Config Advice - M2Pro 10c vs 12c with 2023 Macbook Pro 14

[Akapulco]

Hello together,

i am planning the buy of a Macbook Pro 14 inch Macbook Pro.
I wanted to use the Macbook for several years. So it should be well equipped enough to overcome this timespan.

Regularily i am having some virtual machines open.

1. M2Pro Base-Model 10C
vs.
2. M2Pro 12C

combined with 16/32GB memory and 1 or 2 TB.

Can you help me regarding the configuration of the M2Pro 10c vs. 12c.

From my opinion 10c should be enough.
- More Batterylife
- reduced Temps with cooling system.
- less noise.
- 400 Euro less,

Are the 2 performance cores worth the money?

Thanks for your comments

 

[sam_dean]

I'd go with the base M2 Pro as the HSF may throttle more often with a higher core SoC.

 

[Silvestru Hosszu]

I bought the base M2 Pro 14''. I also have the M1 Max 16".
To be honest the more humble base M2 Pro does not feel inferior at all.
The comparison was made using Adobe Suite (only photo editing) and Capture One Pro 22.

 

[Akapulco]

Yes guys, i am with you. 2 additional performance cores are only in showing their strengths in high parallel computing situations.
So i will also focus on base model.

 

[Basic75]

Some virtual machines open? Unless you are talking very small stripped down Linux systems I'd definitely get 32GB RAM! Actually no, I'd get at least 32GB RAM anyhow.

 

[Basic75]

Are the 2 performance cores worth the money?

If you have to ask, probably not.

 

[Yebubbleman]

Hello together,

i am planning the buy of a Macbook Pro 14 inch Macbook Pro.
I wanted to use the Macbook for several years. So it should be well equipped enough to overcome this timespan.

Regularily i am having some virtual machines open.

1. M2Pro Base-Model 10C
vs.
2. M2Pro 12C

combined with 16/32GB memory and 1 or 2 TB.

Can you help me regarding the configuration of the M2Pro 10c vs. 12c.

From my opinion 10c should be enough.
- More Batterylife
- reduced Temps with cooling system.
- less noise.
- 400 Euro less,

Are the 2 performance cores worth the money?

Thanks for your comments

Virtual machines (and, do bear in mind that you are limited to virtualizing ARM64 OSes only) really need RAM. And you can configure either M2 Pro version with 32GB of RAM. Depending on how many VM's you want to run whilst potentially doing other things, you will probably want to go with 32GB of RAM over 16GB.

I'm generally of the mind that the 14-inch MacBook Pro is all about trade-offs. You get a smaller machine than the 16-inch equivalent, but with less cooling ability with the same chips. The one exception (in both 2021 and 2023 models) is that lower-end binned Pro variant (which hasn't ever been made available in a 16-inch MacBook Pro, thus far). I would imagine that battery life and thermal throttling trade-offs for this version of the M2 Pro is less severe and that this SoC is really the optimal one to get in a 14-inch MacBook Pro overall.

You definitely want 1TB minimum for the storage. The fact that you are already of that mind is great.

Otherwise, unless you plan on running tons of VMs or are trying to virtualize servers that are very processing intensive, you're not going to miss out too much on those two extra performance cores. Certainly if VMs are your heaviest workload, the three extra GPU cores you miss out on won't matter to you at all.

I'd go with the base M2 Pro as the HSF may throttle more often with a higher core SoC.

1000000% this.