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Odd memory limitations -- can't do anything more than 32GB with M3 Pro, and 48GB is only available with $900 M3 Max upgrade. The two M3 Max chips have completely different memory choices! Why?
I believe it’s because of some sort of ARM architecture limitation?
 
This feels like a slap in the face to anyone who bought an M2 Pro/Max. Yes, something new is always around the corner but releasing the huge refresh the very same year?!
you got what you paid for. no need to punish other consumers just because you possibly feel guilty about your purchase. just know that there are people in this world who bought the 3090 the day before the 4090 came out.
 
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you got what you paid for. no need to punish other consumers just because you possibly feel guilty about your purchase. just know that there are people in this world who bought the 3090 the day before the 4090 came out.
At this point they're all pretty good laptops too very generally speaking. I was fine with my 13" M1 Air, but wanted a bigger screen, so the 15" M2 Air is my new second computer now (PC is main setup). Interestingly the M2 outperforms my i7-12700K in single-core performance tests. The Intel barely beats M2 in multi core. It was intended to be a netbook but I find myself hooked on it
 
This feels like a slap in the face to anyone who bought an M2 Pro/Max. Yes, something new is always around the corner but releasing the huge refresh the very same year?!
You think that was bad. I bought both the Mac Iicx and the iPad 3'rd generation, both which were updated 6 months later with the Mac Iici and iPad 4'th generation. And at the time, the Mac Iicx cost $6,000 in 1989, the equivalent of over $13,000 today.
 
This feels like a slap in the face to anyone who bought an M2 Pro/Max. Yes, something new is always around the corner but releasing the huge refresh the very same year?!
Yeah, it sucks, hell, I'm just finishing paying off a M1 Max Mac Studio that was a Christmas present to myself last year and the M3's are already out. I also have a M2 Max MacBook Pro that I just bought four months ago. This release doesn't bother me too much. What I have is still good enough for my needs. This will all be a moot point when the M4 is announced. Never will always have the latest and greatest.
 
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you got what you paid for. no need to punish other consumers just because you possibly feel guilty about your purchase. just know that there are people in this world who bought the 3090 the day before the 4090 came out.

Not the same thing at all. The 40 series came out two years after the 30 series.
 
Even with the comparisons to M1 they did, I’m still not convinced it’s a worthwhile upgrade to us M1 owners. My M1 Pro is still stupid fast with great battery life, the improvements seems to be in very specific workloads and not overall general speed.

The GPU upgrades are intriguing but that’s about it
Exactly. if you are mostly a spreadsheet jockey (like I am) and not pounding 8 k video renders all-day , an M1 processor machine could get you through a decade.
 
This feels like a slap in the face to anyone who bought an M2 Pro/Max. Yes, something new is always around the corner but releasing the huge refresh the very same year?!
I disagree. The M2 MBP is a 10 months old product, it’s close enough to a year. The iPhone 12 Pro Max launch day was in mid November, but Apple still released iPhone 13 in mid September. It’s still 10 months, I think you just see that differently because it’s the same calendar year. But from a product cycle perspective, there is no meaningful difference

Even if the M2 MBP was released six months ago, you are only entitled to get the product you paid for. Apple introduced M2 Pro/Max laptops, and they got M2 Pro/Max laptops. Why should they be mad today? There is literally nothing their M2 MBP can’t do today that they could do yesterday.
 
entry level macbooks are not that expensive, and are substantially better than intel counterparts. unless there's some super strong impetus to be on Windows, the "only thing going for the MacBooks" is not battery life.
After many years, I absolutely hate the MacBook Pro’s my employer gave us. Would rather have a Linux or at least a Windows. Like said it’s a royal pain to do serious multitasking especially with multiple docs open from the same application, times multiple applications. I do science and engineering work and am not a “creator”. Rendering cat videos is of no significance to me. Intels are plenty fast but they are just too power hungry (and loud fans and all that). Power efficiency is the only good thing about MacBooks from a practical point of view.
 
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Wow I guess Apple decided that the 14” was not going to be a real pro model with on 2 ports instead of 3. it is a shame I like the 14” size but now it loses even more features.
 
So M3 Pro lost 2 P cores and added 2 E cores. On top of it has less memory bandwidth as well. M3 Max also has 2 versions and lower version has less bandwidth than M2 Max. I dont think there is any CPU performance uplift when you compare M2 Pro/Max with M3 counterparts unless you upgrade to highest end M3 Max. I wonder why Apple regressed their chips so much. We could blame it on N3B yield issues but they could have instead used N4P which is similar in performance and probably clocks better.

