Other Starting to appreciate some bits of the Intel-Mac era.

[eyoungren]

I guess anything in a computer can fail... I can't find any stats on the prevalence of RAM slot failure.

PowerBook G4 15" Lower-Memory-Slot Failure

Got a 15" PB today. After the first great impression about the 'Book' the disappointment followed really fast : the lower memory slot doesn't work. Searching for that issue I've found endless complaints about that hardware-problem. So either live with 1GB RAM in the upper slot or get rid of...

forums.macrumors.com

bottom RAM slot in my powerbook is fried

i attempted to use some ram by the brand name Infineon (it came from a thinkpad). it is CL 2.5, DDR2700, 512mb. same exact specs as the ram that came with my powerbook. so i turn the powerbook off, add the Infineon into the top slot. boot it up, seems to be working fine. check the system...

forums.macrumors.com

There was also a suggestion in a shorter version of threads I searched that linked to an Apple document about lower ram slot failure. Apparently the link no longer works so I can't include that.

 

[ric22]

PowerBook G4 15" Lower-Memory-Slot Failure

Got a 15" PB today. After the first great impression about the 'Book' the disappointment followed really fast : the lower memory slot doesn't work. Searching for that issue I've found endless complaints about that hardware-problem. So either live with 1GB RAM in the upper slot or get rid of...

forums.macrumors.com

bottom RAM slot in my powerbook is fried

i attempted to use some ram by the brand name Infineon (it came from a thinkpad). it is CL 2.5, DDR2700, 512mb. same exact specs as the ram that came with my powerbook. so i turn the powerbook off, add the Infineon into the top slot. boot it up, seems to be working fine. check the system...

forums.macrumors.com

There was also a suggestion in a shorter version of threads I searched that linked to an Apple document about lower ram slot failure. Apparently the link no longer works so I can't include that.

Thanks. That's a bit of a tiny sample size, likely voted on by people that found the thread on their ancient devices because they suffered that specific problem. It shows it was a thing, at least. RAM failures are more common, though, from my own experience at work and at home, and what I can find on Google.

 

[eyoungren]

Thanks. That's a bit of a tiny sample size, likely voted on by people that found the thread on their ancient devices because they suffered that specific problem. It shows it was a thing, at least. RAM failures are more common, though, from my own experience at work and at home, and what I can find on Google.

Yeah, small sample size and really as I understand it, only affected one or two particular models. But it mostly happened to the 15", which is why that's the most common reporting on it.

I've had more than one RAM stick fail, but have only ever dealt with one Mac with a bad ram slot. And computers have been in and out of my house since 1980.

 

[Frazzles]

I still use a top spec late 2013 MacBook Pro 15. With Opencore legacy patcher, a 4K monitor, webcam, 2 8TB externals, Mx master accessories it is the shiz

 

[progx]

I do realise. It's not a new practice, but it is anti-consumer and anti-environment. It's a particular annoyance to me as my last MacBook Air, which was otherwise perfectly fine, was an entire write-off because the RAM failed. What would once have been a 5 minute fix now meant 1kg of e-waste.

Problem is Apple's repair program when it comes to soldered RAM. There are so many people who are willing to fix, plus Apple isn't too gracious on it either. I agree, it's wasteful when they up and chuck the Mac. Then again, they might break down the parts and reuse them again.

 

[GMShadow]

Edit: Why would it be hellishly expensive to buy? It won't be- why would people buy it for servers if it was? It has to be economical to make sense. RAM is RAM- the active component is the same whether socketed or not?

You don't buy much for business, do you?

LPCAMMs aren't even a JEDEC standard yet. They also consume more power and space than on-package memory, which is what Apple uses everywhere now.

If they do actually get certified and come to market you might see these pop up on Dell's Precision line, and HP and Lenovo may give them a go on their portable workstations, but it won't be even a majority of systems.

Personally, I wouldn't be surprised if they don't see widespread adoption at all. The reality is business buyers make up the bulk of PC purchases these days, and business buyers don't do mid-ownership component upgrades. They buy what they need to last 3-5 years, with support coverage. If the PC doesn't have an issue, it'll be removed from service at whatever replacement timeframe and recycled. If it does, it'll be swapped out for another machine and the broken unit sent for service.


This is something 'tech' people always find hard to accept - the number of people interested in either buying a machine with low specs and upgrading at purchase, or in continuing to get more years out of an old machine with some new parts, is vanishingly low. Much of this is because most consumers primary computer is their phone, but I digress.

