjoff wrote:
| Work on a laptop if you must. But don't encode/render
| etc. on a laptop.
| crazygringo wrote:
| I use my laptop for encoding video all the time.
|
| What's your justification for saying I shouldn't,
| precisely?
|
| What's next -- I shouldn't use it to compile software
| either?
| tjoff wrote:
| If you are buying a new laptop every generation just for
| it to be bearable just buy a proper machine that can
| encode it for you.
|
| Bonus points for being able to do it while your laptop is
| in your bag.
| matwood wrote:
| > You don't think video editors have to get work done
| while they travel?
|
| MKBHD used to ship an iMac Pro around before Apple
| Silicon. :)
| Art9681 wrote:
| Because the laptop can also be a desktop when hooked up to
| a big screen and accessories. But a desktop wont ever be a
| laptop.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| > What are they doing that is so performance critical?
|
| There are close to 100M MacBook users.
|
| People will give you reasons here - because this is a non-
| representative group - but this is a tiny fraction of their
| user base.
|
| The main reasons are Apple's marketing and signaling.
| selimnairb wrote:
| I went from an M1 Pro with 32GB of RAM to an M3 Max with 64GB.
| I had been regretting not getting 64GB of RAM. I plan to keep
| this machine at least five years, so I traded in while the
| trade-in value was still relatively high. I find the M3 Max to
| be dramatically faster. I do a lot of Python development
| (mostly numerical code, some micro services) and increasingly
| complex k8s setups. Some of my containers are still AMD64, and
| while these ran acceptably fast on the M1 Pro, they are MUCH
| faster on the M3 Max. For example, solving conda environments
| on a fairly complex container takes about 1/2 the time it seems
| (about as fast as my work 12th gen i9 Linux laptop). I am very
| impressed with the jump between the M3 Max and the M1 Pro, and
| I haven't even touched the GPU yet.
| totallywrong wrote:
| I have a 2015 MBP with Linux that I miss every single day while
| using the work M1 Pro with its crappy keyboard and short key
| travel. The M1 is faster but doesn't impact my work much, and I
| find macOS really frustrating to use.
| hinkley wrote:
| I usually skip generations. I bought an M2 a couple months ago.
| Waiting for sure and largely ignoring the M3 hype. I don't need
| to care, so I spend roughly half as much time consuming tech
| hype as I used to, and spend that extra time reading or
| touching grass.
| lm411 wrote:
| I used to upgrade my MacBook every year.
|
| I'm not sure if this is still true, but I found the resale
| value great enough that it was almost the same cost over time
| to upgrade annually vs every 3-4 years. Of course if you're
| only upgrading every 9-10 years, the math changes
| significantly.
|
| That said, due to changing priorities and needs, my current MBP
| is from 2018. I am planning to upgrade to an M3 MBP this week.
|
| While my current MBP does what I need, some development
| processes & platforms I use nowadays are taking more time than
| I'd like. If it saves me 15 minutes a day, it's a great deal.
| jermaustin1 wrote:
| I just upgraded my top-spec Intel MBA from 2020 to an M3 Pro
| MBP.
|
| Adjusted for inflation, the M3 was about 20% more expensive for
| close to infinitely more performance.
|
| I could see holding on to this M3 Pro as my daily driver for
| 5-10 years assuming I don't drop it too many times.
|
| I'll probably replace my wife's MBA from 2018 next month for
| whatever the bottom spec MBA is now.
| KolenCh wrote:
| Reading your comment, my first reaction is "are there really
| people or there who upgrade not because they want their
| computer faster?"
|
| Joke aside, for people who read reviews, I don't think they
| read it because their computer is dying. So I think it is
| fitting from the selection bias there to focus on performance
| improvement. (Like when I buy a car I won't read a review
| because I don't care its performance.)
| matwood wrote:
| Creative workflows can often use the extra power, particularly
| with video.
|
| For me, doing development and office work, I'll be hard pressed
| to ever replace my M1 Max w/ 64GB. I don't feel like I ever
| wait for anything.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| I'm totally flummoxed by the graphs in the "P v E" section.
| Shouldn't "Total Time" remain constant-ish until the number of
| threads exceed the number of cores? Why does time increase
| linearly with the number of threads on a multi-core system? Or is
| "Total Time" here "CPU Time" and not wall clock time?
