M1 Pro, M1 Max MBP owners are you going to M4?

[Macintosh IIcx]

Maybe... Not that my current MacBook Pro 16" 2021 M1 Max (64GB, 1TB) feels slow or inadequate, but the uplift in performance on M4 Max looks very impressive and 1TB is a bit on the tight side for me.

Part of the reason that I'm considering this is to try and hit the sweet spot where I can still get a decent amount of cash for the current MacBook Pro while also upgrading to something worthwhile. I need to see the reviews first. 📈

 

[Andrey84]

To satisfy curiosity. If you're that disinterested in this stuff why did you click this clearly titled thread?

Because these kinds of posts feed the cult of upgrading, and I wanted to express my frustration with this

Why was the author curious if people are upgrading in the first place? It doesn’t matter

It’s a bad idea to upgrade from M1 to M4 for the vast majority of people, unless you’re in the 2-3% who will actually notice the speed difference and you have lots of money

 

[throAU]

Because these kinds of posts feed the cult of upgrading, I wanted to express my frustration with this

Some people need/want better spec. If you don't, don't buy?

M1 to M4 is a huge upgrade, and if you're using it to make money and bought into the M1/Pro/Max early on, your M1 machine is out of warranty/applecare at this point (which means if it breaks you're going to need to scramble to buy a replacement or repair) and fully written off for tax purposes. i.e., plenty of people using these things for their job budget to replace every 3-5 years.

Based on that, for those M1 series users - its time, if not now - soon. irrespective of performance.

Selling off or repurposing the M1 (handing down to partner, or whatever) is also a thing.

If I wasn't trading my M1 for example it would go to the GF who would happily run it another 3 years or so.

Just because you see no need/benefit to upgrading, doesn't mean that plenty of others don't have reasons.

And in any case, the thread OP was asking if people WERE upgrading, not telling people they should upgrade.

if you don't need to upgrade yet you should still be happy that people are to fund the development and flood the market with still good machines for the secondhand market for those who don't write them off on tax or are willing to run without AppleCare.

 

[Andrey84]

Some people need/want better spec. If you don't, don't buy?

M1 to M4 is a huge upgrade, and if you're using it to make money and bought into the M1/Pro/Max early on, your M1 machine is out of warranty/applecare at this point (which means if it breaks you're going to need to scramble to buy a replacement or repair) and fully written off for tax purposes. i.e., plenty of people using these things for their job budget to replace every 3-5 years.

Based on that, for those M1 series users - its time, if not now - soon. irrespective of performance.

Selling off or repurposing the M1 (handing down to partner, or whatever) is also a thing.

If I wasn't trading my M1 for example it would go to the GF who would happily run it another 3 years or so.

Just because you see no need/benefit to upgrading, doesn't mean that plenty of others don't have reasons.

And in any case, the thread OP was asking if people WERE upgrading, not telling people they should upgrade.

if you don't need to upgrade yet you should still be happy that people are to fund the development and flood the market with still good machines for the secondhand market for those who don't write them off on tax or are willing to run without AppleCare.

Not sure if the upgrading logic you’re describing is as sensible as you believe it to be. I watched watched my wife successfully use the Late 2009 iMac to make money until late 2020.

In my experience with 4 different Macs you don’t really need AppleCare. In any case, insurance premiums are always slightly higher than the payouts in the long term.

With the AppleCare argument out of the way, we can consider performance. Will you actually notice the difference moving from M1 Pro to M4 Pro? If yes, will it be measured in several seconds a day? Consider that you'll have to spend time buying and setting up the new machine and getting rid of the old one.
If you’re giving the M1 machine to the girlfriend, then your upgrade is not really just an upgrade, is it?

The OP’s question without the context of specialised heavy use doesn’t make any sense.

For professional use, it surely made sense to upgrade every 3 years 10-15 years ago, when you were truly getting the next-gen stuff. Now, 5-7 years seems much more sensible and much better for the environment.

 

[jessejesse]

Yes. My battery is at 80% (although that's just an excuse). I'm a therapist - so I clearly don't need the power of the new machine. However, I'm a therapist who plays a lot of video games. That'll be a big jump and we'll use my M1 as a house computer. Kids are getting to the age where they'll need one anyway. I'll dock the M1.

 

[hovscorpion12]

Not until Apple finally starts doing reasonable prices for storage and RAM.