Everybody brings valid points more or less.

I believe the Intel MacBooks were the best looking laptops ever made, especially the 2016-2019. Unpopular opinion, but I believe we will miss Jony Ive. Yes, I am aware the 14 inch M1 Pro that I am typing on is basically 2008 unibody macbook design.

It does feel like the Mx MBP is in some respects a downgrade from my 2019 16", yes. Thicker, heavier, etc. While I know i9 users had some problems, the i7 units have largely been fine, and that machine really felt like it was the perfect balance of compromises - a return to a physical Esc key, a good keyboard, better thermals, but still closer to the Air in design, thickness, and weight.

 

[currocj]

I'll keep with Apple Silicon. It is pretty much better in almost every single way than intel version.

#1 improvement is no fan noise and little to no oppressive heat on the laptops!!!

 

[ric22]

You don't buy much for business, do you?

LPCAMMs aren't even a JEDEC standard yet. They also consume more power and space than on-package memory, which is what Apple uses everywhere now.

If they do actually get certified and come to market you might see these pop up on Dell's Precision line, and HP and Lenovo may give them a go on their portable workstations, but it won't be even a majority of systems.

Personally, I wouldn't be surprised if they don't see widespread adoption at all. The reality is business buyers make up the bulk of PC purchases these days, and business buyers don't do mid-ownership component upgrades. They buy what they need to last 3-5 years, with support coverage. If the PC doesn't have an issue, it'll be removed from service at whatever replacement timeframe and recycled. If it does, it'll be swapped out for another machine and the broken unit sent for service.


This is something 'tech' people always find hard to accept - the number of people interested in either buying a machine with low specs and upgrading at purchase, or in continuing to get more years out of an old machine with some new parts, is vanishingly low. Much of this is because most consumers primary computer is their phone, but I digress.



It does feel like the Mx MBP is in some respects a downgrade from my 2019 16", yes. Thicker, heavier, etc. While I know i9 users had some problems, the i7 units have largely been fine, and that machine really felt like it was the perfect balance of compromises - a return to a physical Esc key, a good keyboard, better thermals, but still closer to the Air in design, thickness, and weight.

When you work for a company that only buys Apple products it kinda takes the brainpower requirement away from purchasing decisions. 😅 All I know about the current RAM situation is what I read in a few recent articles, so if they bullsh*tted for whatever reason then I was mislead. I can't see what they'd gain from it, though.

The price comment I made remains valid, however- lifetime energy savings would have to outweigh the added cost, otherwise why the hell would server managers invest in LPDDR, assuming performance and durability are otherwise equal??

Edit: You stated: "They also consume more power and space than on-package memory"
A)The space difference is tiny enough to be irrelevant in something the size of a MacBook Pro.
B)What's the supposed power difference here? ~1%? Got any evidence to suggest it's anything more significant, assuming the RAM is the same? Claims of energy savings online all seem to be comparing on die LPDDR5 to socketed DDR5, which isn't a fair comparison.

 

[mikelets456]

I have a 2015 Intel MacBook Pro with a quad core i7 2.2 ghz processor and I updated to and Intel 1TB Ssd . I’m running Sonoma 14.2.1 with OCLP and using as my work computer. It’s fast and is a workhorse. Far fewer problems than my 2017 Lenovo quad core i5.

Also, I bought a pristine 2012 iMac i5 quad core for $55 and it has 16 gb ram and a 500 gb Ssd. My wife uses it and it is also running Sonoma 14.2.1 with OCLP..not a single slowdown or hiccup.

For what we’re using these for I hope to keep using them for another 2-3 years. Not ready or interested in spending $1500 to do what I’m doing now for $55.

 

[JinxVi]

I’m not suggesting. I’m stating early Intel Macs, in particular (and speaking overall), were solidly built systems.

So you have no evidence whatsoever, just a blurred memory of systems which melted under their own heat and came with ridiculously frail white cables, which dissolved from their own plasticizer. During the entire Intel era no Mac came with proper heat management despite using so-called mobile CPUs.

Retina MacBook Pros, with very noted exception, fall in the “Late” Intel Macs camp.

And they are no longer economically repairable, if the display cable is broken. A new Retina display exceeds the remaining value of a MBP and so 'Headless' MacBooks became a thing.

Extensibility with tech products was once a powerful selling point — one of bona fide value to the end-user.

