How many people really need M1 Pro or M1 Max

[MBAir2010]

I'd need proper Windows support to get rid of my dual machine setup

so does teddy bridgewater.
and our coaching staff.

windows is great for an operation system, just the support is not there,
unless you know or tweet a Mark Hatchman daily.

to stay on topic, most humans don't need this tech
even Linus Tech tips' "Chubsy-Ubsy" aka anthony young was marveling over the new MacBooks
but not the price and just the need.

i think i mentioned everyone relevant in this post!

 

[lordhamster]

First let me say I’ve been in IT/Telcom over 35 years. The processors Apple announced today are truly amazing. BUT… BUT… lets face it. How many people really need that much power in a laptop? Im an IT Pro and my Itel 2020 MacBook Pro and M1 Macbook air are sufficient. Really, think about it, what, aside from creative pros who needs that much power. Im disappointed a 14” MacBook Pro (M1) for the masses was not introduced today. Awesome technology for a very small percentage of users.

I find that especially amongst us "IT" folks there is quite a bit of gatekeeping. We like to think that only the highest end AI/Machine learning developers need powerful laptops... and in some respects we may be right. That said, if I'm completely honest, the tasks that my kids do are significantly more computing power intensive than those that I do.

If we take an honest look back at the industry... two things have driven the most significant advances in computing: Games & Porn.

While we don't like to admit it, we all have benefited from the frivolous use of raw computing power. While the average "business person" doing excel & powerpoint will absolutely be well served by a last gen machine... those folks (like college kids) looking for a single device to meet their work & entertainment needs may well be better served by these new MBPs.

I agree. The question is: Why? What does the modern Internet offer than the one of 20 years ago? Yes, today's Internet is more polished than that of 20 years. But the information conveyed? It's my opinion it hasn't changed much and, in some instances, have taken a step back.

If you head over to the PPC forum you'll find a lot of advice on how to make these old systems somewhat useable on the modern Internet. When you look at what they've done they've essentially made changes which eliminate the "improvements" of the modern Internet.

Macrumors is, IMO, a prime example. I've attempted to use an old G5 on this site and found it challenging. Why is that? What on this site cannot be done with what was available 20 years ago?

As someone who was developing internet content back in the day, I can tell you the biggest change from my point of view... The rise of the web-app.

We have come full circle from mainframes with dumb terminals, to fully independent desktops...to what we have now, a hybrid.

More and more software is now essentially web-apps, even some "desktop" software is now just a web-app in a wrapper. These web-apps rely on cloud computing, but also have a client-side component that requires much more power than websites back in the day.

In this new context, ancient computers simply are no longer up to the task of handling some of the more demanding webapps out there today.

 

[nquinn]

Looks like the MAX chip with better memory bandwidth may offer some nice advantages.

xcode full build time:
M1 MAX 16"/32core gpu: 34s
M1 PRO 14"/14core gpu: 47s

Possible that some of that is in the thermal advantages of the 16" vs 14" chassis - we'll find out, but either way a 27% reduced build time using the MAX looks pretty nice.

Time stamped the video with a few other benchmarks on those two.

EDIT: never mind, this is because he used the 8 core cpu on the 14", not the 10core.

Anandtech did show that the MAX chip based on cpu's can hit around 220-240GB/s though, so the cpu cores do seem to slightly be able to exceed the 200GB/s cap of the pro, but only in extreme scenarios and not by much.

 

[m1maverick]

As someone who was developing internet content back in the day, I can tell you the biggest change from my point of view... The rise of the web-app.

We have come full circle from mainframes with dumb terminals, to fully independent desktops...to what we have now, a hybrid.

More and more software is now essentially web-apps, even some "desktop" software is now just a web-app in a wrapper. These web-apps rely on cloud computing, but also have a client-side component that requires much more power than websites back in the day.

In this new context, ancient computers simply are no longer up to the task of handling some of the more demanding webapps out there today.

It appears I may not be very clear on what I mean when I ask why. When I ask why I am not looking for a technical reason why web sites have become more resource intensive. Instead what I am asking is: How does this benefit the end user? What value are they getting from it?

As someone who has been using the Internet since the early 90's I can say today's Internet is definitely more polished than the Internet of those days. But question if it is offering any more value than it did back in those days. Yes, I can now stream video which is an improvement. But do I need a 4K (or even HD) stream to view it? Do I need a bunch of Javascript (or other endpoint active technology) to make things move around on the screen? Note the word need and not want in those questions.

