The M3 outbenchmarks several i7 chips, so it’s not really comparable to the i5. Besides that, even if we assume your premise and assume that the M3 and i5 are in the same tier, the rest of the hardware on the MacBook Pro didn’t get any cheaper, so it would be expected to not see that dramatic of a price drop. And the way I view it, Apple’s i5 chip is the A-series of chips. The M-Series are more like i7s in my opinion.
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.
8GB RAM in M3 MacBook Pro Proves the Bottleneck in Real-World Tests
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
The M3 Pro is also only a smidgen better than the M3 now too, after Apple decided to gimp it to further sales of the Max chips. As they're so damn close in performance now, it's fair to say the MacBook Pro really should come with the "Pro" chip as standard.
A reviewer discusses the nature of upgrading the MBP for the M3 verses the M2 version from last year. RAM is discussed at about the 5 minute mark and he strongly suggests a mid range 2D graphics or video editor are more likely to prefer an older M2 bought off Amazon or refurbished from Apple. I mean forget that the base specs haven't really changed in ~6 years, now they reduce the memory bandwidth unless you get the very expensive high-end models.
I'm not expecting this to change people's minds but I think the M3 is good only in making the M2 models cheaper.
Why do you ignore a totally new, industry-first GPU architecture?
A lot of people are going by benchmarks, which are notorious for not performing quite as well as some real world tests do on Apple Silicon.
What I have to say about these videos is they generally jump the gun. Benchmarks have had issues before because the benchmark software hadn’t been updated yet, and so couldn’t account for some of the new changes in the CPUs, at least that’s what I’ve heard. And I even saw this with early benchmarks of the M2 MacBook Air. Early on, benchmarks were painting it as a slower system, while later, after benchmark software had received updates, the benchmark results were much better. Besides, as @ArkSingularity pointed out, benchmarks often don’t accurately represent real-world speed with real-world workflows. The YouTubers need a scandal of some kind every MacBook release (for Apple reviewers, pretty much every product release) to keep clicks coming, and to draw attention to their channels. The predictable yearly Mac scandals are artificial, they’re designed to boost content creators because they know a good scandal creates lots of interaction. Just look at the 65+ pages here of people complaining about a MacBook Pro configuration that’s cheaper than the last two years…
I think his point is that whatever benefit you would have gotten from proximity is irrelevant if you're running at the fastest speed the RAM can handle. And PCs have this same spec RAM, presumably also running at full tilt.
Not entirely true, because as I pointed out, it also has benefits for power efficiency. 👍🏻
Going to make the people who bought completely un-upgradable Macs the last few years feel foolish as they watch their resale value plummet when people can upgrade (assuming Apple takes advantage of the ability to socket the RAM). If they don't take advantage well, let's just say they'll have a harder time convincing me that's a Good Thing (tm) than they did of convincing me that "Dynamic Island" was anything more than ridiculous marketing trying to turn a negative into a positive.
I don’t think the resale value of MacBooks would plummet even if new ones included socketable RAM (which I’m not convinced is going to be adopted by everyone, or Macs necessarily). Most people buy the amount of RAM they need, and that works for them. Very few people actually take all the time and effort to crack open their computer to upgrade RAM. I’ve done it, but I’m a nerd, and I’ve done computer repairs most people wouldn’t do themselves, and I don’t view the ability to upgrade the RAM as that important, even though I’ve done it in the past.
I do feel it's rather unfair I've suffered 3 different RAM failures in my life (including the recent one on MacBook Air) and you seemingly haven't had any!
I agree that RAM failures do seem far less common than 20 years ago... which is good, now that RAM failures are catastrophic. Wasn't a big deal when you could pay $20 and give yourself a minor speed bump at the same time.
Sorry that you’ve suffered RAM failures, I’ve never heard of that before. Upgrading the RAM on my Mid 2012 MacBook Pro was kind of fun, and so I don’t think upgradeable RAM is bad or anything, but I think there are some significant tradeoffs in terms of performance and form factor. And I totally understand why lots of computers are moving away from user upgradeable RAM to higher performance soldered stuff, because most people don’t upgrade RAM themselves anyways.
