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My Impressions of the MacBook Pro M4

michael.stapelberg.ch

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Re: My Impressions of the MacBook Pro M4

#341

Post by CyberDildonics »

LtWorf wrote: post #164
dgfl wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basically everyone who has played videogames on pc will notice the difference. I easily notice a drop from 360Hz to 240Hz. I also use 60Hz screens just fine, saying that getting used to 120Hz ruins slower displays is being dramatic. You can readjust to 60Hz again within 5 minutes. But I can still instantly tell which is higher refresh rate, at least up to 360Hz.

Videogames also do the input every loop so there's a big difference there. It must be evaluated with a video only.

Lots of games don't do input on every loop. Starcraft 2 has 24 hz input.

Re: My Impressions of the MacBook Pro M4

#342

Post by criddell »

IshKebab wrote: post #61
criddell wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are going to start making a list of expensive hobbies, $3K for a computer isn't going to be anywhere near the top of the list.

I think it actually would be quite near the top, in terms of ranking. Most hobbies are a lot cheaper. Of course, not near the top in terms of money because there are a few hobbies that cost vastly more.

> Most hobbies are a lot cheaper.

Sure, but I did specify expensive hobbies.

Re: My Impressions of the MacBook Pro M4

#343

Post by gcr »

omni wrote: post #317
gcr wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bullshit. I shelled $3k for my MBP M1 back in 2021 and I intend to use it until I can’t anymore. It depends on the person and the use case. Different personalities etc

That's not particularly rational given how quickly computers progress in both performance and cost, a current-gen $1k Macbook Air will run circles around your M1. You'd probably be much better off spending the same amount of money on cheaper machines with a more frequent upgrade cadence. And you can always sell your old ones on eBay or something.

Respectfully, this is also bullshit for my use case. For me, the M1 purchase was a step up compared to Intel; the rest is diminishing returns for now.

It’s also not true if you care about certain workloads like LLM performance. My biggest concern for example is memory size and bandwidth, and older chips compare quite favorably to new chips where “GPU VRAM size” now differentiates the premium market and becomes a further upsell, making it less cost-effective. :( I can justify $3k for “run a small LLM on my laptop for my job as ML researcher,” but I still can’t justify $10k for “run a larger model on my Mac Studio”

See https://github.com/ggml-org/llama.cpp/discussions/4167#discu...

Re: My Impressions of the MacBook Pro M4

#344

Post by gcr »

Too wrote: post #309
tuyiown wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

14 years as your main driver ? Because that what we’re talking about.

14 is a indeed very long. Let’s instead assume 12, it’s 2013 and you got a top specced T440 with 4th gen i7. That’s actually not bad and the build quality is like a tank as all Thinkpads. Nothing I would use as daily driver myself but having used many other thinkpads of that generation I can see why others are still getting by with it today. Since we are talking about OS support. 4th gen Intel isn’t supported by Wind…

Out of curiosity, how much of that thinkpad were you able to upgrade? Could that be the difference between 5 and 14 years here?

Re: My Impressions of the MacBook Pro M4

#345

Post by signa11 »

adastra22 wrote: post #288
p0w3n3d wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The nagging might be enabled by the IT support of the company you work in. Mine is also not nagging but the company one used to do it quite often

It nags by default. There is a plist setting to turn it off though.

please do let the mere mortals and linux refugees know ! thank you !

Re: My Impressions of the MacBook Pro M4

#346

Post by demiters »

airstrike wrote: post #313
asdff wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The type of person shelling out 3k for a computer is not running it until the wheels come off.

I have an M2 Ultra. I don't see myself getting rid of it for another 5 years at least.

M2 here also, still flies for cross platform mobile development. The 250GB storage space is a bit tight without external storage but my dev environment is lean and purges caches every day so I manage easily.

Re: My Impressions of the MacBook Pro M4

#347

Post by QuiEgo »

jofzar wrote: post #214

> I don’t notice going back to 60 Hz displays on computers. However, on phones, where a lot more animations are a key part of the user experience, I think 120 Hz displays are more interesting. I'm always so jealous of these people, 60hz is just so bad for me now and even make me a bit motion sick. I can see it in everything, moving the window, scrolling, the cursor.

Agree completely with this.

When I use a desktop display, my pattern is: load page, read content for 10-30 seconds, scroll, repeat.

When I use a phone, the read-time-before-scroll is more like 1-5 seconds due to the much smaller display.

I notice the scrolling blur in both places on 60 Hz displays, but it bothers me way more on a phone because I'm scrolling so much more.

Re: My Impressions of the MacBook Pro M4

#348

Post by mikelevins »

bdangubic wrote: post #193
dylan604 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just off the top of my head in hobbies that I've been in/around that this $3k would be a nothing burger: photography, wood working, grease monkey, cycling, gun collecting, antiquing, recreational substances...

I actually can’t think of one hobby that costs less than $3k

Besides programming, my hobbies are writing stories, writing and recording songs, drawing, and painting. None of them needs to cost anywhere near $3000. Any of them can cost as much as you want.

Take the music hobby as an example. I have several expensive guitars now, but in the first 20 years of that hobby I probably spent under $1000 on guitars and related gear the entire time.

Re: My Impressions of the MacBook Pro M4

#349

Post by whatevaa »

bdangubic wrote: post #193
dylan604 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just off the top of my head in hobbies that I've been in/around that this $3k would be a nothing burger: photography, wood working, grease monkey, cycling, gun collecting, antiquing, recreational substances...

I actually can’t think of one hobby that costs less than $3k

Running. You only need good shoes, really. Words from coworker running marathons.

Re: My Impressions of the MacBook Pro M4

#350

Post by wtallis »

inatreecrown2 wrote: post #291
jsomedon wrote: post #239

Is it possible to install previous macOS version on newest macbook model? I see people having terrible experience with macOS Tahoe yet I am considering purchasing a macbook..

no this is not possible because apple stops signing older versions soon after they release the latest.

No, that's a separate issue. You can upgrade a M4 or earlier machine from 15.6 to 15.7 even today, despite 26.0 being out for a while, so Apple's still signing a 15.x release at the same time as they're offering 26.x releases. (You likely won't be able to downgrade from 15.7 back to 15.6.)

Downgrading a M5 machine to 15.x would be impossible not because of a signing issue but because Apple never released a 15.x build that supported M5 hardware.

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