2026 Upgraders: Why did you finally move on from Intel

[bigglow]

With Apple Silicon now fully mature in 2026 a lot of us are finally upgrading (not in 2020–2025) but much later: from any Intel Mac to any current Apple Silicon Mac.

This poll is specifically for people upgrading in 2026 (or planning to) coming from Intel Macs & NOT those who already upgraded from M1 / M1 Pro / M1 Max / M1 Ultra and moved on again

Back in the early Apple Silicon years many Intel Macs were still “good enough" and even M1 machines aged surprisingly well. But at some point something tipped the scale.

So I’m curious... what actually forced or motivated your upgrade?

Feel free to elaborate in the comments:

What Intel Mac were you coming from?

What Apple Silicon Mac did you choose?

Was it performance, longevity, features or just timing?

 

[maflynn]

For me, I was looking to replace my gaming pc with a new build but the component cost last year made the purchase of the M4 studio logically feasible

Instead of upgrading my pc, I got the studio

Edit: the poll should be multiple choice - frequently there's more then one reason to upgrade, i.e., cpu AND gpu

 

[Solarflares]

2026? I think I just about creep in!
I went from a top-spec 2015 Intel i7 2.9Ghz MacBook Pro Retina TB - straight to a Mac Mini M4 base model in Sept 2025, which has this week been replaced with a 24GB/512GB model.

The 16GB/1TB MacBook was £1000 used in 2019. The Mini M4 24GB/512GB was £800. I already used a 21/9 curved Samsung monitor, in 1440p/60hz.

What tipped the already very weighted scale for me, was the planned yearly upgrades of Steinberg’s Cubase.
Cubase 11 on the Catalina MacBook was good, but headroom wasn’t brilliant.
Once I got to Monterey and Cubase 13, I was now getting performance spikes when adding modest Waves plugins, so something had to be done.
So my usual year-late sale-price upgrade to Cubase 14 coincided with the purchase of a new M4 Mini, and it has been wonderful in Sequoia. The new 24GB/512GB is even better, and I’m now totally working in the box, with no dynamic external drives.

 

[avro707]

I did get an M4 Pro Mac Mini to run Zwift. It’s fast enough for that and doesn’t take too much space.

I had Apple TV as well but hate that and Zwift on Apple TV looks awful. Bad low resolution textures. Previously was using an old 2010 Mac Pro (with RX6600XT GPU) which worked perfectly and got the maximum detail in Zwift. It ran with no issues and was super reliable, it just got a bit old.

My other Intel Mac Pros are staying (they are still fast for my uses) and will be replaced by PC workstations with Xeon power. So for my main work I’ll be leaving MacOS.

 

[Alameda]

With Apple Silicon now fully mature in 2026 a lot of us are finally upgrading (not in 2020–2025) but much later: from any Intel Mac to any current Apple Silicon Mac.

This poll is specifically for people upgrading in 2026 (or planning to) coming from Intel Macs & NOT those who already upgraded from M1 / M1 Pro / M1 Max / M1 Ultra and moved on again

Back in the early Apple Silicon years many Intel Macs were still “good enough" and even M1 machines aged surprisingly well. But at some point something tipped the scale.

So I’m curious... what actually forced or motivated your upgrade?

Feel free to elaborate in the comments:

What Intel Mac were you coming from?

What Apple Silicon Mac did you choose?

Was it performance, longevity, features or just timing?

Why do you think the M series was “immature” until 2026?

I have an M1 system and I cannot think of any task which a newer M-series system can perform which my existing one cannot. I just know that exporting RAW photos into processed JPEGs would be a little faster, that’s all.

 

[Solarflares]

I held off from the M1 and M2 due to software compatibility issues with Cubase and Waves plugins. Perhaps that’s the ‘immaturity’ he meant? Although by the time the M2 showed, all silicone-issues were firmly fixed.
The cost of a recently produced M2 MacBook Pro wasn’t do-able though, and I really didn’t want another laptop, with a redundant screen.
So I was stuck on my old 2015 MacBook out of ignorance - thinking I might have to eventually build a Xeon power-tower with water-cooling, and the inevitable fan-noise.
Had never come across Minis before, but all of a sudden, in 2025, the music forums were going wild over the M4 single-core speed - so I had to investigate.
Good grief - a brand new 24GB/512GB machine for $999! Job done. I’ve never read so many forums in my life, but they all agreed the base Mini was utterly silent - so perfect for me. A Pro M4 would have been nice, but it seems to run a bit warm, with a higher base fan-speed. 1,000rpm vs 1,200rpm - big difference. Studios and Ultras are well out of my league, so the cheap M4 Mini is a revelation to me.

