MacBook Pro 16" or 2026 Windows laptop?

[pshufd]

I think a problem with Windows laptops is that they ship with 8GB VRAM and if we want to upgrade the GPU to have 16GB, the cost goes up significantly like 2-3 times of the configuration with 8GB.

Hopefully the sales proceeds of the old GPU defers costs of the new ones.

 

[diamond.g]

Hopefully the sales proceeds of the old GPU defers costs of the new ones.

I remember the glut of used crypto mining gpu's.

 

[Steve Adams]

I remember the glut of used crypto mining gpu's.

Me too. Thats when I was buying my workstation. I wanted to build a beast system for myself and the price of the GPU was more than I got my entire dell xps workstation for. The gps I was looking at was 2599 at the time and I got my entire base system for 2399. I made the necessary upgrades to my system and it's running great 5 years later.

 

[dblissmn]

If I recall correctly, MacOS supports Mac up to 5? years old. So we need to buy a now-more expensive computer every 5 years or risk security risk. It was OK for me as I usually trade-in MacBook Pro in a shorter period of time. Given the increased cost, after this year's purchase I may buy the next computer 5+ years later. At least Windows and Linux support older computers so require less frequent purchase.

Supposing that OLED and fan noise are no longer an issue, the only issue is MS's integration of AI in Windows?

This has varied sharply and seems to have ebbed and flowed with the changes in hardware engineering. Some of the Intel models from the early Core2Duo era retained support for a very long time, on the other hand late Intel models are losing support somewhat quickly, and if we go way back to the PowerMac G4, earlier releases of the G4 retained support for a lot longer than later ones did because all they really did with the later ones was boost bus speed; they all ran into the same bottleneck with the Intel transition at the same time. Some of the shortest support windows went to the very expensive PowerMac G5 for the same reason, to add insult to the injury of liquid-cooled heatsinks that leaked. Conversely I have very high hopes for long-term support on the M5 for example because of how broadly hardware support for matrix math pervades the processors. I think rather like the original CoreDuo from 2006 and 2007, M1 and M2 Apple Silicon may be in a bind because of how limited that matrix math support is on those machines and that's a barrier for Metal graphics support and for on-device, off-network, local AI.

 

[pshufd]

I have an iMac Pro which launched in 2017 and runs on Xeon processors. The last operating system it received was Sequoia in 2024. So seven years of macOS feature updates. Apple usually provides security updates for three years after the initial release date so I can expect security updates to end in fall 2027. Apple sometimes includes security updates beyond three years as in the case of Catalina and Big Sur which released in 2019 and 2020 respectively but both received a security update in 2026

So my iMac Pro should receive ten years of macOS support which is pretty good. The iMac Pro is on the high end of support.

 

[Steve Adams]

I have an iMac Pro which launched in 2017 and runs on Xeon processors. The last operating system it received was Sequoia in 2024. So seven years of macOS feature updates. Apple usually provides security updates for three years after the initial release date so I can expect security updates to end in fall 2027. Apple sometimes includes security updates beyond three years as in the case of Catalina and Big Sur which released in 2019 and 2020 respectively but both received a security update in 2026

So my iMac Pro should receive ten years of macOS support which is pretty good. The iMac Pro is on the high end of support.

Too bad the Mac Pro uber expensive systems weren't.

 

[pshufd]

Too bad the Mac Pro uber expensive systems weren't.

It looks like the 2019 Mac Pro gets nine years of support.

I would agree that that is unfair. But I imagine Apple wants to drop what likely is a significant software maintenance load for an architecture.

 

[Steve Adams]

It looks like the 2019 Mac Pro gets nine years of support.

I would agree that that is unfair. But I imagine Apple wants to drop what likely is a significant software maintenance load for an architecture.

They are un supported now. From what I understand is that they are done with updates etc to the intel systems. That includes the MacPro.