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Apple unveils M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max

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Re: Apple unveils M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max

#361

Post by outside1234 »

bertil wrote: post #347
koito17 wrote: post #102

One thing that left me a bit confused was the comparison against Intel Macs. Although I am still using an Intel 16-inch MacBook, I really wanted to see how the M3 fared against the M2, not Intel and M1. I think it's no surprise the M3 exceeds the Intel Core i7-9750H in basically all of Apple's own benchmarking. My real question, which will probably be answered next week, is how it compares to the generation right bef…

I was more surprised not to see any AI-specific benchmarks—sure, the most popular open-source models are from avowed competitors, but there should have been a way to define a re-training task that would be relevant for the wave of ML programmers.

It won’t excel at this. It is a mobile GPU and won’t be able to put up remotely similar numbers to a desktop GPU with massive amounts of power and cooling.

Re: Apple unveils M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max

#362

Post by tomr75 »

adocomplete wrote: post #10

I purchased a fully maxed out M2 Max MacBook Pro when it was announced like 6 months ago. I knew it was going to be outdated eventually, but within 6 months, wow. Did not expect that.

I have an m1 max and I'm more than happy. Until local LLMs work really well on these chips I don't see a reason to upgrade

Re: Apple unveils M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max

#363

Post by filleduchaos »

speed_spread wrote: post #192
dmitrygr wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried to find a laptop with the specification you just mentioned that could last 20 hours on battery. Didn’t.

What job do you have that requires you to work non stop for 20 hours away from a wall socket? I understand the need for autonomy but there are diminishing returns. It's ok to start looking at other decision factors past a certain point.

People don't only use their laptops for work. People also don't all sit at a single desk throughout the day.

Not to mention that you can cut most laptops' rated battery lives in half or even worse if you're doing anything moderately demanding, and that those demanding workloads often cause them to throttle pretty badly when on battery power, so it's not a simple question of "X hour battery life".

A high-spec laptop that's actually autonomous for daily use (from weight to screen quality to battery life) and does not turn into a radiator or a turbine when it's being put through its paces should be a reasonable enough value proposition for anyone to understand even if they personally don't want it; I don't understand why people are always so eager to snidely bring up devices that don't meet those criteria whenever Macbooks are mentioned.

Re: Apple unveils M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max

#364

Post by kube-system »

throw0101a wrote: post #234
kube-system wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO, if I'm doing that heavy of a workload, I'd rather SSH to a server instead of trying to do it on hardware optimized to work on a battery.

It doesn't have to be "heavy": just running a browser in a different OS may need a minimal amount of RAM (even if the 1-2 assigned vCPU/cores are mostly idle).

24GB or 36GB can run a browser in a VM.

Re: Apple unveils M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max

#365

Post by brucethemoose2 »

Diti wrote: post #114
clouddrover wrote: post #73

> And, a new media engine now includes support for AV1 decode, providing more efficient and high-quality video experiences from streaming services. It's taken years but AV1 has ended up everywhere.

Sadly, only a handful of GPUs out there have hardware AV1 encoding chips. If I read the product page correctly, that new M3 architecture still cannot encode AV1 from hardware.

Decode everywhere is still great.

Encode for h264 and HEVC was slow too. It basically never even happened for VP9 outside of phones, AFAIK.

Re: Apple unveils M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max

#366

Post by _kb »

Diti wrote: post #114
clouddrover wrote: post #73

> And, a new media engine now includes support for AV1 decode, providing more efficient and high-quality video experiences from streaming services. It's taken years but AV1 has ended up everywhere.

Sadly, only a handful of GPUs out there have hardware AV1 encoding chips. If I read the product page correctly, that new M3 architecture still cannot encode AV1 from hardware.

Which is likely fine. As a codec it's weighted towards distribution, not live encoding.

Re: Apple unveils M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max

#367

Post by lotsofpulp »

anemoiac wrote: post #289
dml2135 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seemingly no. So far it looks like (someone please correct me if I’m wrong): - M3, 1 external display - M3 Pro, 2 external displays - M3 Max, 4 external displays This has to be a product differentiation decision at this point, right? Is there any serious technical limitation against more displays in the base chip, that Apple has not been able to solve in three generations?

It’s frustrating. I wish they would just charge an extra $X for the privilege of using multiple external monitors. I like the form factor of the MBA as is… if I need to compromise on that, I might as well choose a different machine.

> I wish they would just charge an extra $X for the privilege of using multiple external monitors.

They do, you have to pay more for an M3 Pro or M3 Max.

Re: Apple unveils M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max

#368

Post by spookie »

KAdot wrote: post #273
miohtama wrote: post #126

> With the M3 family of chips, hardware-accelerated ray tracing comes to the Mac for the first time. Ray tracing models the properties of light as it interacts with a scene, allowing apps to create extremely realistic and physically accurate images. This, along with the new graphics architecture, allows pro apps to deliver up to 2.5x the speed of the M1 family of chips. Does this mean we can finally play Cyberpunk 20…

The performance is not that great, but you can already play Cyberpunk 2077 on a M2 Pro laptop using Game Porting Toolkit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPJpkRmsceU Keep in mind, it has to do x64 -> ARM64 transition and translate Direct X into Metal. I would expect a native version to work better.

It's impressive, but still ways to go. Impressive nonetheless.

Re: Apple unveils M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max

#369

Post by fastball »

rewmie wrote: post #299
latchkey wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any reason for not upgrading?

> Any reason for not upgrading? Why is this sort of question always framed as if people have to provide a justification for not buying a new model, as if spending money on the new shiny without any reason is normal or desirable? We live in a day and age where hardware bought a decade ago still packs enough punch to run most of today's software without any hiccup. Why would anyone waste their cash to replace something…

Because the productivity gains from upgrading can be quite large relative to the cost of upgrading, esp when you factor in the average salary in this community.

I spend 8-10 hours on my Macbook every day. The amount of time I've saved / productivity I've gained by things just running faster and by being more mobile (much longer battery life) is huge compared to the $2000 price tag.

Frugality is good but there are some things in life (depending on your personal circumstances) where it does in fact make sense to upgrade for clear benefits.

Re: Apple unveils M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max

#370

Post by hk1337 »

SparkyMcUnicorn wrote: post #292
hk1337 wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re running a VM either way on a Mac. Docker without a VM is only available on Linux. EDIT I get your intent though because it runs better when the images match the host.

MacOS can run MacOS containers natively, but I understand that's not much help for most people. https://macoscontainers.org/

That’s interesting. It’s in 0.0.1 version though but it seems like a possible drop in replacement
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