You're thinking about a PC tower, not a Mac. The Macintosh always wanted to be a sealed appliance with everything already integrated. This approach just didn't work very well for as long as the internal bus was much faster than external ports. Not only do we now have Thunderbolt 3 ports on every Mac, we have integrated SoCs with unified memory and neural engines and what not. Finally Apple can built thin and light laptops without any compromise or performance penalty. Basically Intel Macs tried to be something, which they could never achieve − to be small and light mobile computers. They came flawed right out of the factory.

Their components were and are, broadly, replaceable, if not also upgradeable.

And this hindered their progress in both performance and efficiency. Only by tighter integration you can make the whole architecture more power-efficient and more powerful. And so we finally arrived at MacBook Airs who no longer need a fan or any moving parts.

Their components weren’t paired cryptographically, needlessly so and to the consequential detriment of consumers stuck with them.

Yes pairing hinders repairability, but I highlighted Retina MBPs in particular because you couldn't afford to repair them even before the displays were paired to the logic board.

Vendors responsible for manufacturing the components, if in need of replacing, aren’t blocked contractually (by sheer force of Apple’s unchecked corporate might) from selling those to anyone, anywhere, anytime, other than to Apple.

Apple has no might, the EU will enforce a right to repair in no time. Those contracts were always illegal and unenforceable in a real market economy. This nuisance doesn't change the generational difference between old and new technology regarding their durability and repairability. Every transistor radio and motorbike has made the same development as the technology matured from experimental to advanced. And you wouldn't claim a modern radio is less durable, albeit it is basically unrepairable now.

And, much to Apple of the 2020s’ chagrin, many of those older Intel Macs can and do hold their own, quite remarkably, to the computing demands presented right now in the mid ’20s.

No, they are not. Intel Macs only have a comparably high longevity when you compare them to even earlier PowerPC Macs. But when you compare them to Apple Silicon Macs, which no longer have any moving parts in them, their longevity is poor. Lots of graphic cards failures, which people tried to heal by baking logic boards in their oven. No HDD survived for more than a decade. Static electricity was a dust magnet, you had to regularly clean the insides of your computer and apply new heat paste to the CPU while you're at it. Just like early cars, early Intel Macs required constant maintenance.

The chagrin comes from knowing the cycle of product turnaround they stress, for their shareholders’ benefit, is entirely synthetic, if not also coercive.

No, it's not entirely synthetic and profit driven. There's an underlying process every technology goes through as it matures. Which begs the question, why don't you built your own transistor radio or drive one of the old cars, which dad could repair himself?

We ought to talk again in, say, about eleven years when you‘re still using your current Silicon Mac daily driver as your daily driver in, say, 2035.

This very debate will come up at least half a dozen times every year, until the proponents of Intel Macs have moved on and we have an entirely new debate about the benefits of running early Apple Silicon Macs versus later Apple Silicon Macs. And no doubt someone will identify corporate greed as the reason for a perceived technological regress. I can already hear them saying: Tim Cook would roll in his grave, if he knew what his successors did to the Mac in 2035.

 

[B S Magnet]

So you have no evidence whatsoever, just a blurred memory of systems which melted under their own heat and came with ridiculously frail white cables, which dissolved from their own plasticizer. During the entire Intel era no Mac came with proper heat management despite using so-called mobile CPUs.

The evidence unfolds in what runs 24/7 around my home. The evidence is in the work shared here by dosdude1 and eyoungren and many more of us. All else contained by your catty reply is… creative, to put it nicely.

And they are no longer economically repairable, if the display cable is broken. A new Retina display exceeds the remaining value of a MBP and so 'Headless' MacBooks became a thing.

If I wanted a headless MBP, I would have bought a Mac mini and a designated, standalone display. C‘est assez simple.

If I wanted an appliance, I would have bought a Roomba.

You're thinking… [snip] tl;dr:

I am. Constantly. I am thinking about entire life cycles, including interlinked social costs, ecological costs, and postponed economic costs around end-of-materials-life disposal, recovery, and re-entry into new product lives. I understand, for some, this level of thinking provokes a headache. Seems many with the Silicon appliance pom-poms here are not doing the thinking (or, worse, letting Apple do the thinking for them and trusting in belief — and little else — that Apple are “recycling” their unloved, forced-irreparable Macs, whose devolved raw materials are destined to be, truly and cleanly, recycled into new uses, easy-peasy).

It’s cool. That is your wont. But this is the EIM forum. Comport yourself accordingly as a guest, just as we should on the Silicon Macs forum.

And I ask you to do the same: to think.

