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M1 Pro/Max owners: Are you upgrading to M3 or staying put?

StrollerEd

StrollerEd

macrumors 6502a
Aug 13, 2011
970
6,926
Scotland
My only gripe about the M1Max 16 32GB RAM beast is that it on the heavy side for a laptop to carry when out and about. My solution has been to buy a s/h M1 MBA 16RAM. It was difficult to find one with 16GB RAM at a good price, but eventually struck lucky.

Coconut Battery cycles for the M1Max now at a count of 558 and although it says 83.3% I do notice that I need to recharge more often. mIght soon be time for a replacement perhaps.

btw, what is regarded as normal for battery temperature?
 
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pshufd

macrumors G3
Oct 24, 2013
9,967
14,446
New Hampshire
StrollerEd said:
My only gripe about the M1Max 16 32GB RAM beast is that it on the heavy side for a laptop to carry when out and about. My solution has been to buy a s/h M1 MBA 16RAM. It was difficult to find one with 16GB RAM at a good price, but eventually struck lucky.

Coconut Battery cycles for the M1Max now at a count of 558 and although it says 83.3% I do notice that I need to recharge more often. mIght soon be time for a replacement perhaps.

btw, what is regarded as normal for battery temperature?
Click to expand...

Mine is a 37 C degrees, ambient temp of 68 F degrees, fans off.
 
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ignatius345

macrumors 604
Aug 20, 2015
6,970
11,431
Jacoblee23 said:
I am still on the fence but leaning towards no. I have less than 100 cycles on my 14” and 16” M1 Pros and they’re already extremely fast for everything that I do.
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Sounds like you have your answer. If you want my advice, set that money aside and let it earn interest or do something useful instead of buying a computer you don't really need and which will start depreciating immediately.
 
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fromgophonetoiphone

macrumors regular
Dec 6, 2017
196
290
Yeah I think the main thing is she will get a nice bump in computing quality. Power is one thing, but she's just a web surfer. I watched that Windows 8 (LOL) laptop boot up and 3 minutes later the her 80 Chrome tabs were still loading. She has bad tab management habits, but I think an M1 Pro will handle that like a champ.

For me, I guess the M3 Pro is a slight bump only. For my use pattern I probably won't see too much of a difference. I guess this exercise is more like having 2 MBPs.
 
Hudzilla

Hudzilla

macrumors 6502a
Nov 12, 2007
659
21
England
Upgraded from M1 a couple weeks ago, kicking myself i didnt pull the trigger earlier, unbeliveablw difference in performance, speed, pretty much everthing. M3 is really handling anything i throw at it. with ease.
 
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mactinkerlover

macrumors regular
Sep 20, 2020
161
111
Hudzilla said:
Upgraded from M1 a couple weeks ago, kicking myself i didnt pull the trigger earlier, unbeliveablw difference in performance, speed, pretty much everthing. M3 is really handling anything i throw at it. with ease.
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Which m1 variant did you upgrade from and which m3 did you go to?
 
xraydoc

xraydoc

Contributor
Oct 9, 2005
10,818
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Late to the thread but really thinking lately about replacing my 14" MBP 10-core/16-core M1 Pro with either a 14" MBP 14-core M3 Max or 16-core M3 Max.

I was going to buy an M3 Max Mac Studio when they're released later this year, but having just one computer (instead of a desktop and laptop) makes management so much easier. All my files stay in one place, only one device to backup & update, etc...

But if I do, I'm hung up on the 14/30-core versus 16/40-core question. I don't really need the 15% extra CPU or GPU power (I don't edit 8K video or play games), especially since my 10/16-core M1 Pro is still mostly ok (should have gotten it with 32GB of RAM, however). And I certainly don't want to hear fan noise reminiscent of the Intel-era MacBook Pros, but somehow can't help but have FOMO anxiety if I go with the more sensible choice of the 14/30-core model.
 
Lucas Curious

Lucas Curious

macrumors 6502a
Nov 30, 2020
596
766
xraydoc said:
Late to the thread but really thinking lately about replacing my 14" MBP 10-core/16-core M1 Pro with either a 14" MBP 14-core M3 Max or 16-core M3 Max.

I was going to buy an M3 Max Mac Studio when they're released later this year, but having just one computer (instead of a desktop and laptop) makes management so much easier. All my files stay in one place, only one device to backup & update, etc...

