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Apple Announces M4 Max Chip: Up to 16-Core CPU, Up to 40-Core GPU, Up to 128GB of RAM, and More
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Only the m4 max vs m1max matters. M1max is still a beast. The m4 max would ned to be AT LEAST flat 2x performance gain to even make sense, especially since it costs a few hundred more, and thats not even for the top end config.
I really thing these metrics are coming from the topmost end only. That would make is non justifiable to pay so much just for faster hard drives, land worse battery life for the mobiles with that kind of power draw. M1max battery life has never been 'great', all things considered.
You might wanna check that pricing lol
I priced out 2 configs yesterday...dare to dream.
It sounds like you need a Mac Studio or Mac Pro. Those take 192 GB of RAM easily. Not sure why you'd want to have so much RAM on a portable computer.
They will probably stop when M1 chips can no longer run the latest OS.
It's not so shocking if you've tried to use a Wi-Fi 7 access point on your network today. The move to Wi-Fi 7 networks will be more painful and take longer than past Wi-Fi upgrades. For most people, Wi-Fi 6E will be fine today.
Mac Pro and Mac Studio doesn’t travel. I would have upgraded from my M1 Max, if M4 max supported 256 GB. There are some workflows where i use 170GB memory, including swap. 128GB is an improvement but I would still swap For my workflows.
OK and your talking about AP's, where as we are talking about the WiFi in a client device. I've had no issues with my iPhone 16 Pro Max's WiFi which has a WiFi 7 chip, same with my Pixel Fold 9 Pro which also has a WiFi 7 chip in it.
They did a great job with these laptops and I love pretty much all about them, other than the WiFi. I don't need to upgrade so I'll wait because WiFi doesn't change that often so waiting one more year isn't a big deal. If they put WiFi 7 in though, I'd have ordered this year.
It's fine for those that don't think this is important, just need to accept for others this is. Gone are the days you can just open a laptop up like this and change the WiFi board inside them.
I don't think Wi-Fi 7 availability will be an issue next year, so if you can wait you should be good to go.
I miss those days when you could replace a battery or upgrade a NIC yourself without a ton of fuss.
From HW eng perspective about Wi-Fi 7:
1. Comparing smartphone design with notebook is misleading because in first case most important design requirement is integration, chip size on PCB and consumed power. So maybe that is why Apple decide to use Wi-Fi7 chips because they wanted to save a space on PCB and/or decrease design power budget. So you need to understand that design change might predicted by other reasons than chip performance which is in fact worse (measured by Notebookcheck) in some cases. Maybe that is why they do not support 320 MHz bandwidth. We also need to remember about chip price and availability. Regarding WiFi7 chips in notebook most of reviewed devices (AMD based) use separate Mediatek chip which has great performance but it is not power efficient. Not sure if Intel offer any external Wi-Fi7 chip for laptops because they are focused on integrated solutions.
2. Timeframe: in consumer industry design, validation and start of production timeframes are so tight that if WiFi7 was ended at early 2024 it is not possible to adopt it when you want to sell iPhone(s) on Sept same year because you need to not only redesign schematic/pcb but validate all these things in emc/emi lab and prepare tooling. Even assuming that you get initial draft of Wi-Fi7 and samples much earlier it is hard to sell to market really good product without hw issues that cannot be fixed. Apple is not a company like early adopters (Dell, Acer or Asus etc.) who create high design risk because they want to be first on the market. Do you remember famous wireless issues with Centrino N-6230 wireless cards in Samsung Ultrabooks NP-530U3C series? Most people do not have WiFi7 devices and we will not buy it due to extreme prices.
1. Comparing smartphone design with notebook is misleading because in first case most important design requirement is integration, chip size on PCB and consumed power. So maybe that is why Apple decide to use Wi-Fi7 chips because they wanted to save a space on PCB and/or decrease design power budget. So you need to understand that design change might predicted by other reasons than chip performance which is in fact worse (measured by Notebookcheck) in some cases. Maybe that is why they do not support 320 MHz bandwidth. We also need to remember about chip price and availability. Regarding WiFi7 chips in notebook most of reviewed devices (AMD based) use separate Mediatek chip which has great performance but it is not power efficient. Not sure if Intel offer any external Wi-Fi7 chip for laptops because they are focused on integrated solutions.
2. Timeframe: in consumer industry design, validation and start of production timeframes are so tight that if WiFi7 was ended at early 2024 it is not possible to adopt it when you want to sell iPhone(s) on Sept same year because you need to not only redesign schematic/pcb but validate all these things in emc/emi lab and prepare tooling. Even assuming that you get initial draft of Wi-Fi7 and samples much earlier it is hard to sell to market really good product without hw issues that cannot be fixed. Apple is not a company like early adopters (Dell, Acer or Asus etc.) who create high design risk because they want to be first on the market. Do you remember famous wireless issues with Centrino N-6230 wireless cards in Samsung Ultrabooks NP-530U3C series? Most people do not have WiFi7 devices and we will not buy it due to extreme prices.
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That's where I'm at. I have a 16" Macbook Pro M1 Max, custom configured. Saw zero reason to upgrade from it to the M2 and M3 wasn't enough of an upgrade to justify the big expense either. Now that we're 3 generations past my CPU, I've got to at least take a serious look at the upgrade options.
The M2 Max -> M3 Max was a huge jump. If that wasn't enough the M4 Max certainly isn't as it's a modest additional bump. Best to wait for the M5 Max.
That can’t be true. You got a source for that?
Edit: just checked - my Mac Mini with M2 Pro was £1,400, though I’d have to check what my exact specs are. The Studio starts at £2,000.
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LOL I'm sure Tim Cook will be heartbroken....also Mac laptops don't use "sticks" of ram. You will have to live with a measly 128 MB of ram. In a laptop. Oh the humanity. What you need, or claim you need, would be a workstation.
The whining on this forum and multiple incorrect statements make Redditors look sane.