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MacBook Pro featuring M2 Pro and M2 Max

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Re: MacBook Pro featuring M2 Pro and M2 Max

#692

4k 240hz? I don't think HDMI 2.1 even supports that. How can that be? Displayport 2.1 barely supports that

Compression. Apparently 10k@100Hz is possible. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Display_Stream_Compression

(Depending on your definition of compression, my monitor shows more colors than there are particles in the Universe at 1 billion frames per second. It's just that there's a little bit of quality loss from the compression.)

Re: MacBook Pro featuring M2 Pro and M2 Max

#693
post #476

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 14" M2 Pro is 30% heavier than the M2 Air and 20% thicker. I don't really classify that as "not much". I have a 14" M1 Pro from work and a personal M2 Air and it's always surprising how much heavier the M1 Pro feels from my Air.

Percentages are misleading in such small absolute numbers. "30%" is 160 grams (0.3 pounds) in this context.

The 14” is 360g (0.8 lbs) heavier than the Air. The 13” (which is little more than a heavier air) is the one that’s 160g heavier than the air.

And percentages are not at all misleading, the 14” does feel a lot heavier.

Re: MacBook Pro featuring M2 Pro and M2 Max

#694

> With up to 96GB of unified memory in the M2 Max model, creators can work on scenes so large that PC laptops can’t even run them.4 ... > 4. Testing was conducted by Apple in November and December 2022 using preproduction 16-inch MacBook Pro systems with Apple M2 Max, 12-core CPU, 38-core GPU, 96GB of RAM, and 8TB SSD, as well as a production Intel Core i9-based PC system with NVIDIA Quadro RTX 6000 graphics with 24G…

With the recent Stable Diffusion boom, It's been funny that the tutorials requirements look like this: Some beefy workstation hardware or Macbook Air M1.

The unified memory architecture is a bliss and they are talking the truth about some popular contemporary workloads being out of the reach of the most PC.

Re: MacBook Pro featuring M2 Pro and M2 Max

#695

There's also a new Mac Mini, which I found A LOT MORE interesting, given that its keyboard or batteries won't break: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2023/01/apple-introduces-new-...

I hear you, but in Europe it's around 700€, which also buys a pretty solid windows or linux laptop. If you're not locked in to mac, a comparably priced laptop with intel 12 gen CPU, 16GB RAM and a RTX 3050, which is arguably a lot more versatile machine. I think I would like Mac's more if they weren't so absurdly overpriced (approx. 25%+ over US prices) here in Europe.

Re: MacBook Pro featuring M2 Pro and M2 Max

#696

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this thing actually faster than a cheap Ryzen build for browsing? Like a 5600g that are super cheap now

Apples M chips are stupid fast at browsing the web because they have some native CPU instructions for JavaScript that x86_64 chips don’t.

Actually, it's the reverse. The JS spec accidentally baked in the x86 description of int/float conversion.

This is done a LOT in JS because the JITs are actually using integers instead of floats all over the place for improved performance.

The ARM "JS" instruction just encodes the x86 semantics into hardware making the conversion several times faster than doing it in software.

Re: MacBook Pro featuring M2 Pro and M2 Max

#697
post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did it ship with 128GB available to the GPU? That’s part of the claim, because this has a huge amount of RAM that both the CPU+GPU can access.

Plenty of laptops with iGPUs that can do this, yes.

Afaik the Intel Integrated GPUs either have a hard limit on the addressable RAM or are capped to half the available RAM.

I don’t know of any AMD G series equipped laptops with that much memory , but admittedly I haven’t looked closely at the options.

Then there’s the issue of memory sharing of actual data resources. Albeit, this is down to Software, but more software for Mac can assume shared memory to take advantage of it, versus other brands because iGPUs have historically been very limited.

Re: MacBook Pro featuring M2 Pro and M2 Max

#698

The biggest issue I have with macbooks is that they are ridiculously expensive. They are intended to be portable devices but bringing them anywhere outside my apartment or office is just a huge risk.

Dunno, I dropped mine pretty hard at airport security, skidded across the floor, left a very small dent. My wife had hers placed on a lectern and someone bumped into to and it fell off stage, bigger dent but the show went on. And our kid has sat on or stepped on both multiple times. They hold up well enough.

Interesting that you though his reasoning was about accidental damage and not thieves.

Re: MacBook Pro featuring M2 Pro and M2 Max

#699
post #683

My new setup as of November is an M2 Air (16GB /1 TB) and an base model M1 Studio. I really couldn't be happier. I run a small WFH / Music Production / Photography studio in my basement and I really wanted an always-on always connected computer, for which the Studio has been perfect. The M2 Air is pretty close to a perfect laptop. My complaints (low audio volume, slighty cramped screen) are absolutely dwarfed by the…

Are you able to edit 4k video in FCP on the M2 Air with 16GB? I'm looking to upgrade, and I want to go for the lowest config M mac that I can get away with for smooth 4k edits.

I used FCP on an M1 Air with _8gb_ to edit 4K videos for over a year. Assuming you have enough fast storage (or are happy to use a proxy workflow), it certainly can be done, although everyone’s workflow is different. Assuming no storage speed bottleneck, timeline scrubbing was smooth up to about 2x forward or backward, from memory - after that you hit decoder limits. Proxy workflow gets around that too, though. Render times on even the M1 were a big jump over Intel chips. If Apple has a 2-week return policy where you are, why not give a 16gb M2 Air a try and see if it meets your particular needs?

Re: MacBook Pro featuring M2 Pro and M2 Max

#700

> MagSafe 3 charging The biggest differences between v2 and v3 of MagSafe are: • v3 is 1 mm longer (doesn't fit v2 models) • v3 supports PD 3.1 ...is that all? > Thunderbolt 4 Type-C ports ...these do NOT support PD 3.1, correct?

This may be a stupid question, but does anyone know if you could charge through one of the Thunderbolt ports instead of having to use the magsafe connector? My work uses Macs for all employees, and they've been generous enough to supply me with 2 docking stations (one for office, one for home) that both charge through a Thunderbolt port. I'm due for a MBP upgrade and they were specifically waiting on the M2 Pro/Max versions before doing mine, and I'm trying to figure out if I can stick with my old docks or if I'll need to request new ones.
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