Apple Announces MacBook Pro Models With M4 Pro and M4 Max Chips, Thunderbolt 5 Support, and More

[awsom82]

Looking for a little buying advice, if anyone has a moment. I'm an average user, not doing any video editing or heavy gaming (though once in awhile when I get bored I might play the Sims or Civilizations - but that is very rare). My aim is longevity of use before the thing makes me want to tear my hair out. I'm typing this right now on a late 2017 3.1 GHz Dual-Core Intel Core i5 with 16 GB memory, and I am now getting to that point with this one - battery life not great anymore and occasionally want to throw it against the wall. It is therefore replacement time.

What do you guys think, does the 14-core Pro chip with memory upped to 48 GB serve my purposes better, or the lower level Max chip with 36 GB memory? I really wish you could increase the memory on the base Max chip, but that's not something they're allowing and the upper level Max chip is unfortunately a little beyond my budget for this (and probably more than I need anyway). Would greatly appreciate any guidance provided, thank you!

Base M4 model should be enough

 

[john1970]

Looking for a little buying advice, if anyone has a moment. I'm an average user, not doing any video editing or heavy gaming (though once in awhile when I get bored I might play the Sims or Civilizations - but that is very rare). My aim is longevity of use before the thing makes me want to tear my hair out. I'm typing this right now on a late 2017 3.1 GHz Dual-Core Intel Core i5 with 16 GB memory, and I am now getting to that point with this one - battery life not great anymore and occasionally want to throw it against the wall. It is therefore replacement time.

What do you guys think, does the 14-core Pro chip with memory upped to 48 GB serve my purposes better, or the lower level Max chip with 36 GB memory? I really wish you could increase the memory on the base Max chip, but that's not something they're allowing and the upper level Max chip is unfortunately a little beyond my budget for this (and probably more than I need anyway). Would greatly appreciate any guidance provided, thank you!

If you are not doing any video editing or heavy gaming the extra GPU is probably of little value. If you perform heavy CPU task the M4 Pro chip with the extra 6 performance cores might be a reasonable upgrade.

Realistically, a base 14" M4 configuration with 10-core CPU / 10-core GPU and 24 GB RAM / 1 TB SSD for $1999.00 USD would probably suffice for your needs.

If having Thunderbolt 5 is important for you then you will also have to upgrade to the M4 Pro chip. I would then consider the base M4 Pro chip with 14-core CPU and 20-core GPU with the 24 GB / 1 TB for $2399. I am not sure if you will benefit from the extra 24 GB of RAM for $400, but that is one upgrade I would consider.

To put this into context, I upgraded from a M1 MacBook Air with 8-core CPU / 8-core GPU 16 GB/1TB to a 14" MBP with 14 core CPU / 20 core GPU and 48 GB of memory. I do a reasonable amount of RAW photo editing so ordering a Pro processor seemed like the best value for the next 4-5 years. I would have preferred 64 GB of RAM, but I could not justify purchasing the M1 Max processor for +$1200 total.

Good luck with your decision.

 

[awsom82]

16GB is sufficient for RAW photo editing, they obviously weight only 32MB, let's say you edit 60megapixel 16bit RGBA - it just consumes 500MB of RAM. Some additional layers weight less.

 

[Sami13496]

Wow… they did it. They actually kept the same wallpaper across the board. It doesn’t matter of course, but still that’s amazing. Wouldn’t they want to change it to make the machines feel newer?

So owners who just bought their M3 don’t need to upgrade. No way to tell if it’s M3 or M4.

 

[john1970]

16GB is sufficient for RAW photo editing, they obviously weight only 32MB, let's say you edit 60megapixel 16bit RGBA - it just consumes 500MB of RAM. Some additional layers weight less.

Thanks for the info. My 16 GB Air does fine with photos, but I decided just in case I start to do some video work that 48GB seemed a logical choice.

 

[Trisaeclisenex]

Thanks for the info. My 16 GB Air does fine with photos, but I decided just in case I start to do some video work that 48GB seemed a logical choice.

I also decided for 48GB, mostly for longevity, same reason I went for the M4 Pro with it’s TB5. I hope this beast will last for many years!

 

[john1970]

I also decided for 48GB, mostly for longevity, same reason I went for the M4 Pro with it’s TB5. I hope this beast will last for many years!

Longevity was a reason for me as well and economically it was at the limit of what I was willing to spend on a laptop computer. I am seriously counting on 5 years of use. Relative to my M1 Air I have 1) 10 performance cores vs. 4 performance cores, 2) ~4x RAM bandwidth, 3) 3x physical RAM, 4) larger screen, 5) TB5, 5) nanotexture glass, 6) 20 GPUs vs. 8 GPUs. Economically the Max variant did not make sense to me.

 

[carestudio]

Can I finally plug multiple monitors into a Thunderbolt 5 dock and connect a single cable into one of these new MacBook Pros? Every previous model required plugging all displays into the thunderbolt ports on the MacBook itself. Every PC with thunderbolt can do this.

I think you can but there is rule for it, caldigit did post some article last week including all the new M4 models and thunderbolt 3,4,5 support

MacBook Multiple Monitor Support with CalDigit Thunderbolt Docks – CalDigit

www.caldigit.com

you can do up to 2 monitors through a single thunderbolt 3,4,5 connection is what they are saying on the support article.