Their upgrade pricing has not changed since 2017. I fully expected them to drop prices a tier below with this event, like $200 for +16gb for 32gb total and $200 for +1TB for 2TB total. Instead, they kept everything as it was. It's their problem and their lost sales, not mine ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Sorry to be that person but, that's never going to happen.

 

[etc]

I have a MBP 16", M1 Max 32 GPU / 64 GB / 2 TB which is used as a stationary all the time (remote work). I'd say it's quite laggy in terms of graphics performance especially when connected to XDR display, in clamshell mode. Even my 5yo Hackintosh with 10700K and RX6600XT card feels faster (with the same XDR display) - window animations, Safari scrolling, apps opening, mostly everything faster except heavy tasks like compiling an app. I have no clue why, but I can't call it fast, so maybe I need to upgrade.

So if 32 GPU cores of M1 Max is not enough for me to feel its performance, then I obviously need M4 Max with 40 GPU. And I see at least 60% of 64 GB memory is used, so 48 GB is the minimum. Also with the same storage. The same spec MBP here in Europe costs around crazy 6300 USD. I can sell my current MBP for 2.5K I guess, but it's still too much and what I get actually for that price?

Maybe it's better to wait for M4 Mac Studio? As I don't need a laptop actually.

 

[Acronyc]

I posted something similar here: https://www.reddit.com/r/macmini/comments/1gj9w0k/_/lvbmhx6

Yeah, agree with you. I got my M1 Max MBP with the goal of only having one Mac, but it turned out I didn't like traveling abroad with it so much and didn't need its power while traveling. So, I got a cheaper Air for traveling and a home Mac + travel Mac has been a good combination for me.

This got me thinking, why do I need a MBP plugged into a dock 99% of the time? I'm using two external monitors, keyboard, mouse, etc., anyway. If I'm going to use a laptop that way, I might as well get a desktop.

If I were to get a mini, I would get the 48GB M4 Pro mini with the upgraded chip.

 

[Andrey84]

I have a MBP 16", M1 Max 32 GPU / 64 GB / 2 TB which is used as a stationary all the time (remote work). I'd say it's quite laggy in terms of graphics performance especially when connected to XDR display, in clamshell mode. Even my 5yo Hackintosh with 10700K and RX6600XT card feels faster (with the same XDR display) - window animations, Safari scrolling, apps opening, mostly everything faster except heavy tasks like compiling an app. I have no clue why, but I can't call it fast, so maybe I need to upgrade.

So if 32 GPU cores of M1 Max is not enough for me to feel its performance, then I obviously need M4 Max with 40 GPU. And I see at least 60% of 64 GB memory is used, so 48 GB is the minimum. Also with the same storage. The same spec MBP here in Europe costs around crazy 6300 USD. I can sell my current MBP for 2.5K I guess, but it's still too much.

Maybe it's better to wait for M4 Mac Studio? As I don't need a laptop actually.

Wow, I didn't expect that one 6K 60Hz display can overload the M1 Max. Very surprising!

Does it still lag in Sequoia?

I also recommend changing these settings:
- Minimize Windows Using: change from Genie to Scale effect
- Reduce Motion: On
- Reduce Transparency: On
- Animate opening of applications: Off
- Change the wallpaper to a static image

Also, did you check the Activity Monitor for anything dodgy eating CPU time? Maybe the GPU is not the bottleneck. If CPU is overloaded, everything will feel laggy.

If none of this helps, then I personally think the upcoming M4 Max studio might be more suitable for you due to better cooling. And don't go lower than 64GB of unified memory.

 

[etc]

Wow, I didn't expect that one 6K 60Hz display can overload the M1 Max. Very surprising!

Does it still lag in Sequoia?

I also recommend changing these settings:
- Minimize Windows Using: change from Genie to Scale effect
- Reduce Motion: On
- Reduce Transparency: On
- Animate opening of applications: Off
- Change the wallpaper to a static image

Also, did you check the Activity Monitor for anything dodgy eating CPU time? Maybe the GPU is not the bottleneck. If CPU is overloaded, everything will feel laggy.

If none of this helps, then I personally think the upcoming M4 Max studio might be more suitable for you due to better cooling. And don't go lower than 64GB of unified memory.

Yes, Sequoia didn't change anything, I'd say I see totally no difference between last 3 or 4 OS generations

I can't say CPU or GPU are overloaded. I checked the Activity Monitor and I saw that WindowServer uses around 20-30% of CPU (I guess that's only 30% of a single core) and less than 1% of GPU. The whole CPU is 90% idle and cold, fan is not spinning. Here is the load graph for the last 30 days:

Red is System, Blue is User load.