| _a_a_a_ wrote:
| Yeah. It would make sense if he was running them serially and
| he sort of says that - "...show a near-perfect linear
| relationship, with each thread fully occupying one core for a
| period of 1.3 seconds". But that's not what he says elsewhere -
| "...so 6 threads will fully load a 6-core P cluster". It really
| doesn't come together, does it.
| l33t7332273 wrote:
| This is definitely the case on other processors. I've written a
| program to detect the number of cores by using that fact.
| elAhmo wrote:
| > Load your current Mac up with the apps you normally use
| together when working, and watch their use in Activity Monitor's
| CPU History window. If its P cores are fully occupied much of the
| time, and that workload often spills over to the E cores, then
| you should aim for an M3 with more P cores
|
| Author mentions we can use Activity monitor to see where are apps
| running, in P or E cores, but I am unable to see this. Can anyone
| share how to check this? Running the latest Sonoma update
| pram wrote:
| Window -> CPU History [?]3
| elAhmo wrote:
| Thanks, I was looking at the CPU tab and thought something
| changed in the CPU Load in the bottom.
| evulhotdog wrote:
| You can double click the cpu graph at the bottom of the process
| list, which is probably quicker than going through the menu
| bar.
| deskamess wrote:
| I think the M1 Pro/16GB is the sweet spot for home development. I
| have an old Intel Air that I want to upgrade out of but the
| prices are still a little high. I get the feeling it will not be
| going much lower since any discounts should have materialized.
| Will keep looking at the Refurbished page on Apple.
| organsnyder wrote:
| My work machine has those specs. My workloads aren't massive,
| but it's been able to handle everything I've thrown at it
| without any issues. It also runs Factorio almost as well as my
| gaming desktop.
| mkl95 wrote:
| I thought M1 was a godlike chip. Why is there a need to upgrade
| to M1+ 3 years later? For comparison, it took me about 10 years
| to replace my second gen i7.
| ChadNauseam wrote:
| There really is no need unless you're doing something where you
| could always benefit from more juice (e.g. video editing). I
| compile Rust all day on my base M1 and have no complaints
| charlie0 wrote:
| Just an observation, I have an M1 Max and M3 Pro. The M3 Pros
| battery seems to drain much much faster than my M1 when watching
| YT. Wonder if this P core thing has anything to do with it.
| fh9302 wrote:
| From the independent battery tests I've seen the battery life
| should be noticeably better. Did you take a look at Activity
| Monitor to see if something is using high CPU?
| IndySun wrote:
| Can you link to any one of the tests you've seen? I'm seeing
| similar results though for different reasons; and it's too
| early for me to call.
|
| >...From the independent battery tests I've seen...
| fh9302 wrote:
| This test for example shows the longest battery life they
| have ever measured: https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/apple-
| macbook-pro-14-inch-2023...
|
| > In our video rundown test, the 14-inch Pro lasted even
| longer, crossing the 30-hour threshold, becoming the
| longest-lasting laptop we've ever tested.
|
| In this video they compare the M2 Pro and M3 Pro and the M3
| Pro has more battery remaining at the end of the video:
| https://youtu.be/aQvsZQ3QBiU
|
| Same for this video where they compare M1 Max, M2 Max and
| M3 Max: https://youtu.be/BWeuhxnWDl0
| charlie0 wrote:
| I'll re-test. I don't use the M3 often, so it could be
| something else like spotlight running in the background
| that's causing the drain.
| miyuru wrote:
| M3 has AV1 hardware decoding built in, it should increase
| battery life in theory. Check the codec used by YT using stats
| for nerds.
| KRAKRISMOTT wrote:
| But no encoding :(
| heavyset_go wrote:
| This extension lets you enable/disable codecs on YouTube[1].
| It's also available for Chromium-based browsers, as well.
|
| From what I've seen, though, is that M3 machines tend to
| consume more power than the M1 generation.
|
| [1] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/h264ify/
| lxgr wrote:
| I believe Youtube just uses VP9 if you don't have AV1
| hardware decoding. At least that's what consistently happens
| on my Mac using various browsers.
| netol wrote:
| Could AV1 be more costly to decode, even in hardware,
| compared to VP9?
| Synaesthesia wrote:
| What browser are you using? Safari?
| dd_xplore wrote:
| It's absolutely mind boggling that such a powerful processor can
| run at a power envelope less than 10 watts!
| crooked-v wrote:
| If the rumors about LLM stuff baked into Siri on the next
| iPhone are true, it will be interesting see how they make the
| most use of the hardware with that.
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