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hajime

macrumors 604
Original poster
Jul 23, 2007
7,832
1,266
Hi, some of us had been waiting for the M3 series MacBook Pro since last Fall due to the expected better performance, better battery life, higher efficiency with less heat and noise. However, from the following video, it seems to be worse than predecessors. So what is wrong? I have not tried the M3 series Mac yet so I cannot verify the contents in this video.

 
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JPack

macrumors G5
Mar 27, 2017
12,749
23,789
Expectations were too high on M3, even after A17 came out and tempered expectations. TSMC N3 isn't magic.

A video about 10% performance over M2 is boring. He has to come up with problems to attract clicks.

If you're still on Intel, it's time to switch. If you're using M1 or M2, wait for M4.
 

Elusi

macrumors regular
Oct 26, 2023
181
379
Hehe.. Sorry Macrumors editorial staff but I'm going to throw some shade your way.

Remember all articles that touched on the "M3" earlier this year on this site.

"The M3 chip is expected to be built on TSMC's 3nm process, resulting in significant performance and power efficiency improvements."

Example articles with this or very similar lines:

Really you can go through the archive and click any story from the first half of this year that is about M3 and you'll find this on most I reckon. I clicked on the first three I found and they all had the line.

Pretty much every time they mentioned the M3 they left this line in. Even though industry rumors kept indicating that the N3B-node wasn't all that good, and even TSMC themselves having a modest claim of just 10-15% at the same power envelope of a 5nm chip. Add to that that SRAM wouldn't shrink that much and it was given that there wouldn't be a second Apple Silicon revolution.

But bloggers be bloggers.

Closer to launch I believe Macrumors stopped with this line in their articles. I think the negative 3nm rumors had started piling on more and more. But the hype was already built. Now you're disappointed because tech-bloggers and youtubers lied to you. Not Apple, not TSMC. Just a manufactured hype train that de-railed.

Should have skipped calling the M2 a stop-gap.
 

JinxVi

Suspended
Dec 13, 2023
87
107
Hi, some of us had been waiting for the M3 series MacBook Pro since last Fall due to the expected better performance, better battery life, higher efficiency with less heat and noise. However, from the following video, it seems to be worse than predecessors. So what is wrong?
What's wrong is to expect everything all at once. Noise, heat and battery life are much better on 3nm, assuming you don't increase the clock speed for more single core performance. There are fewer electrons pushed around per cycle, but more cycles per seconds.

M1: E-cores 2.06 GHz & P-cores 3.2 GHz
M2: E-cores 2.4 GHz & P-cores 3.5 GHz
M3: E-cores 2.75 GHz & P-cores 4.05 GHz
 
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bobcomer

macrumors 601
May 18, 2015
4,949
3,693
There's nothing wrong. It looks like they focused more on performance than efficiency this time. They also adjusted their lineup to push up sales on the more expensive models by limiting the cheaper versions so much. (which Apple shareholders probably like, but I'm not a shareholder)

Now taking a fan out of the cheapest 14", that's unforgivable. More fan = slower fan speeds = quieter and faster. They should also come with 12G-16G RAM minimum.

Meanwhile, I'm looking for a better spec'd M3 iMac. A pro chip with at least 32G of RAM is what I want next. (24" monitor is good) I could retire my 27" iMac and M2 Pro Mini at the same time. :)
 

KPOM

macrumors P6
Oct 23, 2010
18,176
8,081
Now taking a fan out of the cheapest 14", that's unforgivable. More fan = slower fan speeds = quieter and faster. They should also come with 12G-16G RAM minimum.

Remember the M3 MacBook Pro replaced the 13” MacBook Pro, which also had one fan. It runs the M3 chip that will likely be included in the next MacBook Air that doesn’t even have a fan.
 
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bobcomer

macrumors 601
May 18, 2015
4,949
3,693
Remember the M3 MacBook Pro replaced the 13” MacBook Pro, which also had one fan. It runs the M3 chip that will likely be included in the next MacBook Air that doesn’t even have a fan.
I know what it replaced. Less fan is just inexcusable to me, don't want it again, ever. I ordered an M1 MBA on day 1, we didn't get along at all...
 