It's just less responsive than my old Hackintosh. MBP does not open Finder window immediately after I clicked the icon - there's always a little lag between click and response. Like it needs to load everything first and then play the animation and this happens quite often. Also animations feel heaver and slower or lower framerate.

The feel is similar as 60 Hz vs 120 Hz ProMotion on iPhone. And also this reminds me when everything on your iPhone is getting slower and slower, with noticeable lagging when your phone is aging.

I remember my first MacBook Pro 15" (Mid 2007, Santa Rosa) and I used it for a decade, literally. 2.5K price for mid-spec as I remember. It was incredibly fast until the very end of support and the latest operating system. Now I can't say the same about 3yo high-spec M1 Max MBP. Should I pay 6k+ USD for the new machine?

 

[Macintosh IIcx]

Yes, Sequoia didn't change anything, I'd say I see totally no difference between last 3 or 4 OS generations

I can't say CPU or GPU are overloaded. I checked the Activity Monitor and I saw that WindowServer uses around 20-30% of CPU (I guess that's only 30% of a single core) and less than 1% of GPU. The whole CPU is 90% idle and cold, fan is not spinning. Here is the load graph for the last 30 days:

View attachment 2446695

Red is System, Blue is User load.

It's just less responsive than my old Hackintosh. MBP does not open Finder window immediately after I clicked the icon - there's always a little lag between click and response. Like it needs to load everything first and then play the animation and this happens quite often. Also animations feel heaver and slower or lower framerate.

The feel is similar as 60 Hz vs 120 Hz ProMotion on iPhone. And also this reminds me when everything on your iPhone is getting slower and slower, with noticeable lagging when your phone is aging.

I remember my first MacBook Pro 15" (Mid 2007, Santa Rosa) and I used it for a decade, literally. 2.5K price for mid-spec as I remember. It was incredibly fast until the very end of support and the latest operating system. Now I can't say the same about 3yo high-spec M1 Max MBP. Should I pay 6k+ USD for the new machine?

Try with a new Mac user account with admin rights and see if that helps. But it does sound like a clean install (full reset) might be in order.

 

[Macintosh IIcx]

Erase your Mac and reset it to factory settings - Apple Support (SG)

Use Erase All Content and Settings to erase all of your settings, data and apps quickly and securely, while maintaining the operating system currently installed.

support.apple.com

 

[ArmpitoftheGian]

Yes. Ordered mine on announcement day, maxed out config M4 Max in 16" model. Going from a 16" M1 Max model. Wish they had more colour options though.

 

[LogicalApex]

Some people need/want better spec. If you don't, don't buy?

M1 to M4 is a huge upgrade, and if you're using it to make money and bought into the M1/Pro/Max early on, your M1 machine is out of warranty/applecare at this point (which means if it breaks you're going to need to scramble to buy a replacement or repair) and fully written off for tax purposes. i.e., plenty of people using these things for their job budget to replace every 3-5 years.

Based on that, for those M1 series users - its time, if not now - soon. irrespective of performance.

Selling off or repurposing the M1 (handing down to partner, or whatever) is also a thing.

If I wasn't trading my M1 for example it would go to the GF who would happily run it another 3 years or so.

Just because you see no need/benefit to upgrading, doesn't mean that plenty of others don't have reasons.

And in any case, the thread OP was asking if people WERE upgrading, not telling people they should upgrade.

if you don't need to upgrade yet you should still be happy that people are to fund the development and flood the market with still good machines for the secondhand market for those who don't write them off on tax or are willing to run without AppleCare.

To be fair, most of your points aren't very valid.

Upgrading a machine is silly just because Apple Care+ is expiring. The user can opt to extend Apple Care+ for many years if they so choose. I still have Apple Care+ on my 2018 MBP that's getting upgraded to the M4 MBP in a few weeks, for instance. But even if the user skips that they can always just buy whatever Mac is current at the time their other one "dies" allowing them to get the latest tech that is available at that time.

Users should upgrade when they have a tangible need for an upgrade. For professional users, that means the performance or feature gains are able to generate more income for them. For instance, as a software engineer faster compile times can lead to productivity boosts that can make improved performance have a measurable ROI. My work computer is a Windows Laptop provided by work though so I limit my personal upgrades more than I would professional ones.

I'm upgrading mainly due to my 2018 MBP finally starting to feel very sluggish in the tasks I'm performing on my device. Battery life is also pretty weak even with a battery replacement less than a year ago. Always hunting for a charger... My wife's M1 MBP is still very performant with very long battery life.