But if I do, I'm hung up on the 14/30-core versus 16/40-core question. I don't really need the 15% extra CPU or GPU power (I don't edit 8K video or play games), especially since my 10/16-core M1 Pro is still mostly ok (should have gotten it with 32GB of RAM, however). And I certainly don't want to hear fan noise reminiscent of the Intel-era MacBook Pros, but somehow can't help but have FOMO anxiety if I go with the more sensible choice of the 14/30-core model.
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so do it. I got the 14" 14/30 max but also have the M1 Pro 16" base. I also wanted more ram and smaller. Maybe go for the base 11 core 14" but upgrade the ram if you dont do graphic, video or play games. For me it was something like $500 more to go for the max chip vs base with more ram. You probably dont need the ram either. The thing is I use a laptop more than anything else I own so why not go bigger this time. I won't be upgrading for years because I cant even max out this one. I noticed if you have a lot of tabs open and some software like photoshop, the ram will fill until there is 10gb free left and then it will swap some of that and release the pressure and ram. I'm usually at 15gb free when doing basic stuff. Also I wanted the option of going with 2 apple monitors instead of one in the future and more ram and better chip will make performance smooth.
 
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Moreplease

macrumors member
Jan 20, 2024
51
55
Lucas Curious said:
I noticed if you have a lot of tabs open and some software like photoshop, the ram will fill until there is 10gb free left and then it will swap some of that and release the pressure and ram. I'm usually at 15gb free when doing basic stuff.
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But how much RAM do you have?
 
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geta

macrumors 68000
May 18, 2010
1,518
1,243
The Moon
xraydoc said:
Late to the thread but really thinking lately about replacing my 14" MBP 10-core/16-core M1 Pro with either a 14" MBP 14-core M3 Max or 16-core M3 Max.

I was going to buy an M3 Max Mac Studio when they're released later this year, but having just one computer (instead of a desktop and laptop) makes management so much easier. All my files stay in one place, only one device to backup & update, etc...

But if I do, I'm hung up on the 14/30-core versus 16/40-core question. I don't really need the 15% extra CPU or GPU power (I don't edit 8K video or play games), especially since my 10/16-core M1 Pro is still mostly ok (should have gotten it with 32GB of RAM, however). And I certainly don't want to hear fan noise reminiscent of the Intel-era MacBook Pros, but somehow can't help but have FOMO anxiety if I go with the more sensible choice of the 14/30-core model.
Click to expand...

Unless you having the need for M3 Max power and/or need more then 36GB RAM, M3 Pro would be better choice regardless cooling/fan noise.
 
xraydoc

xraydoc

Contributor
Oct 9, 2005
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geta said:
Unless you having the need for M3 Max power and/or need more then 36GB RAM, M3 Pro would be better choice regardless cooling/fan noise.
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I definitely need more than the 16GB of RAM I have now. I should have opted for 32GB when I bought the machine. So that one is done. 36GB would be sufficient. 48GB would have some nice breathing room.

I do have a couple apps that tax my system resources (CPU & GPU), Osirix MD being the main one, so I'm very much leaning towards the Max version. Having a Windows VM with sufficient resources is another reason I'm looking at the extra cores the Max version provides. Additionally, I'm likely to add a third external display, so that pretty much forces me to get the Max chip, as the M3 Pro only supports two external displays.

I'm leaning towards the 14/30, since I think it's a better thermal fit with the 14" form factor. I'd just hate to be in a similar situation in another two years where I say, "Ah, I should have opted for <x> upgrade when I bought it." Like I'm thinking to myself now....
 
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coffeemilktea

coffeemilktea

macrumors 6502a
Nov 25, 2022
889
3,634
I don't plan to upgrade until 32+ GB of RAM is standard in the base model of the MacBook Pro.

...so at this rate, I guess I'm holding on to my M1 MacBook Pro until 2034. 🤪
 
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fromgophonetoiphone

macrumors regular
Dec 6, 2017
196
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Fan noise is only an issue when really taxing the CPU right? For an office worker like me I've never heard the fans go on until I ran a CPU/GPU torture test just to check they are actually there. Obviously a lot of people do more CPU/GPU worthy stuff than I do, but you should look at how much time your CPU will be spending in the power zone. If it's minimal like me as an office worker, then the concern really isn't fan noise but instead battery life. The Max with its more CPUs and GPUs uses far more power at idle. I've seen benchmarks showing anywhere from 30 min to 1.5 hours more battery life on the Pro, so in that case Pro makes more sense even though I'm unhappy they nerfed the number of P-cores down to 6.
 