ChrisA

macrumors G5
Jan 5, 2006
12,610
1,746
Redondo Beach, California
These eBay idiots have just one reason to make videos, to make you click in the thumbnail.

YouTube creates a huge conflict of interest when they pay people. The pay is based on the number of views, not the quality of the content. So people like this guy will produce attention-catching junk.

As for the difference between M2 and M3, you should not expect much. Each new generation going forward (m4, m5, m6...) will provide only a small incremental improvement of a few percent.
 

Rafterman

Contributor
Apr 23, 2010
7,157
8,613
If you're still on Intel, it's time to switch. If you're using M1 or M2, wait for M4.

As much as I hated the switch from Intel (like running Windows 64 bit natively or in a VM), the Mx chips have brought so much to the table. Like being able to run iPad apps (more vendors are taking advantage of it now).

I caved and bought an M3 Max/48GB/1TB (space black of course) and it's prety amazing. I tried a Dell XPS (even maxed it out on my own with 64GB/12TB storage - love that about Windows machines, upgrading it). And it was a great machine, if looking for a Windows device, the XPS is pretty solid, with its Nvidia 4060 card, but I am a Mac guy now, couldn't get into Windows.
 
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macduke

macrumors G5
Jun 27, 2007
13,199
19,854
Hehe.. Sorry Macrumors editorial staff but I'm going to throw some shade your way.

Remember all articles that touched on the "M3" earlier this year on this site.

"The M3 chip is expected to be built on TSMC's 3nm process, resulting in significant performance and power efficiency improvements."

Example articles with this or very similar lines:

Really you can go through the archive and click any story from the first half of this year that is about M3 and you'll find this on most I reckon. I clicked on the first three I found and they all had the line.

Pretty much every time they mentioned the M3 they left this line in. Even though industry rumors kept indicating that the N3B-node wasn't all that good, and even TSMC themselves having a modest claim of just 10-15% at the same power envelope of a 5nm chip. Add to that that SRAM wouldn't shrink that much and it was given that there wouldn't be a second Apple Silicon revolution.

But bloggers be bloggers.

Closer to launch I believe Macrumors stopped with this line in their articles. I think the negative 3nm rumors had started piling on more and more. But the hype was already built. Now you're disappointed because tech-bloggers and youtubers lied to you. Not Apple, not TSMC. Just a manufactured hype train that de-railed.

Should have skipped calling the M2 a stop-gap.

I think you're thinking about the M3 Pro, which Apple gimped on purpose to better differentiate their processor line. It's not a bad chip, they just spaced things out more.

The M3 Max is a significant performance increase over the M2 Max. They cranked it so high that there aren't really power efficiency improvements, although if you run it in low power mode, you see those efficiency gains as it runs at about the same speed as the M2 Max while using way less power. The fans hardly ever come on in my M3 Max, and when they do it's only for a few minutes while it chews through an export or something, which it does incredibly fast.

During my workday of mixed performance and office use and lots of multitasking, I typically have about 20% left at the end of the day. That's plenty for me, and all that means is that it can get me through my workday until it drops down to 80% original capacity, in which case my AppleCare+ kicks in and they replace the battery. And usually during my workday I can leave it plugged in anyway. For me it's perfect because I can do my entire workday while traveling without ever needing to plug in. I work remotely, and I can work while traveling for personal reasons without needing to take additional time off, so that saves me vacation time.
 
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mr_roboto

macrumors 6502a
Sep 30, 2020
777
1,668
Now taking a fan out of the cheapest 14", that's unforgivable. More fan = slower fan speeds = quieter and faster.
I know what it replaced. Less fan is just inexcusable to me, don't want it again, ever. I ordered an M1 MBA on day 1, we didn't get along at all...
Describing it as a "removal" is insane.

M1/M2 generation: You could buy a 13.3" Touchbar MBP with the base M1 or M2 chip, or a 14" MBP with M1/M2 Pro/Max

M3 generation: 13.3" chassis is gone. 14" now has three tiers of SoC: base M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max

In other words, they introduced a new cheaper tier of 14" because they retired the 13". It doesn't need two fans because base M-series chips have never needed two fans.
 

