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Do you think I would see a noticeable difference upgrading from M3 Pro to M4 Pro or Max?

VitoBotta

VitoBotta

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Dec 2, 2020
888
346
Espoo, Finland
I haven't been following discussions and articles much to be honest. At the moment I only have the M3 Pro MBP I got from work, having sold my M2 Pro mini some months ago. But I kinda would like to have my own machine again, so I am thinking of getting an M4 Pro mini or M4 Max Studio when they are announced (I think this coming week if I am not mistaken).

Do you think I will see a noticeable difference in performance? I am a web developer/architect as well as an ethical hacker, so I divide my time between coding and hacking basically. I don't play games, nor do video editing and things like that, so I am not too interested in graphics performance particularly.
 
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Malus120

macrumors 6502a
Jun 28, 2002
696
1,455
I mean... nobody outside Apple (who's not under embargo) knows yet so...
Wait a few more days and I think it'll be easier to answer your question :)
 
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jtkiley

macrumors regular
Jun 30, 2007
111
122
It really depends on how much work you do that taxes the CPU/GPU. If you don't find yourself waiting much or at all, then probably not. But, if you do, it will almost certainly be noticeable.

I could notice the difference between an M2 Max Mac Studio and M3 Max MBP immediately, and I still notice it when I use one or the other. I do a lot of Python data science stuff, which often means I'm using a single core (unless I'm using a package with a binary that's parallel). I also notice it a lot when building docker containers; the M3 Max is noticably faster. The M2 Max Mac Studio also has more RAM and wired ethernet. Both are great and fine to work on, but it's easy to notice.

No benchmark is perfect, but Geekbench is solid and accessible. The M3 Max is 11.6 percent faster than the M2 Max (3127 to 2802) in single core. The M4 single core Geekbench results with Mac identifiers show scores ranging from about 3750 to 3850. If you take the middle one of the three up near 3850, the increase from M4 over M3 Max is 23 percent (3849 to 3127). Most M-series chips (base, Pro, Max, Ultra) are similar in single core benchmarks within generation (sometimes there's a small clock difference).
 
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lvleleven

macrumors member
Oct 25, 2022
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37
I'm still on an 16inch m1 max MBP, I do heavy video editing, photo edits etc and it's still amazingly fast. I don't think you'd notice in real world scenarios unless there's new hardware features?
 
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Ben J.

Ben J.

macrumors 65816
Aug 29, 2019
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Oslo
Malus120 said:
I mean... nobody outside Apple (who's not under embargo) knows yet so...
Click to expand...
Right. So, we're guessing. Here's my thinking:
The M1. Massive jump in raw single processing power over anything Intel before it. Maybe the most massive leap on mac ever.
The M2. Basically the same processor design with some improvements and a slightly higher clock frequency. So no massive jump.
The M3. Even smaller nodes (3nm from the 5nm of M1/M2), so I'd imagine a pretty new design, more power efficiency, and maybe a slightly bigger jump.
The M4. (3nm). Perhaps not more of a jump than the M1-M2. A little bit faster clock.

Then there's the differences that Pro and Max etc and the varying nymber of cores that complicate things.

 
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fakestrawberryflavor

macrumors 6502
May 24, 2021
423
569
Rarely the current thing is meant to replace the exact predecessor. Especially in a world where there is an annual-ish cadence.

I would say depending on your exact configuration and ram amount, you likely will not notice. Same can be said for each yearly iPhone iteration also.
 
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usmanity

usmanity

macrumors newbie
Jun 27, 2023
20
17
I'm a web dev too and I have a M3 Max (w/ 64GB ram) for work and a M2 Pro (w/ 32GB ram) for personal use. 95-99% of the time there's no difference doing things. The only time it matters is when I'm opening a large file or when I'm editing photos and moving thru them quickly but this latter use is still great on both.

Unless you're thinking of doing some LLM stuff or editing videos, I wouldn't spend too much to get the specs from Max over Pro.
 
Chuckeee

Chuckeee

macrumors 68040
Aug 18, 2023
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Southern California
I strongly doubt you will be able to discern any performance difference. BUT there is the potential that the newer machine will have additional years software support from Apple.
 
throAU

throAU

macrumors G3
Feb 13, 2012
9,198
7,342
Perth, Western Australia
VitoBotta said:
Do you think I will see a noticeable difference in performance? I am a web developer/architect as well as an ethical hacker, so I divide my time between coding and hacking basically. I don't play games, nor do video editing and things like that, so I am not too interested in graphics performance particularly.
Click to expand...

No. Very little.

Single generation updates are usually not massively noticeable. The M4 generation is more of an upgrade relevant for people on M1 or earlier. If you're on M2 or M3 you're probably still good unless your workload changed/you didn't buy enough ram or storage on the existing machine - or you're heavily into ML/AI or graphics heavy workloads/gaming.

If you are getting into GPU heavy workloads or gaming - you'd still only really get a properly appreciable upgrade from what you're currently on if you went for a Max.

edit:
one other exception would be if you were to invest in thunderbolt 5 peripherals - but there's not much out yet.
 
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