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Lucas Curious

Lucas Curious

macrumors 6502a
Nov 30, 2020
596
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fromgophonetoiphone said:
Fan noise is only an issue when really taxing the CPU right? For an office worker like me I've never heard the fans go on until I ran a CPU/GPU torture test just to check they are actually there. Obviously a lot of people do more CPU/GPU worthy stuff than I do, but you should look at how much time your CPU will be spending in the power zone. If it's minimal like me as an office worker, then the concern really isn't fan noise but instead battery life. The Max with its more CPUs and GPUs uses far more power at idle. I've seen benchmarks showing anywhere from 30 min to 1.5 hours more battery life on the Pro, so in that case Pro makes more sense even though I'm unhappy they nerfed the number of P-cores down to 6.
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I bought the base pro 14" for someone and I have the 14" 14/30 max. The Max only hits high fans when you push the CPU and GPU to the max so when encoding video. Other than that, it's silent even while editing difficult footage its silent. The max shows 14 hours battery life estimated while the base Pro showed 20 hours. in reality I will get 10 hours of streaming YouTube on the max at half brightness. So possibly you may get something like 25% more battery on the base pro vs the max. Do you need it? I don't. These Macs charge fast enough. You can also set the max at low power mode which I dont. Unless you are doing Blender or Video editing with grading, I dont think you need the Max but I do think you should get 36gb ram. Sorry but I now enjoy having several groups of safari tabs open all the time meanwhile having photoshop + Illustrator open with projects and not swapping ram. would it make a difference if it was swapping? probably nothing really noticeable. The reality is that when you hit playback during video editing, the Mac will dump everything into swap and use up all ram on my M1 Pro 16gb ram Mac so I know it really wants teh ream for that stuff. It will keep dumping in and out of swap each time. SO if you dont use this type software you can be fine with 18gb unless you really have a bunch of stuff open and dont want that memory pressure to build up and start lag.
 
xraydoc

xraydoc

Contributor
Oct 9, 2005
10,818
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Lucas Curious said:
so do it. I got the 14" 14/30 max but also have the M1 Pro 16" base. I also wanted more ram and smaller. Maybe go for the base 11 core 14" but upgrade the ram if you dont do graphic, video or play games. For me it was something like $500 more to go for the max chip vs base with more ram. You probably dont need the ram either. The thing is I use a laptop more than anything else I own so why not go bigger this time. I won't be upgrading for years because I cant even max out this one. I noticed if you have a lot of tabs open and some software like photoshop, the ram will fill until there is 10gb free left and then it will swap some of that and release the pressure and ram. I'm usually at 15gb free when doing basic stuff. Also I wanted the option of going with 2 apple monitors instead of one in the future and more ram and better chip will make performance smooth.
Click to expand...
Bit the bullet today. Purchased a 14" MBP with the 14/30-core M3 Max in the Space Black color.

Very zippy machine. My 10-core M1 Pro was no slouch, but my Windows 11 ARM Parallels virtual machine is noticeably faster on the new machine.

Also couldn't help myself and bought a 3rd Studio Display. I mean, the new MBP supports more external displays than my M1 Pro did...! May as well make use of it!
 
A

aj_niner

Suspended
Dec 24, 2023
360
373
I think this largely depends on your use case, personal income or your employer's device policy.
 
Lucas Curious

Lucas Curious

macrumors 6502a
Nov 30, 2020
596
766
xraydoc said:
Bit the bullet today. Purchased a 14" MBP with the 14/30-core M3 Max in the Space Black color.

Very zippy machine. My 10-core M1 Pro was no slouch, but my Windows 11 ARM Parallels virtual machine is noticeably faster on the new machine.

Also couldn't help myself and bought a 3rd Studio Display. I mean, the new MBP supports more external displays than my M1 Pro did...! May as well make use of it!
Click to expand...
I only have 1 of those displays. how do two run using stuff like photoshop or Davinchi Resolve? any lag? any lag with 3 and ram hungry software?
 
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