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MacBook Pro featuring M2 Pro and M2 Max

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Re: MacBook Pro featuring M2 Pro and M2 Max

#881

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The SSDs in the apple silicon machines are likely much much faster than whatever you have in your macbook pro so when they do spill over into swap it would be much less noticeable. That being said, I'm pretty pro apple silicon (purchased an M2 Pro this morning) and I would never recommend anyone buy a new computer with less than 16GB of ram unless the usecase is strictly web browsing/streaming/ms word type stuff.

And yet I remember my old 286 with what? 500mb of ram or something ...

More like 1MB of RAM.

Our 286 (which was the first computer my family owned) also had a 40MB Hard Disk, which seemed like plenty at the time. It could run Windows 3.1 with that, although it wasn't exactly fast.

Re: MacBook Pro featuring M2 Pro and M2 Max

#882

My new setup as of November is an M2 Air (16GB /1 TB) and an base model M1 Studio. I really couldn't be happier. I run a small WFH / Music Production / Photography studio in my basement and I really wanted an always-on always connected computer, for which the Studio has been perfect. The M2 Air is pretty close to a perfect laptop. My complaints (low audio volume, slighty cramped screen) are absolutely dwarfed by the…

To reiterate your point about RAM for anyone wondering: don’t get the 8gb version! I’ve run 3 Apple Silicon Macs in different configs since 2020. Real-world performance on a range of different workloads is substantially worse than the 16gb version. Don’t even think about having more than one user logged in!

Don’t even think about having more than one user logged in!

I currently have an 8GB M1 running with four users logged in. Three users are iTunes media servers, and the fourth is a regular user.

No heavy computing tasks, obviously, but it's absolutely possible to have more than one user logged in.

Re: MacBook Pro featuring M2 Pro and M2 Max

#883

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The SSDs in the apple silicon machines are likely much much faster than whatever you have in your macbook pro so when they do spill over into swap it would be much less noticeable. That being said, I'm pretty pro apple silicon (purchased an M2 Pro this morning) and I would never recommend anyone buy a new computer with less than 16GB of ram unless the usecase is strictly web browsing/streaming/ms word type stuff.

And yet I remember my old 286 with what? 500mb of ram or something ...

I think the 80286 could support a max of 16mb of ram. I doubt many computers built from them had anywhere near that much ram.

Re: MacBook Pro featuring M2 Pro and M2 Max

#884
post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the year over year improvements were 90% just the tsmc node changes. But the ridiculous (and IMO amazing) performance per watt is a mix of iOS/macOS and their chip design. Those efficiency cores are unmatched, paired with the right scheduling from the OS. The M2 is underwhelming as its the same 5nm as the M1 was. But rumors say the M2 pro and max are on the 3nm node. And it took so long for the release, as 3nm w…

It's worth noting that TSMC is looking to exploit Apple's demand for the hottest silicon. The latest reports suggest that they'll cut the prices to lure in others, so Apple will be forced to ante-up or stay on an old process: https://www.techspot.com/news/97269-tsmc-may-cut-3nm-wafer-p... It's fascinating to think about. If the Mac is currently a low-margin product, Apple might be forced to stay on one node until the…

The M1 Pro is thought to cost $96. I highly doubt the MacBook Pro will ever approach being a low margin product, even if TSMC triple their prices.

https://medium.com/macoclock/is-apple-fleecing-you-a682c851a...

Re: MacBook Pro featuring M2 Pro and M2 Max

#885
post #315

Whilst I am utterly impressed with my M1 Pro; they are comparing to the "fastest Intel-based MacBook Pro" which is 4 years old when Intel was struggling anyway. Not at all representative of what they could have done with the latest Intel or AMD silicon.

Funny, I felt personally targeted in the release video. I have a 2019 MBP I have been waiting to upgrade, and I suspect a more than a few others are in the same situation.

Re: MacBook Pro featuring M2 Pro and M2 Max

#886

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used a 2013 MBP for work, and when work upgraded me to a 2019 MBP I kept the 2013 for myself. Since then, the 2019 macbook has been having tons of problems, crashing, thermal issues, software issues, keyboard issues. But the 2013 has been working like a dream. My coworkers have many similar experiences. Mid-2010s was definitely a peak for macbooks. Hopefully M1s/M2s will be another peak.

2019 MBPs unfortunately weren't great. I had horrible battery life issues after years of heavy use and got my work to replace it with a M1 max 16". Night and day difference, a huge huge step up. The thermal issues on the 2019 models were really ridiculous.

I run Turbo Boost Pro Switcher to help with the heat and disable it when I actually need the performance. It was crazy to hear the fan on this laptop-shaped room heater just go on and on while I was just working on code.

Re: MacBook Pro featuring M2 Pro and M2 Max

#887

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do give some numbers vs M1s, but most people actually considering buying this will be coming from the Intel ones (no-one replaces their laptop every year) so it makes sense to labour those in the marketing material.

Traditionally Apple's marketing compared against the previous generation, not multiple generations old hardware. It seems tacky to me because the M2's competition isn't really 2019 Intel MBPs- it's laptops using modern Intel/AMD CPUs (the M2 may still be better than those, but if that's the case those are the benchmarks they should be giving us)

I think the reason for the big push is to get people to switch over. At this point, they are still supporting some Intel macs and needing to try to keep some parity with previous macs is probably just a cost sink now with how their future trajectory is going. Get all the people off the intel macs ASAP so they can drown intel support in the bathtub.

Granted, I don't think they will 100% kill intel. My guess is, it just won't be public. They will keep a few internal machines that MacOS is minimally functional on so if they ever want to switch back, they already have a base. Would be my guess.

Re: MacBook Pro featuring M2 Pro and M2 Max

#889
post #315

Whilst I am utterly impressed with my M1 Pro; they are comparing to the "fastest Intel-based MacBook Pro" which is 4 years old when Intel was struggling anyway. Not at all representative of what they could have done with the latest Intel or AMD silicon.

Yeah, it's a bit cherry picked, especially since the last gen Intel based macbooks had horrible throttling and fan maxing out issues... I think the cooling design was insufficient, or they should have lowered the max voltage slightly.

[deleted]

Re: MacBook Pro featuring M2 Pro and M2 Max

#890
I find the M-Mac to best Intel-Mac comparisons humorously deceptive.

I imagine the Mac marketing team now, giddy happy at the thought of increasingly ridiculous M-Mac to Best-Intel-Mac comparisons over the next 10 years. The claims will either come across as helpfully deceptive (for Apple), or as a funny inside joke (for informed customers).

Intel desperately needs to create their own bootleg Intel-Macs to defend against this sneaky Monty Python marketing strategy!

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