Downsides of M1 Max vs M1 Pro?

[CalMin]

I went ahead and spent the $200 to go from the M1 Pro to the "base" M1 Max (24 GPU cores) in my dream 14" config. because, well, why not? I'm already at $3,300 with 32GB and 2TB and, while I accept that it's overkill for my current needs, I use it for work and some hobby video/photo creative work and I can afford it ?.

Other than cost, I see only upside and since I'm overspending on this damned thing already I figured better not have buyer's remorse over it.

A question that I haven't seen asked/answered any where is other than wasting a couple hundred bucks, are there any negatives to stepping up to the 24-GPU Core "base" M1 Max over the M1 Pro? I'm thinking that perhaps, extra heat, fan noise or worse battery life perhaps?

I'm probably not going to change my order again over this, but I wondered if any reviews have said anything about this?

 

[chabig]

are there any negatives to stepping up to the 24-GPU Core "base" M1 Max over the M1 Pro? I'm thinking that perhaps, extra heat, fan noise or worse battery life perhaps?

I don't think there are any negatives, other than cost. If your workload doesn't demand it, your machine won't generate any extra heat. You'll likely never hear the fans. And battery life shouldn't be meaningfully affected.

 

[Christopher Kim]

I struggled with this same thought with my 14", but went the opposite way as you. I was already decided I was getting 32gb memory (+1TB SSD), and had noticed (and read the many "buyer guides" online) that as long as you're already going 32gb memory, the +$200 upgrade to get M1 Max made a lot of sense. For that $200, you'd get another 8-cores in GPU (16 to 24), plus double the memory bandwidth (256-bit to 512-bit) - lot of ppl said it was a no-brainer.

In the end, I knew I really didn't need it (even the M1 Pro 10-core/16-core that I got was more than enough for my needs), so I stuck with my BTO config and figured I'd save the $200.

Now that I'm seeing more discussion around battery life in the 14", I wonder if going with the M1 Max might have a negative impact on the battery life. It's possible. I think won't be clear until more reviews come out testing battery life, or more likely, in the coming weeks / months when enough ppl in the wild have them and can get real-world usage anecdotes.

 

[mattdo93]

I got the 10/16/16 for the 14 inch and upgraded to 32gb RAM. Thought about doing the $200 extra but in the end decided that 1) I don’t need it, and 2) the M1 Max draws double the power than the M1 Pro. So that means the battery life should theoretically be less with the Max vs. the Pro (assuming you ever push it that much) on the 14 inch specifically.

For me, I want to preserve battery life as much as possible especially since the 14” has less battery life. That along with potential thermal throttling theories led me to opt for the M1 Pro. I’ve had buyers remorse for awhile after all the Buyers Guides say to just shell out the $200 but honestly that money could also be used for other things like accessories or apps/plug-ins.

 

[robinium]

I don't think you'd use any extra battery life, unless you get workloads where you're 100% maxing all cores (and this will run faster, so the job will probably use the same battery, just in less actual time). In fact, there may be scenarios where you'll save battery life, as generally running a higher number of cores at a lower clock speed will use less power than a lower number of cores at a higher clock speed, so if the workload isn't so demanding that it's maxing out the cores, you might get a small saving. Power consumption doesn't increase linearly with clock speed, but it does increase linearly with core count.

Overall, I don't think having the extra cores will result in worse battery life.