That all said... There is no right or wrong reasons to upgrade considering we can all spend out money however we choose.

 

[Vanarak19]

A lot of people saying they are waiting for an OLED MBP. I think the current display is fantastic and ZERO BURN-IN concerns. I prefer it.

 

[ArmpitoftheGian]

A lot of people saying they are waiting for an OLED MBP. I think the current display is fantastic and ZERO BURN-IN concerns. I prefer it.

Same. I use OLED monitors and TVs at home and burn-in is a constant worry. The MBP screen in my M1 Max is pretty close to the quality of the OLEDs with no worries about burn-in, which are real for a Mac laptop due to all the static elements displayed.

 

[LogicalApex]

Same. I use OLED monitors and TVs at home and burn-in is a constant worry. The MBP screen in my M1 Max is pretty close to the quality of the OLEDs with no worries about burn-in, which are real for a Mac laptop due to all the static elements displayed.

Agreed.

My Samsung OLED TV (S95B) has an amazing picture as OLEDs do, but has to do all kinds of self-maintenance to account for burn in. Stuff like periodic pixel refreshes after certain usage amounts, backlight dimming, etc. Would be annoying to deal with these on a MacBook.

 

[Andrey84]

Yes, Sequoia didn't change anything, I'd say I see totally no difference between last 3 or 4 OS generations

I can't say CPU or GPU are overloaded. I checked the Activity Monitor and I saw that WindowServer uses around 20-30% of CPU (I guess that's only 30% of a single core) and less than 1% of GPU. The whole CPU is 90% idle and cold, fan is not spinning. Here is the load graph for the last 30 days:

View attachment 2446695

Red is System, Blue is User load.

It's just less responsive than my old Hackintosh. MBP does not open Finder window immediately after I clicked the icon - there's always a little lag between click and response. Like it needs to load everything first and then play the animation and this happens quite often. Also animations feel heaver and slower or lower framerate.

The feel is similar as 60 Hz vs 120 Hz ProMotion on iPhone. And also this reminds me when everything on your iPhone is getting slower and slower, with noticeable lagging when your phone is aging.

I remember my first MacBook Pro 15" (Mid 2007, Santa Rosa) and I used it for a decade, literally. 2.5K price for mid-spec as I remember. It was incredibly fast until the very end of support and the latest operating system. Now I can't say the same about 3yo high-spec M1 Max MBP. Should I pay 6k+ USD for the new machine?

Thanks for the data.

What I don't understand is when you're comparing the lag to 60Hz vs 120Hz on the iPhone. I just switched to an iPhone with ProMotion and I stopped noticing the difference on Day 2. However, I do understand the reference to an aging iPhone lag.

I noticed that WindowServer seems to be a sub-optimal process which increases CPU usage depending on how many windows are open. And Mac OS starts lagging when this process is at about 20-30%. How many windows and browser tabs do you normally have open? If there is any way you can decrease the number of open windows, this should help.

Do you restart every week and does a restart make it snappier?

Also, please try the 5 setting changes I suggested. If it doesn't help at all, you can try a clean install of Sequoia with formatting the SSD. The time spent on this though (roughly 3-4 hours, 1 hours USB preparation and install and 2-3 hours setting everything up) might not be worth a chance of getting rid of a small lag. But it might work.

With the symptoms you're describing, I don't think it's a hardware problem, but rather a Mac OS issue or potentially an issue with your particular usage (100+ windows open). And you cannot use your hackintosh as a comparison. Even if you could, M1 Max GPU is not even slower than the RX 6600 XT.

 

[Melbourne Park]

I currently have an M1 Max 16" 64GB 10core/32core 4TB. It's still running great and I would probably wait at least another generation to upgrade, but I have a Dell U4025QW and it irks me that I can't drive it at 120hz. Add to that Thunderbolt 5 and Nano Texture... and I decided to bite the bullet. Hopefully I can resell my M1 for a decent price. Apple offered me C$1105 trade-in... thanks but no thanks. And I bumped up to 8TB storage because I'm crazy that way.

IMO backing up 8 TB is not so much fun.

I have looked at internal drive speeds, and the M processor Macs top out at around 6000 read and are often around 3500 write MBS speeds. But thunderbolt 5 offers according to claims from OWC, 6000 read and write in their Ultra Thunderbolt 5 drives. But they are capped at the moment to 4 TB. Price for 4 TB is at the moment, $US600 and $US400 for 2 TB.

