Personaly I can't think of anything that an M3 MBP could offer that would make me feel its viable to upgrade from my M1. An OLED screen would tempt me, but I'd probably still wait for an M4 or M5.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
What would the M3 need to make you upgrade from an M1?
- Thread starter AltecX
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
The firing of Tim Cook and a re-commitment to focusing on making something for real computers instead of phones.
Good question, OP. Can't honestly think of much...which probably means I won't upgrade, but we'll see
That 13" M3 MacBook Pro might just be calling my name
Nothing, my M1 Max will do everything that I need for at least 5 more years. I mean, realistically speaking the M3 won't be a huge jump, it won't be like 10 times faster or so.
x86 is over for Apple, and it is not coming back, TFG.
100% agreed - I'm both love and am so content with my M1 Pro, and that never happens 🤣. No desire to upgrade
Um doesn't Apple still sell an x86 Mac Pro and we still haven't seen a replacement yet!
They do. It gets pantsed by the Studio Ultra, though. The only reason someone would buy one is to be able to use specialty PCIe cards.
That doesn't make any sense. Apple makes higher margins and ships more units for phones. Computers are a declining market and especially now in 2023. Apple works for its investors and ditching phones for macs would basically get the entire board fired.
Not going to take the bait. Your statement can twist in the wind all by its lonesome.
The significantly longer battery life. The far stronger Single Core abilities.
Even then it probably wouldn't be enough to make me upgrade if it's still in the same physical design as the M1. I personally believe they went too far the other way from Jony Ive. But I think M4/5 will be the redesign.
Even then it probably wouldn't be enough to make me upgrade if it's still in the same physical design as the M1. I personally believe they went too far the other way from Jony Ive. But I think M4/5 will be the redesign.
OLED, improved single core performance, maybe new color, or I'll wait for the next redesign cycle
Support for 128 GB RAM, specialized GPU RT cores. Anything that makes me deal with my workstation with 4090. M1 Max Unified Ram has been great and some times my only option with 4090 running out of memory. I would love to speed up my workflow.
Probably nothing. I would want a new form factor. It's possible that an M3 could be about as powerful as a binned M1 Pro though, which isn't nothing. A much thinner and lighter MacBook (perhaps a 12.5" reimagining of the original 12" MacBook) with the power of an M1 Pro without requiring the bulk of a 14" MacBook Pro could be cool.
Oled , and hopefully not crazy price increases like Tim loves
1500€ for 8/256 MBA M2 is already a lot
1500€ for 8/256 MBA M2 is already a lot
I have a 2020 M1 MBP and its more than enough for what I do these days. The fact that I still use my Early 2015 MBP 13 inch as a night stand computer proves how well Macs hold up beyond their expiry date. My siblings 5 year old 2017 13 inch MBP is also doing well, too. With that said, this time around, I probably will break past the 5 year cycle and keep my M1 beyond then. Web browsing, watching YouTube, listening Spotify, occasional budgeting in Excel, curate my photos don't require significant horse power. When I do upgrade though, I want a bigger screen. But my priorities in life are changing each year, as I get older. I want to reduce spending on electronics and focus more on building my retirement nest egg and just penny pinch. The cost of living in the future is only gonna get higher. And with age so does the medical costs.
Honestly coming up on 18 months in and I'm increasingly realizing I overbought with my M1 Max. It's still blazing fast and I probably won't have any need to upgrade later this year or early next (although I might for tax or other reasons.)
That said there are a few things Apple could do to make the prospect of upgrading more enticing:
#1 More major software that is well optimized for Apple Silicon (especially the GPU and Neural Engine)
#2 Continued major improvements to macOS and APIs relevant to high performance apps (Metal, CoreML, Virtualization, etc) that would demonstrate the seriousness of Apple's commitment to the future of the platform.
#3 Something new and useful beyond just a faster CPU/GPU/Neural Engine/RAM
#4 Mac chips on the same SOC generation as iPhone, or even better, some real Mac first / Mac focused SOC designs
#5 More AAA games on the Mac (I know this isn't a popular opinion, but I'd love being able to game on my Mac more)
(1,2, and 5 are also all things that would make continuing to just use my M1 Max a whole lot better...)
Obviously I'm expecting large general improvements to performance and efficiency with the move to 3nm so that's also basically a sixth requirement.
But I've increasingly realized that a lot of my bottlenecks are at the software level now (looking at you Capture One "Pro") and just throwing more hardware at the problem is either inefficient or just flat out won't solve the problem. I think for me the biggest thing is I need to see Apple continue to show it's serious about the Mac as a computing platform.
That said there are a few things Apple could do to make the prospect of upgrading more enticing:
#1 More major software that is well optimized for Apple Silicon (especially the GPU and Neural Engine)
#2 Continued major improvements to macOS and APIs relevant to high performance apps (Metal, CoreML, Virtualization, etc) that would demonstrate the seriousness of Apple's commitment to the future of the platform.
#3 Something new and useful beyond just a faster CPU/GPU/Neural Engine/RAM
#4 Mac chips on the same SOC generation as iPhone, or even better, some real Mac first / Mac focused SOC designs
#5 More AAA games on the Mac (I know this isn't a popular opinion, but I'd love being able to game on my Mac more)
(1,2, and 5 are also all things that would make continuing to just use my M1 Max a whole lot better...)
Obviously I'm expecting large general improvements to performance and efficiency with the move to 3nm so that's also basically a sixth requirement.
But I've increasingly realized that a lot of my bottlenecks are at the software level now (looking at you Capture One "Pro") and just throwing more hardware at the problem is either inefficient or just flat out won't solve the problem. I think for me the biggest thing is I need to see Apple continue to show it's serious about the Mac as a computing platform.
Last edited:
For maya heavy using , no oled, miniled until microled
M3 being on 3nm and cutting my projects time in half
But again this can happen only if M3 is the 3nm thing and not the A16 based one
Nothing, I'm willing to upgrade to the M2 right now provided Apple upgraded the Mac Studio to the M2 Max.
What's pushing me over is the better monitor support (my Dell UP3218K is finally natively supported) and around 75% faster GPU from the base M1 Max 24-core GPU to the 38-core GPU.
What's pushing me over is the better monitor support (my Dell UP3218K is finally natively supported) and around 75% faster GPU from the base M1 Max 24-core GPU to the 38-core GPU.
Regular M3? Simply having 16GB RAM available as pre-configured model. In many markets like my country, we don't have access to BTO options, so the regular Mx model Macs are only available in 8GB RAM configs, which is unacceptable in 2023.
For my daily work? Better performance. But if it has SVE2/hardware RT I might be very tempted just so that I can play with the new features.
