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.
First Benchmark Results Surface for M3 Chip in New Macs
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Because we want a snake and lighter device. The M2 13 inch MacBook Air weight is not 900g, it’s 1245g, and that’s a significant difference when it comes to portability.
I really hope Apple fills the place of a smaller MacBook on their lineup. I’d buy it in a heartbeat.
Base M3 Pro is $1,999 (unless you're getting a discount). The Pro model does get other benefits as well though, such as dual monitor support.
Plus, generally the CPU isn’t the bottleneck. Rather, I/O is. Even though we have SSDs now, they’re still a lot slower than RAM is. And once you have network requests, all bets are off.
The base MBP has:
14" miniLED ProMotion screen
6-speaker audio system
2 TB / USB4 ports
SDXC card reader
512GB storage as standard
Those are Pro features. People keeping forgetting that this replaces the previous 13" MBP
Yes, I'm only angry at Apple, because I wouldn't even considered Microsoft or Samsung machines when I was using a PC. Wasn't even aware that the second one exists until now.
No one is doing any of that. They only do that on Apple forums about Apple products
Those with an M2 are unlikely to bother with the 15% increase of the M3, but those with an M1 or earlier are going to jump for it if they need 40%+ more horsepower.
Obviously these will eventually hit the Air, but being that the Air is a very high volume machine they might want to wait for M3 production to smooth out.
Obviously these will eventually hit the Air, but being that the Air is a very high volume machine they might want to wait for M3 production to smooth out.
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
If you hop around threads here, you'll discover LOTS of people care about aesthetics... very much! Perhaps too much. Part of the attraction to iMac is a very clean desk vs. linking one case (computer) to another (monitor). I'm beyond that myself, having embraced separates, but there are lots of people who seem to want that very clean AIO setup and 24" is not big enough for them.
It is hard to go through any iMac thread and not find at least several longing for an iMac "bigger." If they only wanted a bigger screen, they could have already paired ASD with a Mac Mini or Studio. But that's not what they want. They don't want a computer split into 2 pieces but they do want a screen bigger than 24"
So, for those people- some of which also acknowledge the HUGE downside of iMac: the screen typically has years of life left when the tech guts conk or are made obsolete by corporate, "time to buy a new one" choice: AKA "vintaging"- perhaps iMac computer guts on a card in an iMac or ASD-style case could:
- address that big downside in a very tangible way,
- make "Mother Nature" happier that it's not a "throw baby out with the bathwater" proposition anymore,
- make Apple bean counters happy (as they would be the exclusive source of the upgrade card in 5-8 years and could price it like they price RAM and SSD), and
- give that market what they seem to want.
However, not everyone wants separates, nor only 24". So that was an idea for them. Another would be to revive an iMac "bigger" that can certainly be used as a monitor when the tech guts age out... like early iMac 27" that offered Target Display Mode. Now, the only option is either buy a monitor for about as much as most paid for a whole iMac 27" or try the major hardware hack to manually turn an old iMac into a monitor, as I offered back in post #156.
Last edited:
Audio system as a pro feature? 512GB storage is something to be proud of? Are you one of those folks who thinks wannabe youtubers are the pro users? And TB is something every current Mac has, even the M1 Air. So you could have listed... I don't know... having a motherboard as a Pro feature too
That's not comparable at all, there was significant pent-up expectations when M1 launched. If you want to know how well Apple is doing, you have to look at their market share over a broader period.
I don't know if that's really true as a general rule, but here's my real-world example.
I'm writing this from my 2010 Mac mini with 16GB RAM and an SSD upgrade which is still my main computer to this day. Remember when we could upgrade our Macs?
I also have a somewhat recent gaming PC with an i3-12100F, 1660 Ti and 16GB RAM, which is much faster, but I prefer to use my old Mac mini with macOS rather than having to use Windows 10, especially with its harsh text anti-aliasing method.