I reckon Thunderbolt will remove the need to pay Apple's overpriced internal drive prices. I reckon fast backup is useful, and I suspect that some people could get away with even 1 TB. I reckon over 2TB internal is not worth it now. But with Thunderbolt 4, for many Apple's high drive prices were worth the price.

 

[srikat]

I ordered a M4 Pro 14/20 48GB 1TB mini last night.

It will replace 64GB 2TB M1 Max MBP.

 

[Melbourne Park]

With the purported 4.7x increase in the speed of the neural engine from my M1Pro, if this translates into real world speed increases like that on Topaz 3(the only application that I use that taxes my mac), then I will upgrade to the M4pro, 10/4, 48 gb, 1TB.

I queried Topaz on speeds for rendering aa 10 minute digital 8 video - around 25 frames per second at a resolution of 720 x 576 pixels into 4k. They have not answered me yet.

I have done it before and it took forever, but the results were fabulous. Takes a long time on a Mac Pro 5,1 RX580 too. But Topaz said better to run Windows with Nvidia when I asked ... at that time they had just ported to M processors.

I thought the Max would be the better with Topaz due to its double render engines, but if its all neural engine then my order for a 16" 2 TB/ 48 GB Pro might be OK. The step up for me in Australia to a 16" Max (I'd go for 64 GB RAM) is an extra on third, even dropped the drive to 1 GB and going for the 64 GB RAM, I add an extra one third of the cost, which seems a lot.

Do you have figures/numbers for upscaling a Digital 8 video to 4K? In the USA the time would be similar, as while the NTSC resolution is lower at 720x480 than our PAL, the frame rate is higher than our close to 25 fps. The time to upscale would be in the same ball park I reckon. I am curious about M processors. Another solution could be a PC with a big GPU card as Topaz recommended that a few years ago. I still have not started rendering the videos. I have many hours of them!

 

[alter_ohm]

A lot of people saying they are waiting for an OLED MBP. I think the current display is fantastic and ZERO BURN-IN concerns. I prefer it.

and we don't know if apple will again make some bad decisions with the next design. if they choose to make the next one extra thin, maybe we will again get problematic keyboards or noisy fans or loose the function keys or loose magsafe or loose sdcard port, ...

so i'll wait for the reviews and then will probably buy a current mbp16 with m4 pro or max. coming from a mbp from 2017 it will make a big difference and the current model seems to have everything i care about: big (16") matte screen option, magsafe, expected low noise operation for pro model or for max in low power mode, good keyboard, function keys, not noisy in clamshell mode, sd card reader, th 5 for fast external ssd in the future.

 

[Melbourne Park]

Yeah I feel similarly. I'm also trying to withhold from buying until perhaps the moment that the M1 no longer receives any new MacOS major release.

The 1000 nits as a stock option is very tempting since I tend to work outside, but I also just use the Vivid app when needed so I don't feel justified to get a whole new computer.

The nano would be good outside.

I reckon the advantages of OLED outside would not seen outside. I also wonder whether a Nano screen will be provided with OLED? Apple sometimes springs some negatives with new tech ... I can image them selling the OLED and then the next version, allows a Nano option.

 

[Melbourne Park]

and we don't know if apple will again make some bad decisions with the next design. if they choose to make the next one extra thin, maybe we will again get problematic keyboards or noisy fans or loose the function keys or loose magsafe or loose sdcard port, ...
...

They could just introduce a 15" version, based on the Air form factor. 14" is too small for many, but my 2017 with Touch Bar is quite a bit more portable than the 16.2" is. A 15" Pro Max M5 OLED would sell like crazy IMO and would not upset 14" and 16.2" recent buyers. That's what I would do if I was Apple.

Apple loves the MacBooks ... so in 2026, put in an Ultra M5 into that 16.2 box. A portable workstation. Heck provide a coffee spill proof keyboard. The Ultra processors probably cost them money. So sell a lot more in the bulky 16.2" form factor.

 

[lsara]

Upgrading from my M1 Pro 10/16/16GB/1TB. The storage isn't being utilized and I have 2TB of iCloud storage and can always grab an SSD if I need for some reason. I'd been waiting for a bigger jump than I saw with the M2/M3 and the nano texture here plus trade in value made it worth it for me. Oh, and I can get AppleCare+ on this. I had missed the chance on the M1 Pro which at the age of it now, made me a bit nervous.