I’m under no illusions. I realise the base Mini M4 is a gateway drug to better things. But for the user who wants only to run one application well - the slightly upgraded Mini M4 is fantastic. Hadn’t been that excited about a machine’s potential since my twin-Xeon days on Windows XP-lite!

The great thing for me about the Mini M4, is that it coincided with the purchase of a Bryston DAC and preamp, along with madly expensive cabling throughout. It had to be within 1.5m of the DAC, as that is the optimal USB cable-length. So, compared to the MacBook, with it’s noisy fans, which was positioned in a side alcove to cut down the noise, on a 5m USB cable to a lesser Soundcard, with analogue out cables - I now have the Mini close to, and behind my monitor system, and the fan is silent. And everything is digital, until the wonderful Bryston DAC.
One could say my sound quality has finally ‘matured! Lol

 

[bigglow]

Why do you think the M series was “immature” until 2026?

I have an M1 system and I cannot think of any task which a newer M-series system can perform which my existing one cannot. I just know that exporting RAW photos into processed JPEGs would be a little faster, that’s all.

No native or Universal 2 apps yet. Some apps are latency sensitive.

 

[maflynn]

No native or Universal 2 apps yet.

No native apps?

There's a huge list of native Apple Silicon apps

List of Mac Apps that work on Apple Silicon?

Check the latest reported support status of Mac Apps on Apple Silicon and Apple M4 Max and M3 Ultra Processors.

doesitarm.com

What do you mean by Universal 2 apps? Apple announced in the 2025 WWDC that Rosetta 2 will be phased out, and I'm sure most developers releasing new (or maybe even updated) applications will only be compiling them for ARM

 

[JouniS]

I'm still waiting for something that would convince me to replace my 2020 iMac. The M3 Ultra Studio was almost good enough, but I didn't like any of the available 5k/6k display options, and the price was ultimately too high. Maybe I'll upgrade this year, if Apple releases a new Studio Display and something with more than 128 GB RAM for a reasonable price.

 

[bigglow]

No native apps?
View attachment 2595530

There's a huge list of native Apple Silicon apps

List of Mac Apps that work on Apple Silicon?

Check the latest reported support status of Mac Apps on Apple Silicon and Apple M4 Max and M3 Ultra Processors.

doesitarm.com

What do you mean by Universal 2 apps? Apple announced in the 2025 WWDC that Rosetta 2 will be phased out, and I'm sure most developers releasing new (or maybe even updated) applications will only be compiling them for ARM

In 2020 there were no Universal 2 apps.

By 2026 are there any missing Universal 2 apps?

I was specifically speaking of the 1st 12 months of Apple Silicon.

 

[Solarflares]

In 2020 there were no Universal 2 apps.

By 2026 are there any missing Universal 2 apps?

I was specifically speaking of the 1st 12 months of Apple Silicon.

Rightly so. The first 12 months of the M1 was a no-go area for musical-types using Cubase and Waves.
The next 4 years have been helter-skelter/full-on, with reliable performance.
But increases in core-counts have left power-users struggling to utilise all cores in Cubase, and all other DAWs. Big blame-game again, and the situation won’t resolve until Cubase is re-written from the ground up. That’s not going to happen. Meanwhile, users are getting only 27% utilisation of processing! Madness.
One step forward, two steps back.
The 10-core Mac Mini M4 achieves full utilisation of all cores in Cubase. The Pro doesn’t, or the Max etc.
Not Apple’s fault, but a lot of seriously disgruntled music professionals, who dropped $10,000 on M3 Ultras.

 

[maflynn]

I was specifically speaking of the 1st 12 months of Apple Silicon

Ok, but isn't that water over the bridge at this point as we head into 6 years of apple silicon. I thought you were talking about 2026.

In defense of Apple, 2020 was a meager year but it takes time for developers to work on transitioning over to a new platform but again that aspect is in our rear view mirror

 

[crazy dave]

In 2020 there were no Universal 2 apps.

By 2026 are there any missing Universal 2 apps?

I was specifically speaking of the 1st 12 months of Apple Silicon.