Now I'm not a luddite but it's ben my observation that a lot of people don't need all of the new things but are forced to go along with it because they have no choice.

 

[nquinn]

Web site bloat is just so horrible. Hell, if you inspect this macrumors page alone you can see it pushing 50MiB+ on the DOM

 

[WeatherWeasel]

When I was teaching, I would have loved to have it. There were so many things I was doing and that definitely would have been great . Now I am retired. I use my iMac more for email, forums, scanning and printing things for my wife, who is an English professor , and banking. Boring stuff.

Oh to be young again and retaining everything I know now.

Be Well

 

[LeeW]

Your money, your choice. Buy it, don't buy it.

 

[lordhamster]

It appears I may not be very clear on what I mean when I ask why. When I ask why I am not looking for a technical reason why web sites have become more resource intensive. Instead what I am asking is: How does this benefit the end user? What value are they getting from it?

As someone who has been using the Internet since the early 90's I can say today's Internet is definitely more polished than the Internet of those days. But question if it is offering any more value than it did back in those days. Yes, I can now stream video which is an improvement. But do I need a 4K (or even HD) stream to view it? Do I need a bunch of Javascript (or other endpoint active technology) to make things move around on the screen? Note the word need and not want in those questions.

Now I'm not a luddite but it's ben my observation that a lot of people don't need all of the new things but are forced to go along with it because they have no choice.

There is tons of bloat and "crap" on websites today for sure. However, many web-apps offer the end user tremendous power cross-platform that previously didn't exist. The fact that I can now use full-fledged office apps in O365 or Google Suite, or that I can do sophisticated ArcGIS stuff in a browser is staggering to me. Web applications like Mural and Zoom have literally changed the way I work... and work beautifully cross platform.

I "need" these more sophisticated web-apps because they have fundamentally improved how I work and conduct my business interactions. Could I get by on the old school 1995 stack? Yes, but I don't want to.

That said, many sites (like this one) need to seriously cut back on the bloat.

 

[m1maverick]

There is tons of bloat and "crap" on websites today for sure. However, many web-apps offer the end user tremendous power cross-platform that previously didn't exist. The fact that I can now use full-fledged office apps in O365 or Google Suite, or that I can do sophisticated ArcGIS stuff in a browser is staggering to me. Web applications like Mural and Zoom have literally changed the way I work... and work beautifully cross platform.

I "need" these more sophisticated web-apps because they have fundamentally improved how I work and conduct my business interactions. Could I get by on the old school 1995 stack? Yes, but I don't want to.

This is a completely different use case. These are "application" web sites and not general information web sites.

That said, many sites (like this one) need to seriously cut back on the bloat.

It is this type of web site that are the focus of my comments. I see nothing on MR that would render a Power Mac G5 almost useless (unless one has a lot of patience). Everything here should be easily doable on such a system.

 

[thenewperson]

Why is this even a concern?

 

[fakestrawberryflavor]

I don't need the 'Power' but I need the Max because I need a setup with at least 3 displays, and I own two LG 5Ks and one 4K TV for my workflow of my I.T. Job / Monitoring crypto and stock assets for day trading and other things. It will be nice to add another monitor even, very excited here to just go to 1 computer.

 

[WeatherWeasel]

I do have the apple card and could eventually move from my intel to the m1 . BUT considering everything, I am going to wait until Apple announces what upgrade to their chip. I have this feeling that eventually net spring, they are going to announce a new chip. I could be dead wrong, but I think I am going to wait for now.

 

[majortom67]

First let me say I’ve been in IT/Telcom over 35 years. The processors Apple announced today are truly amazing. BUT… BUT… lets face it. How many people really need that much power in a laptop? Im an IT Pro and my Itel 2020 MacBook Pro and M1 Macbook air are sufficient. Really, think about it, what, aside from creative pros who needs that much power. Im disappointed a 14” MacBook Pro (M1) for the masses was not introduced today. Awesome technology for a very small percentage of users.