Geekbench 6 Mac mini (Early 2010) Benchmarks
The Mac mini (Early 2010) is a Mac desktop with an Intel Core 2 Duo P8800 processor.CPU Benchmark Scores
Single-Core Score: 299Multi-Core Score: 433
So the M3 is 27 times faster than my (very) old Mac mini, which is completely insane. I wish Apple still offered the M1 Mac mini at a lower price, it would be a perfect replacement for my old Mac even if it's "only" 19 times faster. I guess I'll wait for the M3 Mac mini to buy an M2 Mac mini at a discounted price.
Last edited:
While typing all this from the Macs they're still buying.
Looking at the actual facts, Macs are cheaper than they've ever been. Case in point: for many many years the basic entry model of a Mac laptop has been approximately $1000 (here, randomly, is an iBook from 2005 if you don't believe me) even as the value of $1000 has dropped precipitously. That base model iBook above would cost close to $1600 in today's dollars. That's not a high-powered PowerBook -- those started at $1500 ($2300 today).
So, when you're all done with the whinging, think about how even if you pony up for extra RAM and SSD space, you're still paying less than 17 years ago. Or, I guess, just keep complaining. But maybe back it up and go buy a ****ing Dell or whatever if you're so fed up with Apple. I think a lot of us are getting sick of hearing post after post grinding this tired axe.
Last edited:
That's exactly the point. The reason for the longevity of Mac usage has less to do with speed, and more to do with Apple's attention to all the other stuff. Mac users tend to WANT to use their Macs, until they can't endure the speed any longer. When a typical Windows PC starts to slow down, nothing about it makes you want to not throw it into the fireplace.
The touchpad on my work Lenovo looked like I had been rubbing at it for 5 years, after two weeks of use. My brother's different model Lenovo did the same, so I know it's not just me. My almost 3 year old MBA's touchpad looks brand new. All the while, people are pointing at Apple when talking about "planned obsolescence"...
Exactly. The only reason people are angry with Apple is that overall, Apple products are GOOD. If they weren't, you would care just as little about them as you did about Samsung.
Subjectively speaking my Apple products have lasted 4 to 5 fold what any Dell or Windows PC has. I had nothing but problems with every pre-build Ive ever owned. I now build my own PCs though. Can't really do that with a laptop though.
If you spend a little more now on Ram now you'll be future proofing it if longevity is what you are looking for.
My 2010 MBP is still usable. Ive never had a Windows laptop that lasted more than 2 years without either breaking or feeling outdated.
It's been a long time but I think Dell makes the worst machines I've ever used.
Although I am thankful, it pushed me towards a MacBook and I never looked back. Prior to that I had used some Apple clones in the late 1990's when clones were a thing.
8gb Ram and a huge markup on the upgrade.... that's a nope for so called pro features.
You don't even have to go back that far - overall inflation the last 4 years is 20%. MBP with M3 Pro should be 2499,- by now. Given how other technology products have risen in price lately, I was surprised that the prices didn't go up. To be fair, I don't have a clue about the price evolution of Windows products during that time span, because I just don't care.
So what's your point? Progress is bad? New products should be held back or throttled to avoid upsetting customers who bought earlier products? Wouldn't you also be complaining if the new chips were "only" 7%-12% faster than last year's? I guess some people just like to complain regardless.
It's all sounds nice, viewed in a vacuum. The Thinkpad X41 in 2005 debuted at $2150. It's essential successor, the X13 Gen 4 starts at $1600 list price, before the heavy discounts. Even with your method Apple got more expensive compared to the rest of the industry.
Why Apple owners have to care and go somewhere discuss subpar Samsung or Microsoft. Here and now we discuss Apple.
That's not how inflation works. That's the weighted average of the price change of different products, not some benchmark individual products follow.
I think the most interesting comparison is between an M1 Pro and and a base M3. If the M3 is equal or better in most ways, that makes the upgraded iMac a powerful enough machine for almost anything 99% of people would use it for.
Yet a lot of people here are trying to tell me to buy Windows products... Anyway, I've proven my point.
Those computers are comparable to a MacBook Air, not a Pro. The Galaxy Book Pro is $1,000 not $1,500.
It's a $35 retail chip, the fricken Air's should have 16gb at this point. My 2014 MacBook Pro came with 8gb stock.
They marketed this for true professionals this time. We need 16gb base and that upgrade prices me out and looking at older models.