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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

#481

Post by hnburnsy »

faeriechangling wrote: post #446
hnburnsy wrote: post #53

>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…

thx, good info.

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

#482

Post by goshx »

jki275 wrote: post #229
bischofs wrote: post #81

They kept mentioning performance relative to intel Macs which makes me think there is a large cohort of people sticking to their x86 rigs due to compatibility. Being able to run an x86 linux or windows VM is still a requirement for me.

I'm also still running an i9. I can't justify buying a new one since my 2019 model is still running strong!

2019 i7 here and I’m still very happy with it. I can’t justify the purchase.

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

#483

Post by brucethemoose2 »

keyle wrote: post #462

The best feature to me is really the battery life and the quietness of the laptop. That's a game changer for me. I can work from anywhere comfortable, without burning my palms or legs and in silence. I remember working on a PC laptop years ago and as soon as you pressed F5 the fans came on cranking for a couple of seconds, it was farcical.

There are Windows laptops with fantastic cooling setups. My old G14 can run fanless, and they've improved the cooling even more in subsequent generations.

The thing Macs really excel at atm is long, sustained workloads on battery... Other than gaming.

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

#484

Post by kanwisher »

paustint wrote: post #290
coverband wrote: post #241

And still starting at 8GB of RAM… Disappointed.

Seriously.... My 16gb MacBook pro M1 work machine runs out of memory constantly. I had a MacBook air 8gb and it was useless, it would freeze constantly and have crackly audio. I found that 24GB ram is really the minimum that is usable on M-series when doing any type of basic work. Likely an output of so many electron based apps which are memory hungry, but if the memory is supposedly "really fast" then I would expect…

You are only person in thread that says this. I still have one laptop is a M1 air 16gb. Still fastest computer I have ever owned outside of my MBP, I really only mbp for AI training everything else runs great on air still

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

#485

Post by coder543 »

trekkie1024 wrote: post #470
gnicholas wrote: post #458

"No matter what your passions are in work or in life, there's a Macbook Pro that's perfect for you." For the vast majority of Apple customers, Macbook Airs are plenty powerful. They're also lighter weight, and significantly cheaper.

Looks like the latest MBA is only 0.1 lbs less than the equivalent MBP at 3.4 lbs. Feels like they used to be lighter.

How are you determining "equivalent"? I don't agree with your conclusion at all.

My M2 MBA is 2.7lbs. The 14" MBP starts at 3.4lbs. That is a very noticeable 26% increase.

0.44 inches thick versus 0.61 inches thick is also noticeable.

I have a 14" MBP for work, so I have plenty of first hand experience with both devices.

The screen sizes of the relevant laptops are as follows:

    MBA (13in): 13.6 inches
    MBP (14in): 14.2 inches (+0.6in vs 13in MBA)
    MBA (15in): 15.3 inches (+1.1in vs 14in MBP)
The 13-inch and 14-inch are significantly closer in size than the 14-inch and 15-inch.

To add an additional spec for clarity, by my math the relative screen areas are as follows:

    MBA (13in):  84.36 square inches
    MBP (14in):  91.63 square inches (+8.6% vs 13in MBA)
    MBA (15in): 106.24 square inches (+16%  vs 14in MBP)
Why would the "equivalent" be the 15-inch MBA? Even though I obviously believe the 13-inch MBA is a closer match (as the specs above clearly show), the 15-inch MBA does still manage to be thinner and (barely) lighter than the 14-inch MBP, even while offering a significantly larger screen, which is impressive to be sure.

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

#486

Post by BonoboIO »

frutiger wrote: post #413
saagarjha wrote: post #307

Earlier 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.

It’s a money thing. Apple wants to upsell. The production cost would be negligible, but now you have to buy the next level of the product.

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

#487

Post by jlokier »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #367
anemoiac wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The person you replied to wants the nicer form factor of the MBA with the ability to use multiple external displays.

That combo isn't currently offered, and judging from today's M3 specs the next MBA won't likely offer it either.

I assume the iMac has the same limitation, which is a bit of a downer for some uses. It would be nice to drive a second monitor and a wall-mounted TV or projector from an iMac in sleek a home setup.

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

#488

Post by trostaft »

photonerd wrote: post #204
polishTar wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In addition to the reduced memory bandwidth, the M3 pro also loses 2 performance cores for only 2 more efficiency cores. M2 pro: 8 performance cores + 4 efficiency cores. M3 pro: 6 performance cores + 6 efficiency cores. Not a great trade... I'm not sure the M3 pro can be considered an upgrade

Depends. Is it faster? Then it's an upgrade. Has the CPU industry really managed to pull off it's attempt at a bs coup that more cores always === better? I thought we'd learned our lesson with the silly Mhz Myth already?

I find that frustrating with how intel markets its desktop CPUs. Often I find performance enhancements directly turning off efficiency cores...

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

#489

Post by chmod775 »

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.

Pretty cool but that isn't enjoyable. Those are minimum graphics settings with heavy upscaling and it still barely manages 40FPS with extreme lag spikes in combat (and slowdowns?).

Also having played the game, I can tell you the scenes chosen there (pretty much all of Act 1) are some of the best optimized/least demanding areas. Especially the DLC is going to be unplayable with that performance.

Certainly looks like with just a bit more hardware power and development it could be getting somewhere though.

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

#490

Post by JohnBooty »

whynotminot wrote: post #469
justinclift wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At a ~recent work place the entire floor of developers had (Intel) MacBook Pros with dual 24" monitors. Some of them were trying out Apple Silicon replacements, though I'm not aware of what they did monitor wise. Probably used the excuse to buy a single large ultrawide each instead, though I don't actually know. ;)

What dev shop gives their engineers base model machines?

Where are you getting that impression from the parent post? Maybe they were on a 2, 3, or 4 year upgrade cycle and still had a bunch of Intel MBPs when Apple Silicon hit the market. That'd be extremely typical.

What dev shop immediately buys all developers the newest and shiniest thing as soon as its released without trialing it first?

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