Last edited:
however, ever deal and ever ebay items are using MacBook Pro for this “Macbook Air Plus“.
you cannot distinguish it immediately against a real pro machine.
this is the Core problem of the whole debate.
fanboys are arguing you have choice on the configuration and should avoid a configuration you don‘t Like.
What ever they claim, the real consumers are just getting confused by such pro-named 8GB+single monitor entry book.
I checked some Black Friday deals of the new M3 Macbook Pro. The price is just aligned with the previous M2 Pro machine. This is the actual market position Apple made for these entry books. The real Macbook Pro with M3 Pro is starting with €2500. the price is far from normal consumers limit. It will definitely hard to sell. Let’s wait and see.
The prices are high for tablet chips that save Apple a ton of money over Intel pricing... Will be interesting to see if the market is happy with these devices or if Apple will need to adjust the prices in a year or two, or make them more repairable and sustainable.
It's an interesting conundrum.
The M-series chips are cheaper for Apple to obtain compared to purchasing chips from Intel, while also affording better performance and longer battery life.
Is Apple supposed to price their Macs cheaper to reflect the lower cost of materials, or higher to reflect the improved value their hardware provides over the competition?
Seems like an argument could be made either way.
If they can put M series chips in iPads that cost ~1/3 as much, then yes, the Macs probably should/could be cheaper. That's a big price difference for a similar quality screen, a few ports, a keyboard and MacOS.It's an interesting conundrum.
The M-series chips are cheaper for Apple to obtain compared to purchasing chips from Intel, while also affording better performance and longer battery life.
Is Apple supposed to price their Macs cheaper to reflect the lower cost of materials, or higher to reflect the improved value their hardware provides over the competition?
Seems like an argument could be made either way.
You do have choice on the configuration you buy, and you should get the configuration that works for you…. It’s really very simple, nobody’s forcing you to get the 8GB configuration if you don’t want to. And it’s cheaper than the base MacBook Pro’s from the last 2 years, even if you do upgrade to 16GB.
I’d argue the prices aren’t high because of the value the M-chips add to the system. It doesn’t really matter if it’s cheaper to produce, the end result is far better performance than what Intel has to offer, with far better battery runtime, less overheating issues, compatibility with iOS apps, etc. People want to keep coming up with imaginary production cost numbers and use those to argue that the price should be close to those, but that’s not the way that products are valued or priced. Products are priced based on value to the customers, and what the market will bear. The MacBook Pro offers a lot of value for its pricetag, especially when I could sink more on a Thinkpad with lesser specs in basically every way….
Except the iPads are getting the lowest end chips.If they can put M series chips in iPads that cost ~1/3 as much, then yes, the Macs probably should/could be cheaper. That's a big price difference for a similar quality screen, a few ports, a keyboard and MacOS.
I just did some research and M3 Max is basically crushing Intel desktop chips in Pugent Systems After Effects benchmark.
I’ll know for sure since I’ve been greenlit at work to get a new laptop; which will be the M3 Max 128Gb/2TB, top spec GPU.
It’s obvious it will crush my current laptop; but if it beats or is on par with my Mac Pro in After Effects that will be pretty damn incredible.
1) The performance is better when you factor in substantial single threaded performance gains (around 15-18%), which makes a much bigger difference for everyday tasks.
2) Haven't people reported battery life gains on the M3 series? I've only heard with regards to the 14", but a lot of people seem to be saying that it's an improvement over the M1/M2 series in everyday use.
2) Haven't people reported battery life gains on the M3 series? I've only heard with regards to the 14", but a lot of people seem to be saying that it's an improvement over the M1/M2 series in everyday use.
They literally put “pro” in the name twice. It’s not a consumer product. And it’ll sell just fine.
It'll sell even better if they add another Pro to the name.