I'm not sure about the memory *speed* but the fact you have to power 4 memory modules on the M1 Max may make a difference.
As I follow this forum, people buy and return the mac as they please. However, in my country, Apple does not even sell products online. The only option is local stores or special configurations that are prepaid and cannot be returned. I like wiener sausage with The omelette.
May I gently correct you that thermals is indeed a problem. It is too cold.
Regarding RAM, you will be able to monitor the DRAM power usage of your 32GB vs 64GB machine to see the difference.
I'm not sure where you got the idea that the 32gb ram option uses more battery than the 16gb but I haven't seen anything proving that to be true. Battery life is lost when you go for the max.
I can't remember if I read it all. I've read a lot online and seen a lot of YouTube battery tests... I have never seen a battery test that showed a difference between the 32gb and 16gb m1 Pro models. And I've seen many and have read a lot of stuff online.
If you had read the thread, you would know where that hypothesis came from. It's pretty solid IMO.
You only have a theory at the moment. I haven't actually seen it is all I'm saying.
Very helpful if you could provide that. All comparisons I've seen are kinda stupid because they mix to many variables (14 vs 16, 16 GB pro vs 32 gb max, etc.) while it would be absolutely necessary to change exactly one variable (for example only RAM or ONLY pro vs max with same RAM). That has not been done yet.
Thank you very much for this test. Much appreciated. The only difference to mine is I have 32 GPU and 64 GB Ram. I read that especially the 32 vs 64 RAM is making a negative difference for battery.
lol. I'm starting to feel like it'll be months before we have a clear answer at this point...
That would not surprise me much. My conclusion was that there is no difference between the Max and Pro under the same load. That's why I decided to get the Max. I was like, even if there is a difference it's not significant and well within any margin of error (hence why there is nothing conclusive yet).
There's been a lot of people with both models suggesting a 1-2 hour difference. Even not performing gpu intensive tasks. There was one video that suggested when doing cpu consuming stuff, there was no difference (without that video I'm not sure we'd be debating it like this). But only one. And there have been others who have compared them with just light usage stuff. Just not many that were fair tests. But the few fair tests I've seen have shown about a 1-2 hour difference. I'd be surprised if it was just within margin of error. I don't know why there aren't more battery tests on YouTube. Maybe cause they take so long to ship
There is a lot of people saying a lot of crap too, as long as they get the clicks.
Thank you for being so thorough. Hopefully we can put to rest whether there is some kind of difference or not on this forum now. Really makes me curious on the pro 32gb pro vs 16gb pro though... As well as the 32gb Pro vs 32gb max with 24gpu@Fomalhaut
@Charlesje
@breath.by.breath
@obwohl
@hmorneau
Alright so as promised, I received the new mac and was able to make the tests I always wanted to do.
So first, which computers I am comparing?
1 - 14 inch, M1 Max 10c/32c/64GB -> referred bellow to as "Max64"
2 - 14 inch, M1 Pro 10c/16c/32GB -> referred bellow to as "Pro32"
First test "the idle battery drain test", aka reddit thread test
Methodology: please read the reddit post linked in earlier pages, I used the same.
I had already done the test once with Max64, and result was about 12/13% drained per hour.
This time, same test with Pro32 gave.... I guess similar results. I say "guess" cause I wish I did it with the same precision as Max64 but I forgot to note the percentage two times in a row, after what it weirdly seemed to have been drawn more than Max64, but it doesn't make sense.
In other words, I think it didn't have any impact, but I will retest that tomorrow just to be sure.
Second test "1080p youtube video playing in safari"
Methodology:
- disabled ability of screen to change brightness automatically
- nothing else besides safari is launched
- both computer are set to the exact same brightness level
- both play the same video
- 1080p video
- both computer charged to 100% before starting the test
- videos were set full screen
Limitations:
- At the very end I have had the doubt regarding if brightness was actually the same or not, because I figured out brightness change automatically when you plug-in the charger (it adds brightness), and when you unplug it (it lowers brightness). I know I had put the same amount of tick manually, but maybe that messed things up cause I dont remember if I controlled at beginning of the test. I guess it was same tho.
- I am unsure that both videos were to "1080p" maybe one of them was on "1080p (auto)" which means it theoretically could have changed during playback. I should have picked it manually for both.
- I forgot about ADs... Youtube launches ads that make video play unsynced, so conditions were not perfectly identical
- I messed up the time, I started at 36 min, and then for some reason I switched to 16min.
For those reasons I have made a third test where I controlled for all of these. But for now, here are the results.
Results:
Hour | Pro32 | Max64 | Difference
=======================
20h36 | 100% | 100% | 0%
21h36 | 96% | 94% | -2%
22h36 | 88% | 84% | -4%
23h18 | 81% | 77% | -4% (!warning: not one hour)
00h18 | 72% | 67% | -5% (!warning: one hour from last one, but only 1% diff increase)
Conclusion: I am not confident in this test and I decided to make another one with no flaws.
Third test "Two 1080p youtube videos playing simultaneously on different tabs, on Chrome"
Methodology:
- Browser is Chrome this time, not safari, because why not? Also I never use Safari as a developper so it better matches my use case
- Two videos playing at the same time on different tabs
- Audio disabled on video, computer audio disabled
- First video is playing full screen and other in the background
- Video playing fullscreen was a countdown timer so not very demanding in pixel color
- Both are set manually to 1080p
- Brightness have been double-checked to be exactly the same: 10 ticks.
- Start battery percentage was 66%, I wanted to try not starting from 100% and thats the first number I could manage to sync both machines on.
- I installed an ad blocker.
Limitations:
- I don't see any, tho I forgot to take note once at 18h00.