Not in the span of making some empty, knee-jerk reply, but long-term, ongoing, in-back-of-mind as you go about your days. I challenge you to keep using that vaunted Silicon Mac of yours, non-stop, for eleven more years. Then we’ll pick up where I’m leaving you on this final response.

In those coming eleven years, I have a homework assignment for you:

Go to a nearby facility which, successfully, recycles all the e-waste from dumped, un-upgradeable “““appliances””” known as “Mac computers” (tablets, phones, laptops, desktops, watches). Follow where all the parted materials go. Can’t find any? Arrange to find where the intermodal container full of e-waste from your region gets shipped, then travel to the destination point to see how locals handle it.

Go ahead. I’m patient. I should anticipate a thorough review from you on that, with attached photos and peer-reviewed citations aplenty. I look forward to it. Until then, there is nothing more to discuss between us.

 

[throAU]

Because they can’t.

Very few people were upgrading machines before they became non-upgradeable. At least not the original owners. Re-sold machines may have been upgraded by the new owner, but really, after 4-5 years non-upgradable things become an issue anyway (things like CPU instruction support for things like video codecs and encryption, vulnerabilities, USB bus standard, battery life, etc.).

I own 3 Intel Macs as well as the 14".

 

[B S Magnet]

Very few people were upgrading machines before they became non-upgradeable.

Supporting, verifiable citations invited and welcomed!

Suggestion: start with polling OWC’s customer base over the span of years — if, that is, they’ll share that anonymized customer data with you.

At least not the original owners. Re-sold machines may have been upgraded by the new owner, but really, after 4-5 years non-upgradable things become an issue anyway (things like CPU instruction support for things like video codecs and encryption, vulnerabilities, USB bus standard, battery life, etc.).

The room. This room. Read it.

I own 3 Intel Macs as well as the 14".

Neat.

 

[SouthPalito]

Nah.. I still have my 2018 i7 mini with 16 gB ram.. does it work? Yes. but no way I’d switch back to it after using my m1 pro .

 

[nathansz]

not a really Mac but still running macOS on intel

i7-14700k, rx6800 and 32 GB 6000mhz ram

Sonoma runs like a dream and I can also boot windows, linux and bsd

 

[thingstoponder]

I have a 2020 5k iMac and an M1 mini and think the iMac is great. It might be a slow slower in basic usage but not much. I still think that iMac was the best bang for buck Mac ever sold, at least in my lifetime.

I assume for laptops it’s a different story with reduced heat and battery life. I still haven’t got a new MacBook.

 

[_Spook_]

It’s completely useless to not upgrade to Apple Silicon, the benefits from Dan’s videos speak for themselves.

However, if you’re like me and you use windows/intel specific apps, then the Apple Silicon is a huge problem!

I use 3d studio max (and Vray) for most of my work, Intel Mac’s made it possible to keep in the Apple echo system - which I love and prefer. My issue is, eventually my top spec last version of the 27” iMac will not meet the needs of my software, what then? I’m not going to have two separate computers, will my nearly two decades of Apple loyalty be over? I’m sure there are countless people like myself in similar situations…

 

[JinxVi]

The evidence unfolds in what runs 24/7 around my home.

Anecdotal. And I'm probably supposed to believe that non of your Intel Macs ever needed a repair you've already forgotten about.

If I wanted a headless MBP, I would have bought a Mac mini and a designated, standalone display. C‘est assez simple.

Nobody wants a headless MBP. It's what happens because of the inherent irreparability of more advanced and expensive tech.

If I wanted an appliance, I would have bought a Roomba.

If you didn't want an appliance, you would've bought a Linux PC. But you fell for Apple's ease of use approach to computer design. Now you're stuck in their world shaped by their priorities. And tinkering with the innards of a Mac is not something that Apple encourages. You can lament the fact that the Mac is what it is, but you can't change it.

I am thinking about entire life cycles, including interlinked social costs, ecological costs, and postponed economic costs around end-of-materials-life disposal, recovery, and re-entry into new product lives.

Yadda-yadda-yadda. There's the Framework laptop for those who claim to care about the environment. Put your money where your mouth is and buy that one! A Mac is an appliance and you bought it, because you wanted it.

And I ask you to do the same: to think.

Not in the span of making some empty, knee-jerk reply, but long-term, ongoing, in-back-of-mind as you go about your days. I challenge you to keep using that vaunted Silicon Mac of yours, non-stop, for eleven more years. Then we’ll pick up where I’m leaving you on this final response.

