avg CPU about 37-40C when just browsing the web high or low power. Sometimes spike to 45 depending on what on the page.
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M3 Max Low-Power Mode is INSANE
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Spot on. BUT if that is my use case, which it is. I've been a chrome addict for years, the M3 Pro runs 7-10°C cooler and possibly 1-2 hours longer battery life with 300 tabs open than the M3 Max.
I'm not about to change my habits any time soon, so it goes into my thought process for which one.
M3 Max = bigger chip = whatever you do with software trickery, it will always use more battery than a smaller chip (M3 Pro)
*FYI I run the display always on 600nits, sometimes 140% that (using tools that jack up the brightness even more, because I am sitting outside). I do actual work (whatching youtube ain't), the battery nets me max 6h when the display is 140% (assuming around 1100 nits)
I know you have been here for a long time [longer than me, and that includes my original profile that got mysteriously cancelled], so I trust what you are saying here
I didnt think about testing the low power mode when I was testing a the M3 max.
Good to know it means a cooler chassis - this is one of my issues with the M1 Max - gets hot on the lap, so better performance and coolness sounds great.
You can even set up a shortcut to automatically enable low power mode when on battery - and toggle it off from the menubar as needed. Hardly micromanaging.
Know your use case, I suppose. If benchmarking is your use case, off you go! If portability is paramount (and who would I be to tell you whether battery life should be your primary determinant of laptop use?) then know that the M3Pro is vastly superior to the M3Max. Which shouldn’t catch anybody off guard. Personally, the fact that my M1Max has identical function whether tethered to a wall or running free is the first time I don’t feel compromised by using a laptop. But there are niggles which I don’t have on my Mac mini (they’re minimal but my character flaw is Quick to Annoy™ and laptops just spend their lives annoying me…) and I look forward to the day when I can replace my MBPro with a Mac Studio. Or not. As circumstances allow…
Power consumption varies with the square of clock speed, so probably not. If low power mode just turns off cores then still probably not, dual core did not double the speed of results due to the overhead of managing both cores.
You're right in principle, but reality is that for most people, they do work in bursts. I click a link and suddenly my browser does abunch of work and moments later it's back to idling for awhile
The point only holds if you're running some big job, like video encoding, that goes from 60m to 30m, and then they turn the machine off. But for the typical user, we're talking about turning their ~3m/hour of burst activity into 6m. And the other 54m are now significantly more efficient. (illustrative numbers)
People wanted apple to tune high power more aggressively, they do and then everyone is up in arms about it being hotter and draining more battery.
You can’t satisfy everyone all the time. Unless maybe if low power does its job, and high power does the same?
M3 is the generation where AS hits its second wind. 3d rendering is powerful enough, nomore nvidia skew. I will likely get a M3 Max, or Ultra, which should breathe down the neck of a 4080…
You can’t satisfy everyone all the time. Unless maybe if low power does its job, and high power does the same?
M3 is the generation where AS hits its second wind. 3d rendering is powerful enough, nomore nvidia skew. I will likely get a M3 Max, or Ultra, which should breathe down the neck of a 4080…
What are the tabs in google chrome. I have seen some sites and web apps using electron make MBA run hot.
We’re not talking about high power mode, which is good when needed. We’re talking about how the M3 Max variant seems to use more juice in normal mode vs. the M3 Pro variant this generation (which makes sense looking at the performance figures), but low power mode seems significantly better, so using that when on battery only seems like it would put aside a lot of people’s concerns with this Max variant. Although considering the M3 Pro performance is so close to the M2 Pro, I’m curious how long that 3nm chip can run on low power mode comparatively?
I’m curious to see if I can tinker with the settings in terminal to make it run at 120Hz when enabled on battery automatically, but I’m completely new to Apple Silicon with this upgrade and mine hasn’t arrived yet.
Even if it doesn’t, I’ve only had 120Hz on my iPad and iPhone Pro and honestly it doesn’t make a big difference to me. When docked it’s going to be used with 60Hz displays, and 120Hz never made as big of an impact on me as moving to retina displays did, and honestly not even close to the OLED/MiniLED upgrade. Sure, I can tell a difference, but it’s not significant to me personally for whatever reason. I’m the type to notice resolution and accurate color reproduction and contrast, having gone to college for and worked in design and photography jobs. I’m also used to console gaming which is 60fps if you’re lucky, often lower.
For most people, the delay is from the brain to the computer, and not actions that the computer does itself (i.e. rendering or compiling). If a person is using the MacBook Pro for mostly rendering, turning on low power mode will double the amount of time required to render (and logically shouldn't be used on low power mode). However, if a person has to complete some forms to justify a travel expense after that, low power mode should be used, since most of the time would be used to think of the words to use.
The base of both 14" Max laptops I've used would always get warmer than an equivalent Pro-chip laptop when just doing basic stuff. Not uncomfortably-so, but just noticeably warmer.
This! If you don't need M3 Max's added performance over the M3 Pro, then it really does not make sense to buy it. It's more expensive and less power efficient than M3 Pro when comparing them both low power mode off.
And if you're gonna to use it on low power mode all the time - what's the point? Just get M3 Pro which you can use even without low power mode and still get better battery runtime than M3 Max without low power mode. In normal usage scenario.
For me when I’m docked to my 27” I have it on high power mode. When I’m on battery I use low power mode or automatic. Works great for me this way. Everyone’s use case is different.
A lot of that is due to the design....I still think it's a mistake and a waste to run a Max chip in the 14" chassis. Fan noise is much worse and you have to deal with way more thermal throttling, which takes away from the entire point of having the full chip to begin with.