Results:
Hour | Pro32 | Max64 | Difference
=======================
12h00 | 66% | 66% | 0%
13h00 | 61% | 59% | -2%
14h00 | 55% | 53% | -2%
15h00 | 49% | 46% | -3%
16h00 | 43% | 39% | -4%
17h00 | 36% | 32% | -4%
18h00 |
19h00 | 24% | 19% | -5%
20h00 | 18% | 12% | -6%
21h00 | 13% | 6% | -7%
Conclusion:
I secretly hoped the Max64 to display the exact same battery performance, especially because the task was really easy for both computers.
Unfortunately, we can see that the Max64 has worse battery, even when not using its extra horse power.
We can note that battery drain speed seem to slightly increase the more we approach 0% left.
In the end, with that particular test, which is no near real use case where you could have many software opened at the same time, many tabs, virtual machines, etc, Pro32 seems to have at the very least 1 hour more battery.
In real world use, how much will that be? Not really sure, but its hard to do lighter use than this test, so I'd say at the VERY least, you loose 1h30 of battery life when you go for the Max64 compared to Pro32.
Maybe that difference can increase the more you push on it (with non-gpu tasks).
What do you guys think?
Please tell me if you want me to test anything else on them while I'm at it. I'll do it tomorrow at most, after that I'll pick a winner and stop doing tests
@Fomalhaut
@Charlesje
@breath.by.breath
@obwohl
@hmorneau
Alright so as promised, I received the new mac and was able to make the tests I always wanted to do.
So first, which computers I am comparing?
1 - 14 inch, M1 Max 10c/32c/64GB -> referred bellow to as "Max64"
2 - 14 inch, M1 Pro 10c/16c/32GB -> referred bellow to as "Pro32"
First test "the idle battery drain test", aka reddit thread test
Methodology: please read the reddit post linked in earlier pages, I used the same.
I had already done the test once with Max64, and result was about 12/13% drained per hour.
This time, same test with Pro32 gave.... I guess similar results. I say "guess" cause I wish I did it with the same precision as Max64 but I forgot to note the percentage two times in a row, after what it weirdly seemed to have been drawn more than Max64, but it doesn't make sense.
In other words, I think it didn't have any impact, but I will retest that tomorrow just to be sure.
Second test "1080p youtube video playing in safari"
Methodology:
- disabled ability of screen to change brightness automatically
- nothing else besides safari is launched
- both computer are set to the exact same brightness level
- both play the same video
- 1080p video
- both computer charged to 100% before starting the test
- videos were set full screen
Limitations:
- At the very end I have had the doubt regarding if brightness was actually the same or not, because I figured out brightness change automatically when you plug-in the charger (it adds brightness), and when you unplug it (it lowers brightness). I know I had put the same amount of tick manually, but maybe that messed things up cause I dont remember if I controlled at beginning of the test. I guess it was same tho.
- I am unsure that both videos were to "1080p" maybe one of them was on "1080p (auto)" which means it theoretically could have changed during playback. I should have picked it manually for both.
- I forgot about ADs... Youtube launches ads that make video play unsynced, so conditions were not perfectly identical
- I messed up the time, I started at 36 min, and then for some reason I switched to 16min.
For those reasons I have made a third test where I controlled for all of these. But for now, here are the results.
Results:
Hour | Pro32 | Max64 | Difference
=======================
20h36 | 100% | 100% | 0%
21h36 | 96% | 94% | -2%
22h36 | 88% | 84% | -4%
23h18 | 81% | 77% | -4% (!warning: not one hour)
00h18 | 72% | 67% | -5% (!warning: one hour from last one, but only 1% diff increase)
Conclusion: I am not confident in this test and I decided to make another one with no flaws.
Third test "Two 1080p youtube videos playing simultaneously on different tabs, on Chrome"
Methodology:
- Browser is Chrome this time, not safari, because why not? Also I never use Safari as a developper so it better matches my use case
- Two videos playing at the same time on different tabs
- Audio disabled on video, computer audio disabled
- First video is playing full screen and other in the background
- Video playing fullscreen was a countdown timer so not very demanding in pixel color
- Both are set manually to 1080p
- Brightness have been double-checked to be exactly the same: 10 ticks.
- Start battery percentage was 66%, I wanted to try not starting from 100% and thats the first number I could manage to sync both machines on.
- I installed an ad blocker.
Limitations:
- I don't see any, tho I forgot to take note once at 18h00.
Results:
Hour | Pro32 | Max64 | Difference
=======================
12h00 | 66% | 66% | 0%
13h00 | 61% | 59% | -2%
14h00 | 55% | 53% | -2%
15h00 | 49% | 46% | -3%
16h00 | 43% | 39% | -4%
17h00 | 36% | 32% | -4%
18h00 |
19h00 | 24% | 19% | -5%
20h00 | 18% | 12% | -6%
21h00 | 13% | 6% | -7%
Conclusion:
I secretly hoped the Max64 to display the exact same battery performance, especially because the task was really easy for both computers.
Unfortunately, we can see that the Max64 has worse battery, even when not using its extra horse power.
We can note that battery drain speed seem to slightly increase the more we approach 0% left.
In the end, with that particular test, which is no near real use case where you could have many software opened at the same time, many tabs, virtual machines, etc, Pro32 seems to have at the very least 1 hour more battery.
In real world use, how much will that be? Not really sure, but its hard to do lighter use than this test, so I'd say at the VERY least, you loose 1h30 of battery life when you go for the Max64 compared to Pro32.
Maybe that difference can increase the more you push on it (with non-gpu tasks).
What do you guys think?
Please tell me if you want me to test anything else on them while I'm at it. I'll do it tomorrow at most, after that I'll pick a winner and stop doing tests