Mac Studio: M2 or M3?

[Boil]

The M3 Pro is a small bump (if at all) over the M2 Pro tho, so it may not be worth waiting for unless the next Mac Mini comes with other upgrades like Wifi 7, more ports, etc.

Don't remember if it was in these forums, or on the TechBoards.net Apple forums, or an article somewhere on the web; but I read something about how the M3 Pro was great for coding/programming, because the efficiency cores actually did a ton of the work while coding/programming; so while the M2 Pro / M3 Pro performance difference seemed small on paper or with synthetic benchmarks (usually aimed at a different sort of number crunching), the M3 Pro was outstanding for coding/programming...

But then, if the pricing is anything like the M2 Pro Mac mini versus the M2 Max Mac Studio, once on goes beyond the stock M2 Mac mini configuration (non-binned SoC & RAM upgrade), then the base M2 Max Mac Studio made more sense (more CPU & GPU cores, double the UMA bandwidth, 10Gb Ethernet)...

 

[crsh1976]

Don't remember if it was in these forums, or on the TechBoards.net Apple forums, or an article somewhere on the web; but I read something about how the M3 Pro was great for coding/programming, because the efficiency cores actually did a ton of the work while coding/programming; so while the M2 Pro / M3 Pro performance difference seemed small on paper or with synthetic benchmarks (usually aimed at a different sort of number crunching), the M3 Pro was outstanding for coding/programming...

The M3 Pro isn't a bad chip in any way, it's just a bit of a sidegrade compared to the M2 Pro - there are other advantages, namely power usage is down and this makes a difference in notebooks - I'm sure once the M3 variants start rolling out in desktop models tho, there will be advantages as well.

But then, if the pricing is anything like the M2 Pro Mac mini versus the M2 Max Mac Studio, once on goes beyond the stock M2 Mac mini configuration (non-binned SoC & RAM upgrade), then the base M2 Max Mac Studio made more sense (more CPU & GPU cores, double the UMA bandwidth, 10Gb Ethernet)...

Yep, I initially wanted to go with an upgraded M2 Pro mini until I saw it was more expensive than a base M2 Max Studio - which has better specs all 'round.

Apple is so treacherously good at making sure price ladders always upsell you the next model! My issue is that it feels weird getting a Studio for casual home use, feels like I'm wasting power - so it's either go with a base M2 Pro mini and forget about the upgrades, or splurge for a base Studio that has everything and more.

 

[magic_mouse_max]

Since you don't really need the GPU horsepower, maybe wait for the M3 Pro Mac mini...?

I don't mind getting another mini with the Pro chip, but based on the current M2 pricing, the mini + Pro chip costs almost as much as a Studio + Max chip.