I would think M2 Pro/Max on sale would be better buys at this point.
 
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Definitely a MAJOR downgrade from the base M1 Pro 14" , in which the "only" downgrade was 8 cores.
The new base 14" MacBook Pro isn't a successor to the M2 Pro MacBook Pro. It's a successor to the M2 13" MacBook Pro with Touch Bar. The 13" MBP also started with 8GB of RAM. The base M3 Pro 14" MacBook Pro costs exactly the same as the base M2 Pro 14" version at $1999.
 
I am going to rock on with my upgraded M2 Max MBP (coming from a Late 2014 Mac mini). It is more than I will ever need at a 12 core-CPU, 36 core-GPU, 16-core Neural Engine, 64GB Unified Memory and 2TB SSD... See y'all when the M7 or M8 drops. At this release rate, that may be 2026 haha.
 
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I need some real world benchmarks for the M3 Pro. What they've chosen seems even more cherry picked than usual. The Video Editing stat is "Text Based editing in Adobe Premiere?" How much did Adobe pay to get Premier in there over Final Cut or Resolve? Also text based editing is probably a measure of the improved neural engine for speech to text than CPU or GPU.

I'd really like to know how an M3 Pro 12/18 with 36GB compares to an M1 Max 10/24 with 32GB. I am on the fence about upgrading my M1 Pro 10/16 w/ 16GB of RAM. There are definitely times I know I am hitting the limits of 16GB in editing/grading/tracking 4k footage in Resolve. There are some very nicely priced new old stock M1 Max deals out there...
 
Here's how the pricing compares for the M2 and M3 MBP's (models listed at bottom):

  • Same starting prices.
  • Same upcharges for SSDs
  • Same upcharges for RAM, except the first two steps for the M3 are 18/36 instead of 16/32, and the M3 has added options of 48 and 128.
  • Upsteps for CPU/GPU aren't comparable but: M3 has lower upcharge to go from base Pro to top Pro (+$200 for M3 vs. +$300 for M2), and higher upcharges to go from top Pro to base Max (+$400 vs. +$200) and base Max to top Max (+$300 vs. +$200). Total upcharge to go from base Pro to top Max in M3 and M2 are $+900 and +$700, respectively.

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M3 Max with 14-core CPU and 30-core GPU (300GB/s memory bandwidth) or M3 Max with 16-core CPU and 40-core GPU (400GB/s memory bandwidth)

please note that different chip configs now has different memory bus configuration (by quick glance the low-end M3 max has 384-bit vs 512-bit on the high end chip).

and also M3 Pro has probably been degraded from 256-bit bus to 192-bit bus.
And let’s not forget the Studio M2 tops out at 800gb bandwidth. Totally different product but something to remember for those looking for max performance.
 
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My father owned a Apple VAR until he passed 10 years ago, I keep in touch with some of his client's still. A small town newspaper in Virginia was one of the best he had every 5 years they would buy each reporter and staff member the newest best midline set up they could get. (They use several Mac Pros for servers) (13 machines total) The 5 year mark came up when the M1's came out. She asked my opinion I told her get the 13 inch MBP M1 8 core GPU with 16 gigs and 2 gigs ssd. They said they will keep them until they die. And I feel the same about my M1 MBA 8/16/512. I love it. It performs perfectly for me. I think this yearly upgrading is insane. and the large amounts of configurations is also insane.

I think Apple should release a new chip for all devices every 2 years, and the years between the chips new OS's.
 
Anyone know if the base M3 14 inch has a USB-C port on each side or are they both on the left? Can't find a press photo of it yet
 
Pleased to see the demise of the touchbar and space grey finish. Not pleased by the storage price tags, they're downright offensive. I also dont trust Apple's benchmarks in the slightest - I'd wait for 3rd party results.

As usual, the software side of things is my bigger concern. A new Mac's speed and battery life mean nothing if the software wont do what you need - and Apple's continually failed me there for several years now.
 
Not all the updated products had M2 . I guess just the iMac, but yeah it is coming from M1. Also like others said, they are making a sales pitch to M1 users.
Yep and also because the performance upgrades on the lower spec pro's aren't that impressive compared to M2.

8gb RAM for an $1800 laptop in 2023 is unacceptable as is Apples never ending desire to screw customers for even modest upgrades. 8gb ram for $200, astonishing SSD upgrade costs. They really are taking the.....

Reduced bandwidth as well. They're clearly trying to differentiate the M3, M3 Pro and M3 Max now.

I still think the base M3 Pro with 18gb RAM and an 11 core CPU still looks pretty decent value for Apple at least despite the memory bandwidth haircut.
 
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