Not much of a challenge. I wont even shut it down for more than a minute over the entire time. A decade passes in the blink of an eye and you can foresee later problems by the noise and heat a computer makes right from the beginning.

I have a homework assignment for you: Go to a nearby facility which, successfully, recycles all the e-waste from dumped, un-upgradeable “““appliances””” known as “Mac computers” (tablts, phones, laptops, desktops, Apple Watches). Follow where all the parted materials go. ... I should anticipate a thorough review from you on that, with attached photos and peer-reviewed citations aplenty. I look forward to it.

That's easy. I never ever threw away a single Apple product. I've kept them all in the drawer. But I've carried at least half a dozen Windows PCs to recycling. All large and heavy modular towers with no resale value. Some had two optical drives to copy from one disk to another. But Apple has not only replaced all my countless PCs, alarm clocks, cameras, walkmans, cd-players, video recorders, dictaphones, gps and even TVs. Today I'm doing everything on a Mac or an iPhone. I've yet to buy my first Apple watch, cause there's a clock right on the iPhone lock screen. Right next to the flash light, which I also don't buy separate.

My e-wast is about one-tenth of what it was in the 90s. But nature is doomed anyway and its resources are consumed faster than ever by developing economies like China. There's no hope to escape climate change, food poisoning and dating apps. We couldn't even avert a war with Russia. Humans are incredibly bad at prioritizing and tackling their problems in order of severity.

 

[B S Magnet]

not a really Mac but still running macOS on intel

i7-14700k, rx6800 and 32 GB 6000mhz ram

Sonoma runs like a dream and I can also boot windows, linux and bsd

You are liable to get many, maaaany years of solid use from your setup — particularly as you’re able to upgrade components within. Your CO₂-equivalent footprint, with CO₂ in-usage included, goes way, waaaay down relative to the person next to you buying a new appliance-oriented Mac every 2–4 years.

Downside, where macOS is concerned (which you know already):

Sonoma, or the next rushed iteration of macOS, is liable to be the last to run on Intel architecture. Minor upside: you’ll have three years with it, plus however long the applications you use within it support Sonoma (or the final version, if not Sonoma). That will probably grant you another 3–4 years, give or take.

Second upside: you have all the other operating environments from which to pick and which will be maintained, particularly Linux and BSD.

Third upside: your avatar gives your system 2.2 per cent longer life. ↙️↙️↙️

:buzzbuzzbuzz.

Your reading comprehension needs a great deal of improvement.

Case in point: you didn’t heed the last thing I wrote to you. Now we head down this completely avoidable path…

Lates.

 

[crazy dave]

When you work for a company that only buys Apple products it kinda takes the brainpower requirement away from purchasing decisions. 😅 All I know about the current RAM situation is what I read in a few recent articles, so if they bullsh*tted for whatever reason then I was mislead. I can't see what they'd gain from it, though.

The price comment I made remains valid, however- lifetime energy savings would have to outweigh the added cost, otherwise why the hell would server managers invest in LPDDR, assuming performance and durability are otherwise equal??

Edit: You stated: "They also consume more power and space than on-package memory"
A)The space difference is tiny enough to be irrelevant in something the size of a MacBook Pro.
B)What's the supposed power difference here? ~1%? Got any evidence to suggest it's anything more significant, assuming the RAM is the same? Claims of energy savings online all seem to be comparing on die LPDDR5 to socketed DDR5, which isn't a fair comparison.

I think LPCAMM is really neat but as Anandtech said it isn't really a solution for soldered memory on things like Apple Silicon where the memory isn't soldered to the mainboard but soldered to the package for further space and efficiency gains.

Modular LPDDR Memory Becomes A Reality: Samsung Introduces LPCAMM Memory Modules

www.anandtech.com

Further this upcoming generation isn't really capable of replacing the soldered memory on Apple Silicon for bandwidth reasons. Samsung is only shipping a minimum of 32GB of RAM on a 128bit bus. But that's both too much and not enough to service Apple's needs. On something like the Max you'd need 3 to 4 of these CAMMs to get the required bandwidth. That would make the minimum RAM capacity of a computer with a Max chip 96-128GB! In order to replace soldered RAM on a system like Apple's they'd need to make much smaller, more energy efficient CAMMs with like 8GB on a 128bit bus. Maybe future generations of the technology will get there. But it isn't there yet. I mean have at it for soldered SSDs when Apple clearly could offer the exact same system without soldering it a la the Mac Pro/Studio, but soldered RAM really is a different beast. To do what Apple does (and what Apple does here provides a huge and unique benefit), there really isn't another option.

