I have 16" M1 Max 32/32/1tb and don't often NEED for my battery to last more than 4-5 hours for occasional use at home or remote work (graphic design - mostly illustrator). I spend the majority of my time docked to two 27" monitors at my desk. However, I am 2 hrs in working at home this evening and have been doing fairly intensive vector editing in illustrator which is rather harsh on CPU as it only utilizes a single core (still slowww even with great GPU and CPU). After 2 hours, my battery is at 90%. To me, that is amazing because I would typically expect these tasks to drain my 15" 2017 MBP battery down by 30-40% easily. I also have CHROME running with 10 tabs open at any given time and switching back and forth every 5-10 minutes. This is as close to a "real world test" as I will ever get with this computer and I am more than pleased thus far.
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Battery life on M1X PRO vs M1X MAX?
- Thread starter Starfyre
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I have a base Pro with 16Gb and my Max 32Gb is arriving in 2 weeks (I still have time to cancel my order).
The machine is fast enough, but it has started using RAM swaps and I want 32Gb, besides, it gets slightly warm-ish when I open lot's of things and connect a 46400x2900 screen.
I can afford the Max. Do you think I'll get a hotter machine if I go with Max 32Gb instead of just Pro 32Gb?
Sorry I don't know the answer to that question. The only frame of reference I have is my last MBP and this will also probably depend on what kind of tasks you are doing and how CPU intensive they are? I think that I have probably went a bit overboard with the M1 Max and I probably would have been just fine with the MI Pro but after you upgrade ram to 32gb the cost is within a couple hundred of the M1 Max so I just went with it without considering there being any difference in efficiency between the two processor configurations.
Here’s a video from Luke Miani with some benchmarks on the 24 core GPU (14”). Some of us have been considering the 24 core as a potential balance between getting the full performance of the Max while also seeing better battery life vs 32 core.
See the 12 min mark for his brief comments around battery life:
See the 12 min mark for his brief comments around battery life:
I used my M1 Max 16" 32GB, 32 GPU for the whole day yesterday for the purpose of testing the battery. Brightness between 6 and 7.
It lasted just over 11.5 hours of screen time. My workload over the day:
- Light web browsing in Safari
- Youtube videos
- A lot of Citrix workspace
- MS Teams, messaging
- MS Teams, calls
- Zoom calls
- Playing music through the built-in speakers for a couple of hours
I'm pretty happy with that performance.
It lasted just over 11.5 hours of screen time. My workload over the day:
- Light web browsing in Safari
- Youtube videos
- A lot of Citrix workspace
- MS Teams, messaging
- MS Teams, calls
- Zoom calls
- Playing music through the built-in speakers for a couple of hours
I'm pretty happy with that performance.
My M1 Max says totally "cool in the lap", at least during casual use, even without the fans running.
Tim
Doesn't sum it up until they say how much more power it uses. Not likely it's what The Verge implied it is.
They aren’t going to give an actual number because it depends on what you are doing. The point is that Apple has confirmed that the Max will drain the battery quicker.
Apple's statement adds next to nothing until we know whether the amount is negligible or huge, as The Verge implies it is, or in between. For now, we don't know.
The Verge is reporting that they reached out to Apple and that that is the response Apple gave them.
Yes, I realise that. But we don’t know first-hand what The Verge asked, nor what Apple answered with, so it really doesn’t count for much.
I’d be curious how long your 24 core GPU lasts on battery with fairly light usage, such as Safari web browsing, email, light productivity/office apps, YouTube, etc, and with the brightness at a medium level.
And do the same with a 32 max.
And put them on your lap for a period during the experiment. Compare.
Is there likely to be any battery life different between the base 14" 8/14 and 10/16 core models?
For what its worth, I did decide to go from M1 Max to top of the line M1 Pro. It wasn't the easiest decision because I think the increased unified memory bandwidth is particularly useful for graphics use. I suspect the battery life difference will only be 1-1.5 hours for 14" and 2-3 hours on 16".
I personally would go for the M1 Max on a 16" and top of the line M1 Pro (16 GPU cores) on 14".
I personally would go for the M1 Max on a 16" and top of the line M1 Pro (16 GPU cores) on 14".
The 16" M1 Pro really does seem like the sweet spot that balances performance and battery life. I would definitely opt for the Pro, but sadly, I am unwilling to wait an extra month for it to be delivered.
I just hope that battery anxiety won't make me regret my impatience fueled decision.
Edit:
I saw the video from @dustSafa after I posted this. It makes me feel much better about the Max.
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finally!! this chap got my sub and thumbs up.
excellent point towards the end. if the task can complete before battery dies on the max, the faster completion time can somewhat offset the shorter battery life.
i also feel good about my max decision.
I’d like to know how low performance mode on the max impacts the battery.
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Thanks for posting this.
So under heavy load the 16 Pro is 97F and the 16 Max is 110F.
I wonder what that test looks like under the casual load. Now if you're doing some casual gaming I bet you see some of that difference. It does seems the Max is better for those with a consistent heavy load, more like a workstation, where the Pro is good enough for occasional burst.
