I'm looking for advice as I was planning to purchase the 14" M2 Pro MacBook, but I've noticed that the M3 Pro MacBook Pro has been recently released. I'm uncertain about which one to choose, and I'm seeking assistance in making a decision.
Apple unveils M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max
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Re: Apple unveils M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max
#442I'd prefer if there'd be higher RAM limits for each variant: * ~~Ultra~~ Max probably has an adequate limit with "up to" 128GB * Pro would be nicer to have "up to" (say) 64GB, rather than 'only' 36GB * Base perhaps "up to" 32GB, rather than 24GB There are some situations (running a VM or three with different OS(es)) where there really isn't a substitute for more bits.
I just hope they stop selling 8GB variants entirely. All those do is make job security for tech support people.
They didn’t.
Not surprised. But I agree with you. Especially for anything with the word “Pro” on it.
Re: Apple unveils M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max
#443Earlier quoted context omitted.
You got it. Instead of letting software developers allocate a static cache with overhead that eats a little into the unified memory, the Mac gets to decide how to dynamically allocate and release cache for graphics. They said it would be "transparent to developers," but not really sure what that means exactly.
It seemed like Metal was probably measuring it under the covers and adjusting things as opposed to asking the programmer to figure it out.
They said it was done in hardware, so not Metal alone.
Re: Apple unveils M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max
#444Love the improvement on the CPUs, but I was hoping for bigger iMacs and smaller Macbooks. I work at home on a 27" iMac, and on the road on a 12", 2 pound Macbook. We are years into the M generation of chips, and iMacs are still stuck at 24", and laptops are minimum 3 pounds and 13".
I feel similar to you, but I don't think we are going to see another high end iMac. Apple wants us to get Studios.
I wonder if it didn’t sell well enough. I know it was extremely popular with a lot of us tech people, but the numbers may not have been there.
Re: Apple unveils M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max
#445One 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.
They didn't improve the neural engine. M3's NPU is half the speed of the A17 Pro in iPhone 15 Pro.
Re: Apple unveils M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max
#446>Rendering speeds are now up to 2.5x faster than on the M1 family of chips.1 The CPU performance cores and efficiency cores are 30 percent and 50 percent faster than those in M1, respectively, and the Neural Engine is 60 percent faster than the Neural Engine in the M1 family of chips. WTH, was Apple sandbagging on the M1?
5nm vs 3nm and three years of progress. Intel's e-cores have been seeing more generation over generation uplift compared to their p-cores so nothing about this strikes me as anything unexpected.
When the m1 came out details about the m3 were well known and that this was going to be a pretty big generation for performance improvements. I think the surprising thing was that m2 got pretty close to m3 in situations which were not as thermally constrained.
Re: Apple unveils M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max
#447So they remove MacBook 13 inch and replace with MacBook 14 inch as base. Many people will see the $500 off. Good selling strategy. Btw, I didn't see the comparison with M2 chip. Could anyone give me the reference for that? Thank you.
I just felt the continued existence of the 13" MacBook Pro was just confusing because it was very arguably worse than the 13" MacBook Air even without considering the price.
Re: Apple unveils M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max
#448Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’ve never taken my charger to work with me. It was an odd experience the first week. I’ll never go back to plugs.
I never either but that's cause I have USB-C docks at work.
A Thunderbolt dock for a one-cable setup for everything is amazing. Power, video, peripherals, network, etc all with one little cable.
I never wanna go back. I know some PCs can do it too. It’s just so much nicer than having to plug in two or five or eight cables. It doesn’t seem like a big thing if you only plug-in and unplugg once a day but it is.
Re: Apple unveils M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max
#449Earlier quoted context omitted.
Intel straggler here. And I'll remain one until Linux runs flawlessly on the newer generation. I have an older Thinkpad as my main workhorse and a now quite old Macbook air for on the road, it's battery has been shot for a long time but it still works quite good when plugged in and I'm too much of a miser to have it replaced. But if there is a way to run a full Linux distro on the newer hardware then I'll probably bu…
Check out asahilinux.org - I have archlinux arm running as my main OS on Air M1 for a year now.
I recommend sponsoring Hector Martin here: https://github.com/sponsors/marcan
Yes, he's continuing to work on the long tail of drivers needed for Linux on Apple silicon. Looks like lately he's working on speakersafetyd, a daemon that will monitor audio levels and keep the builtin speakers from being damaged: https://github.com/marcan?tab=overview&from=2023-09-01&to=20...
Re: Apple unveils M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max
#450Earlier quoted context omitted.
Display pipelines are expensive and take area.
Easy to say but hard to prove. How much more expensive would an MBP be if they supported it? How many fewer units would they shift? Those are harder questions to answer. We could assume Apple crunched the numbers. Or perhaps they just stuck to the status quo. Only an insider or decision maker (maybe that’s you) knows.
I mean they are physical things and you can look at how big they are. But sure the rest of how that factors into cost and sales is harder to figure out, yes.