 

[JinxVi]

You are liable to get many, maaaany years of solid use from your setup — particularly as you’re able to upgrade components within. Your CO₂-equivalent footprint, with CO₂ in-usage included, goes way, waaaay down relative to the person next to you buying a new appliance-oriented Mac every 2–4 years.

Yeah, let's pretend Macs have a shorter lifespan than even Windows PCs. Why backup that 2-4 years claim, when you can make it the premise for a bogus CO₂ footprint accusation?

Now we head down this completely avoidable path…

View attachment 2332883

Looks like I'm a B S repellent. 😂

Good luck saving the planet by running old Intel Macs, which have literally 10× the energy consumption of ARM-based SoCs.

 

[GMShadow]

Very few people were upgrading machines before they became non-upgradeable. At least not the original owners. Re-sold machines may have been upgraded by the new owner, but really, after 4-5 years non-upgradable things become an issue anyway (things like CPU instruction support for things like video codecs and encryption, vulnerabilities, USB bus standard, battery life, etc.).

I own 3 Intel Macs as well as the 14".

Fully agree, but there’s always been a subset of folks who either cannot grasp, or refuse to grasp, that their personal experience does not match reality.

Supporting, verifiable citations invited and welcomed!

Suggestion: start with polling OWC’s customer base over the span of years — if, that is, they’ll share that anonymized customer data with you.

We don’t have to poll anyone. Take a look on eBay sometime to see how much PowerPC accelerator cards go for (assuming any are even listed). You think those prices are a function of demand, or supply?

 

[eyoungren]

It’s completely useless to not upgrade to Apple Silicon, the benefits from Dan’s videos speak for themselves.

One of the things I hate most is to be included in a group that I did not ask to be in, nor was I asked to be in. Assumptions are/were made and I got included because of those assumptions.

So, here's my problem. "It's completely useless to not upgrade to Apple Silicon…"

Completely useless to whom? You? This Dan you speak of that I have never heard about until today? Why does Dan care? Why do you care? Do you know what I use my Intel Macs for? Do you assume I use my Intel Macs in the same way as you do? Does Dan?

What if I use my Intel Macs differently than you do? What if I use them differently than Dan does? Do I need an Apple Silicon Mac to browse the internet? How about to use Adobe InDesign CC21? Photoshop CC21?

How about to do a bunch of other things my Intel Macs already do?

Can you see why making absolutist assumptions here is bad? I got included in this group without being asked. Dan sure as heck didn't ask me. But Dan (and you?) assume to know what is best for me? Just because?

Sorry…don't include me here. I reject any automatic inclusion in the group of everyone. It is NOT completely useless. My Intel Macs work and do everything I need/require of them. And if that blows a hole in this absolutist theory that includes everyone by default, well…sorry to Dan. Maybe he should ask around before assuming I'm included in his assumptions.

 

[nathansz]

Downside, where macOS is concerned (which you know already):

Sonoma, or the next rushed iteration of macOS, is liable to be the last to run on Intel architecture.

Indeed, I just put this build together fully aware that Sonoma could be the last macos it will run.

I did this even though macos is my primary os

 

[theorist9]

I still use my personal 2019 27" i9 iMac as my main computing device over my work-provided M1 Pro MBP, because I need the higher RAM for my consulting work, and love the iMac's beautifully sharp large display (I haven't tried using my iMac as an external display for my M1 with AirPlay, but I've read that results in lag and compromised sharpness; but I'll probably try it out at some point). Plus I'd have to give up my current setup, which has three large monitors, and which I'm considering expanding to a fourth. With the M1 Pro, I'd be left with two externals plus a laptop display, which may not be quite enough space (the M1 can drive only two externals).

All of that could be fixed with a high-RAM Mac Studio plus an ASD, but that would currently mean an Ultra, which would be a waste, since I'd be getting it over the Max just for the RAM. Thus I was waiting until either my RAM requirements went down, or the Max Studio became available with higher RAM options—which will be the case with the M3.

For now, while the iMac can get noisy, it's sufficiently infrequent that I can live with it.

The upgradeabillity of the older Macs was nice. I remember upgrading my G5 tower when we needed more RAM for our computations, and upgrading my 2011 MBP from a spinning disk to an SSD. But RAM is no longer upgradeable on Macs for various technological reasons, and storage is no longer upgradeable for business ones.