M4 MacBook Pro • Hacker News Board

Re: M4 MacBook Pro

#201

Post by rconti » Wed, Oct 30, 2024, 3:57 PM UTC

drewbitt wrote: post #169

jcmontx wrote: post #20

> "up to 1.8x faster when compared to the 16-inch MacBook Pro with M1 Pro" I insist my 2020 Macbook M1 was the best purchase I ever made

And my 2020 Intel Macbook Air was a bad purchase. Cruelly, the Intel and M1 Macbook Air released within 6 months of each other.

In early 2020, I had an aging 2011 Air that was still struggling after a battery replacement. Even though I "knew" the Apple Silicon chips would be better, I figured a 2020 Intel Air would last me a long time anyway, since my computing needs from that device are light, and who knows how many years the Apple Silicon transition will take take anyway?

Bought a reasonably well-specced Intel Air for $1700ish. The M1s came out a few months later. I briefly thought about the implication of taking a hit on my "investment", figured I might as well cry once rather than suffer endlessly. Sold my $1700 Intel Air for $1200ish on craigslist (if I recall correctly), picked up an M1 Air for about that same $1200 pricepoint, and I'm typing this on that machine now.

That money was lost as soon as I made the wrong decision, I'm glad I just recognized the loss up front rather than stewing about it.

Re: M4 MacBook Pro

#202

Post by smokey_the_bear » Wed, Oct 30, 2024, 3:57 PM UTC

I have an M2 Max now, and it's incredible. But it still can't handle running xcode's Instruments. I'd upgrade if the M4s could run the leaks tool seamlessly, but I doubt any computer could.

Re: M4 MacBook Pro

#203

Post by Tepix » Wed, Oct 30, 2024, 3:57 PM UTC

fckgw wrote: post #79

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #55

I'm pleased that the Pro's base memory starts at 16 GB, but surprised they top out at 32 GB: > ...the new MacBook Pro starts with 16GB of faster unified memory with support for up to 32GB, along with 120GB/s of memory bandwidth... I haven't been an Apple user since 2012 when I graduated from college and retired my first computer, a mid-2007 Core2 Duo Macbook Pro, which I'd upgraded with a 2.5" SSD and 6GB of RAM with…

On the standard M4 processor. If you move the M4 Pro it tops out at 48gb or moving to the M4 Max goes up to 128gb.

The 96GB RAM option of the M3 Max disappeared.

Re: M4 MacBook Pro

#204

Post by jitl » Wed, Oct 30, 2024, 3:57 PM UTC

abnry wrote: post #6

How viable is Asani Linux these days? MacBook hardware looks amazing.

For many years I treated Windows or macOS as a hypervisor - if you love Linux but want the Mac hardware, instant sleep & wake, etc, putting a full screen VM in Parallels or similar is imo better than running Linux in terms of productivity, although it falls short on “freedom”.

Re: M4 MacBook Pro

#205

Post by frantathefranta » Wed, Oct 30, 2024, 3:58 PM UTC

carlgreene wrote: post #94

What’s amazing is that in the past I’ve felt the need to upgrade within a few years. New video format or more demanding music software is released that slows the machine down, or battery life craters. Well, I haven’t had even a tinge of feeling that I need to upgrade after getting my M1 Pro MBP. I can’t remember it ever skipping a beat running a serious Ableton project, or editing in Resolve. Can stuff be faster? Tec…

Out of curiosity and also because I'm wondering which specification to potentially buy in the future, how much RAM does your MBP have?

Re: M4 MacBook Pro

#206

Post by nhumrich » Wed, Oct 30, 2024, 3:58 PM UTC

carlgreene wrote: post #94

What’s amazing is that in the past I’ve felt the need to upgrade within a few years. New video format or more demanding music software is released that slows the machine down, or battery life craters. Well, I haven’t had even a tinge of feeling that I need to upgrade after getting my M1 Pro MBP. I can’t remember it ever skipping a beat running a serious Ableton project, or editing in Resolve. Can stuff be faster? Tec…

I dont think this has anything to do with the hardware. I think we have entered an age where users in general are not upgrading. As such, software can't demand more and more performance. The M1 came out at a time where mostly all hardware innovation had staggered. Default RAM in a laptop has been 16G for over 5 years. 2 years ago, you couldn't even get more than 16 in most laptops. As such, software hardware requirements havent changed. So any modern CPU is going to feel overpowered. This isn't unique to M1's.

Re: M4 MacBook Pro

#207

Post by shade » Wed, Oct 30, 2024, 3:59 PM UTC

jcmontx wrote: post #20

> "up to 1.8x faster when compared to the 16-inch MacBook Pro with M1 Pro" I insist my 2020 Macbook M1 was the best purchase I ever made

I have the OG 13" MBP M1, and it's been great; I only have two real reasons I'm considering jumping to the 14" MBP M4 Pro finally:

- More RAM, primarily for local LLM usage through Ollama (a bit more overhead for bigger models would be nice)

- A bit niche, but I often run multiple external displays. DisplayLink works fine for this, but I also use live captions heavily and Apple's live captions don't work when any form of screen sharing/recording is enabled... which is how Displaylink works. :(

Not quite sold yet, but definitely thinking about it.

Re: M4 MacBook Pro

#208

Post by fckgw » Wed, Oct 30, 2024, 3:59 PM UTC

maxvisser wrote: post #137

carlgreene wrote: post #94

What’s amazing is that in the past I’ve felt the need to upgrade within a few years. New video format or more demanding music software is released that slows the machine down, or battery life craters. Well, I haven’t had even a tinge of feeling that I need to upgrade after getting my M1 Pro MBP. I can’t remember it ever skipping a beat running a serious Ableton project, or editing in Resolve. Can stuff be faster? Tec…

Same for me. The only reason to replace it, is that my M1 pro’s SSD or battery will go bad or if I accidentally drop the machine and something breaks.

I replaced my M1 Air battery last year and it's still going like a champ. $129 for another 3 years of life is a bargain.

Re: M4 MacBook Pro

#209

Post by bhouston » Wed, Oct 30, 2024, 4:00 PM UTC

05 wrote: post #191

bhouston wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I haven’t had even a tinge of feeling that I need to upgrade after getting my M1 Pro MBP. I upgraded my M1 MBP to a MacBook Air M3 15" and it was a major upgrade. It is the same weight but 40% faster and so much nicer to work on while on the sofa or traveling. The screen is also brighter. I think very few people actually do need the heavy MBPs, especially not the web/full-stack devs who populate Hacker News. EDIT:…

Pretty sure Air displays don't support HDR, are they really brighter?

I am not sure. I notice a difference. Maybe it is just screen age related?

Re: M4 MacBook Pro

#210

Post by Tepix » Wed, Oct 30, 2024, 4:01 PM UTC

RobinL wrote: post #154

Can anyone comment on the viability of using an external SSD rather than upgrading storage? Specifically for data analysis (e.g. storing/analysing parquet files using Python/duckdb, or video editing using divinci resolve). Also, any recommendations for suitable ssds, ideally not too expensive? Thank you!

Run your current workload on internal storage and check how fast it is reading and writing.

For video editing - even 8K RAW - you don't need insanely fast storage. A 10GBit/s external SSD will not slow you down.