Ehhh ... that statement really isn't even true for the first 12 months either though. The first Universal 2 and native apps started shipping simultaneously with the first Apple Silicon Macs in November of 2020. Quite a number of apps transitioned afterwards remarkably quickly. Native and universal apps have been ubiquitous for quite some time now.

That doesn't mean every field of apps transitioned at the same rate and I'm sure that there are indeed still apps that have yet to make the transition (and some of those may never do so) - just as there are apps that remain Windows-only. So maybe that should be an option in your poll: some piece of needed software that didn't become native/performant until recently.

 

[ELand-SX70]

I'm coming from a MBP Pro 16'' and I chose another MBP 16'', this time M4 Pro.
I switched because, although I could go on for at least other two or three years, the performance with Tahoe was abysmal. I'm not talking about number crunching or other intensive tasks, but simple things like web browsing with Safari or using the Office suite. I will keep the older model for emergencies, especially because you need another Mac if there is a need for using Configurator.

 

[padams35]

2026 might be the year I replace my 2018 i5 Mini (with 6600XT eGPU).

Maybe. Depends on what clearance prices and/or black Friday offers come up on the M4s once the full M5 lineup gets released. Since this would be a fun quality of life upgrade rather than a need the upgrade is a bit price sensitive.

The 2018 i5 still works great, but the Sonnet eGPU Breakaway Box just takes up so much desk space now that I've moved my setup to a standing desk. (Previously it was hidden on a small shelf located behind a traditional desk). Not sure if I would be looking at an M4 Max studio or an M4 Pro Mini/14" MBP.

Alternatively I could replace my desktop setup with a thunderbolt dock and use my existing 14" MBP laptop exclusively, but the 2018 has more RAM and better GPU performance. I don't really want to accept any downgrade even if the M1-Pro is good-enough.

 

[splifingate]

The lack of satisfactory media engine support has always been a thorn in my cyber-side.

AV1 Encoding support has been compromising my sanity since the early aughts....

 

[Zest28]

Because the 16" M1 Max MacBook Pro at the time had mini-LED display (which was quite new), 20+ hour of battery life and the power of a RTX 3080 (according to Apple) at the time.

There was nothing like it as displays back then had IPS displays (OLED wasn't as popular yet), and AMD and Intel were slow as **** while running hot too, back then.

The 16" M1 Max MacBook Pro, is the GOAT of laptops back when it released.

Nowadays, performance wise, the 16" M4 Max MacBook Pro is nothing special in terms of performance anymore, and the display technology is lacking, as it is still using the mini-LED displays, while PC's have moved on to OLED displays.

I wasn't even planning on buying the 16" M1 Max MacBook Pro back then, but because that laptop was just so far ahead of anything else on the market, i gave my money to Apple.

 

[maflynn]

power of a RTX 3080 (according to Apple) at the time.

But was it?

 

[Alameda]

I held off from the M1 and M2 due to software compatibility issues with Cubase and Waves plugins. Perhaps that’s the ‘immaturity’ he meant? Although by the time the M2 showed, all silicone-issues were firmly fixed.
The cost of a recently produced M2 MacBook Pro wasn’t do-able though, and I really didn’t want another laptop, with a redundant screen.
So I was stuck on my old 2015 MacBook out of ignorance - thinking I might have to eventually build a Xeon power-tower with water-cooling, and the inevitable fan-noise.
Had never come across Minis before, but all of a sudden, in 2025, the music forums were going wild over the M4 single-core speed - so I had to investigate.
Good grief - a brand new 24GB/512GB machine for $999! Job done. I’ve never read so many forums in my life, but they all agreed the base Mini was utterly silent - so perfect for me. A Pro M4 would have been nice, but it seems to run a bit warm, with a higher base fan-speed. 1,000rpm vs 1,200rpm - big difference. Studios and Ultras are well out of my league, so the cheap M4 Mini is a revelation to me.

I’m under no illusions. I realise the base Mini M4 is a gateway drug to better things. But for the user who wants only to run one application well - the slightly upgraded Mini M4 is fantastic. Hadn’t been that excited about a machine’s potential since my twin-Xeon days on Windows XP-lite!