They're not stupid at Apple. If they produce such a beast is because market demands it. Nowadays we are moving to 8K videos and videos are litterally invading the net (about 2,5 billion/years just on the Tube). And for what I've been reading around many are goint to order it as soon as some things (like adaptive sync, i.e.) are clear. More on the Monterey side than the MBPro M1 Pro/Max side. Personally I won't buy one of them because I don't need a portable, nleast of all in clamshell mode but let a Mini Pro or basic Mac Pro come out and then...

 

[jsnuff1]

Think the main issue is some people need basic things from their laptop whether they are a pro or not.

I NEED the 16inch display for my work, 32GB of RAM and a 2 TB drive.

The locks me in at even a base config of the M1 Pro @ 3500. At this point the M1 MAX is only 400 away so Im just going to get the 3900 config since 2x GPU and 2x bandwidth seem like a no brainer for 400 bucks even if im not taking advantage of it every day.

From Apple's standpoint its brilliant, they are already forcing us to pay crazy amounts for the basic things we need, and just 10% extra to get 2x the performance so most people will opt in like me.

Whats really missing is a midrange plain "MacBook" at this point. The air is too limiting with its 16GB of Ram, so everyone that needs slightly more than an Air will be forced into a Pro/Max whether they need all the extras or not.

 

[bertie343]

For me I NEED the 16 inch display. As for the rest, if they made a 16" Macbook Air I would have bought that in a heartbeat.

I'm getting an M1 Pro because I'm tired of my 15" Intel getting super hot, I accidentally dropped this one (so it's got an ugly dent which is driving me nuts!), and the battery has needed servicing for awhile now. Basically this one has reached the end of its life and the new MBPs got released just in time for me.

 

[nquinn]

For me I NEED the 16 inch display. As for the rest, if they made a 16" Macbook Air I would have bought that in a heartbeat.

I'm getting an M1 Pro because I'm tired of my 15" Intel getting super hot, I accidentally dropped this one (so it's got an ugly dent which is driving me nuts!), and the battery has needed servicing for awhile now. Basically this one has reached the end of its life and the new MBPs got released just in time for me.

It's wild to me how hot the 2019 16" intel macbook gets just browsing simple websites.

 

[bertie343]

It's wild to me how hot the 2019 16" intel macbook gets just browsing simple websites.

I have a 2017 and sitting with it on my lap can get a bit much sometimes. I have a 13" M1 MBA and I can run everything I can think of and it doesn't get nearly as warm

 

[Micka88]

M1 Pro vs M1 Max GPU:

There are many comparing graphs, benchmarks etc. but I just wonder how it would be in real life: when you have MBP 16 with M1 Pro or M1 Max. What that more powerful GPU will bring you practically ? Is it correct that

1) If you watch (4k) movies, look at photos, edit RAW photos etc - it will be exactly the same on both ? Not a different look (more detailed on M1 Max) ?

2) In case of audio work, texts, browsing etc. - no difference ?

3) When you render videos and photos M1 Max will render it significantly faster ?

4) when working on videos (like in DaVinci), non-extreme editing, colour grading etc will work ok on both ? (incl. live playback with plugins, applied LUTs etc?

So where and when will you feel the biggest difference between both ?

 

[ader42]

Funny, I was just contemplating buying more than one of these - so I can get more than cores running concurrently in Blender CrowdRender renders. To tide me over until either Mac Mini or iMac versions come out…

 

[jterp7]

For me I NEED the 16 inch display. As for the rest, if they made a 16" Macbook Air I would have bought that in a heartbeat.

I'm getting an M1 Pro because I'm tired of my 15" Intel getting super hot, I accidentally dropped this one (so it's got an ugly dent which is driving me nuts!), and the battery has needed servicing for awhile now. Basically this one has reached the end of its life and the new MBPs got released just in time for me.

just went to check right now, but it took until 2018 for apple to give the air the "retina" display (so 6 years from the original 2012 on the 15"). I wouldnt expect miniled or 120hz on the cheaper macs for a long time (but please surprise us apple)

 

[MBPM1]

Not sure this is helpful, but just posted my initial perspective with the MBP 16"/M1.

MacBook Pro Reviews: Fast Performance, Added Ports, and ProMotion Displays Check All the Boxes

I just received my 16" MBP/M1 Pro with standard 1TB configuration and also have the 2019 16" MBP with me. They are VERY close in size. The new one feels about the same weight and very sturdy. Man, this new one has huge slots everywhere - the back and sides...I'm worried they are just gonna...

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