SSSH_ASS

Suspended
Dec 14, 2023
6
10
Hi, some of us had been waiting for the M3 series MacBook Pro since last Fall due to the expected better performance, better battery life, higher efficiency with less heat and noise. However, from the following video, it seems to be worse than predecessors. So what is wrong? I have not tried the M3 series Mac yet so I cannot verify the contents in this video.

People falling for clickbait is the problem. Machines are fine.
 

leman

macrumors Core
Oct 14, 2008
19,319
19,336
"The M3 chip is expected to be built on TSMC's 3nm process, resulting in significant performance and power efficiency improvements."

And it did deliver both. M3 CPU gains around 500 GB6 points at the same power consumption. That’s better than Apples transition from 7nm to 5nm.

The problem is that a significant portion of population somehow magically expected 2x performance at half the power consumption, so they ended up inevitably disappointed. But this rhetorics of M3 or N3 being underwhelming is completely nonsensical.
 

okkibs

macrumors 6502a
Sep 17, 2022
963
893
Hi, some of us had been waiting for the M3 series MacBook Pro since last Fall due to the expected better performance, better battery life
...and they delivered on that. The models with the base M3 chip even have significant battery life improvements. You won't find any other brand laptop that can do over 20 hours in the same form factor whilst also sporting M3-type performance and a 1600 nits peak brightness display panel. Where Apple missed the mark is base M3 chip models pricing, for $1599 you could previously get M1/M2 Pro models with 16GiB of RAM from retailers and now for the same money Apple is trying to sell the base chip with the memory halfed. That's what's wrong with these Macs.
 

dmr727

macrumors G4
Dec 29, 2007
10,455
5,248
NYC
Meanwhile Intel is releasing Meteor Lake with slower single-core performance than the generation before it.

Perhaps the real problem is that YouTube clickbait videos have created hordes of entitled consumers?
 

leman

macrumors Core
Oct 14, 2008
19,319
19,336
Meanwhile Intel is releasing Meteor Lake with slower single-core performance than the generation before it.

Perhaps the real problem is that YouTube clickbait videos have created hordes of entitled consumers?

Is this the first time in the industry that a core on a smaller node is slower than essentially the same core on a previous node? Intel certainly breaking records again 😁
 

picpicmac

macrumors 65816
Aug 10, 2023
1,090
1,538
Meanwhile Intel is releasing Meteor Lake with slower single-core performance than the generation before it.
In that regards, the first Geekbench 6 result is up for the ASUS which uses a ML processor:

https://browser.geekbench.com/v6/cpu/4025278

The multi-core score is about the same as a base M3, but the single-core performance is clearly way behind.

And the ML processor in that test, the Intel(R) Core(TM) Ultra 7 155H, is the third highest expected performer in the chip line-up, with most of the coming ML processors designed to be less (and therefore cheaper and lower powered.)

The entitled-consumer is going to be frustrated that their new laptops are not faster than the old ones.
 
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Drifter759

macrumors newbie
Oct 21, 2021
13
13
The entitled-consumer is going to be frustrated that their new laptops are not faster than the old ones.
True, but they'll be happy they get much better battery life. Around double in light workloads. I'm also perplexed why they didn't improve ST performance when jumping to a new node, but their goal was clearly to improve battery life and they did it. It was the right priority given where they were. Still not as good as a Mac, but much better than before.
 

leman

macrumors Core
Oct 14, 2008
19,319
19,336
True, but they'll be happy they get much better battery life. Around double in light workloads. I'm also perplexed why they didn't improve ST performance when jumping to a new node, but their goal was clearly to improve battery life and they did it. It was the right priority given where they were. Still not as good as a Mac, but much better than before.

I looked at a bunch of reviews and I don’t see any substantial improvement in battery life? Maybe an odd half an hour here or there, depending on the laptop.
 

Drifter759

macrumors newbie
Oct 21, 2021
13
13
I looked at a bunch of reviews and I don’t see any substantial improvement in battery life? Maybe an odd half an hour here or there, depending on the laptop.
The Hardware Canucks review talks about it (starting at 1:00):

And Dave2D does as well (at 3:30):
 
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