The great thing for me about the Mini M4, is that it coincided with the purchase of a Bryston DAC and preamp, along with madly expensive cabling throughout. It had to be within 1.5m of the DAC, as that is the optimal USB cable-length. So, compared to the MacBook, with it’s noisy fans, which was positioned in a side alcove to cut down the noise, on a 5m USB cable to a lesser Soundcard, with analogue out cables - I now have the Mini close to, and behind my monitor system, and the fan is silent. And everything is digital, until the wonderful Bryston DAC.
One could say my sound quality has finally ‘matured! Lol

No.... just... no.
I've had an M1 Pro since the get-go and they didn't "fix silicon issues." It's just worked. It still works. It works so well that I have to reason to upgrade to the M5. And I removed Rosetta long ago. The only program I had that needed it was Canon's badly out-dated DPPro RAW editing software.

The Intel emulation worked great. It was only people who refused to update their software or who insisted on using unsupported or poorly-supported products got stuck. It was surely a low single-digit percentage. Maybe you had some particular piece of software that wouldn't emulate from a manufacturer who refused to update it, and you couldn't possibly find any comparable software on the market... but that's a tiny corner-case of users.

 

[sotosoul]

I think that for lots of folks out there, it wasn't the CPU, it wasn't the GPU, it wasn't the memory. It was the "package deal": good thermals, good performance, good battery life, familiar form factor.

I am one of those people for my personal computing needs.

My work-related computing requirements are very specific and our company takes care of them. We're not using Apple computers at work.

My DJ-related computing requirements are still satisfied by my old Intel Mac(s).

Also, I'm glad to see that at the time of my voting, too lazy to replace the battery had zero votes!

 

[conmee]

I've always purchased 15" or 16" Intel MBPs with maxed out CPU/GPU/RAM since 2010. Heavy use of Windows VMs among other things. But it turns out that most of what I needed Windows for will likely work with Windows 11 ARM in Parallels (along with some Red Hat Enterprise Linux VMs). I mainly use my MBP in clamshell mode, and maybe use it as a laptop 10% of the time, so I also felt at this time that I don't need to spend for a larger laptop screen (I'll replace my 4K 120Hz monitor with a new Studio Display later this year if the upcoming Studio Display has ProMotion/120Hz which it should).

I jokingly said in 2020 that I'd upgrade when an Apple Silicon MBP was 2X across all major performance measurements vs. my 2019 16" Core i9 with 64GB/2TB/5500M8GB. Well, that day has come. I was actually surprised that at least on paper, the new "base" M5 trounces my 2019 16" MBP in every major category.

M5 v. Core i9-9980HK
Single-Core (2.7X)
Multi-Core (2.5X)
GPU (2.0X)
Memory Bandwidth (3.6X)
SSD Write (2.2X)
SSD Read (2.3X)

Based on my past purchases, I was planning on waiting for the M5 Pro MBP and max it out but realized that for the first time in forever, a "base" processor will more than serve my needs. I'm still happy with the performance of my 2019 (at least on Sequoia, Tahoe can get sluggish). But to think I can get twice the performance across pretty much every component with just a base M5 is amazing.

Once the M5 MBP arrives, I will put it through its paces and confirm that everything I need works as it should (I've already done the research and doubt I'll run into any major issues). I run my 2019 MBP in clamshell mode (I'll do the same with the M5 MBP) and I will be very excited to try running three or four VMs along with other apps and not hear fans roaring.

I'll follow-up with real world results/impressions once I get the M5 MBP, but I do believe this is the month I say goodbye to Intel-based Macs after a good 16 year run.

 

[ADGrant]

I'm still waiting for something that would convince me to replace my 2020 iMac. The M3 Ultra Studio was almost good enough, but I didn't like any of the available 5k/6k display options, and the price was ultimately too high. Maybe I'll upgrade this year, if Apple releases a new Studio Display and something with more than 128 GB RAM for a reasonable price.

I am keeping my 2020 iMac for at least another year. I haven't upgraded to Tahoe yet so perhaps that will change my mind. I too am not loving the 5k monitor options right now and the 2020 performance is still adequate (I have 64gb of system RAM and 16GB of video RAM).

 

[bigglow]

Ok, but isn't that water over the bridge at this point as we head into 6 years of apple silicon. I thought you were talking about 2026.

In defense of Apple, 2020 was a meager year but it takes time for developers to work on transitioning over to a new platform but again that aspect is in our rear view mirror

Not finding fault but asking 2026 upgraders specifically. When asked about Universal 2 binary available I answered succinctly.

 

[boppin]

Hi,

My hardware was just too old. I was using a MacBook Pro from 2012. Now the M4 MacBook Air 15 Inch.

 

[Vincent Hanna]

That is a MASSIVE leap.