Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

MacRumors

macrumors bot
Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
66,698
36,054


MacBook Pro models with the M3 and M3 Pro chips are available starting today, and MacRumors videographer Dan Barbera was in New York so he popped over to the Grand Central station Apple Store to pick up a new machine to demo to MacRumors readers.


Dan purchased the M3 Pro MacBook Pro, which is a model that hasn't gotten a lot of attention. Apple provided reviewers with new Macs equipped with M3 and M3 Max chips, but we've heard little about the new M3 Pro. For context, the M3 Pro has 150GB/s memory bandwidth, while the M2 Pro had 200GB/s.

Apple also tweaked the 12-core M3 Pro to have six performance cores and six efficiency cores rather than the eight performance cores and four efficiency cores the M2 Pro chip has, which will impact overall performance. Dan's MacBook Pro is the 16-inch $2,499 version with a 12-core CPU, 18-core GPU, 18GB Unified Memory, and a 512GB SSD.

On Geekbench 6, the M3 Pro earned a single-core score of 3085 and a multi-core score of 15155. Comparatively, the 16-inch MacBook Pro with M2 Pro chip that has a 12-core CPU and 19-core GPU earned a single core score of 2643 and a multi-core score of 14206.

The M3 Pro outperforms the M2 Pro, but not by a lot. Single-core speed is up 16.7 percent, while multi-core speed is up 6.7 percent. Note that this is one benchmark result so there could be some variance, but it is in line with what we expected.

GPU performance is nearly flat. The M3 Pro MacBook Pro earned an OpenCL score of 51093, while the equivalent M2 Pro version had a score of 50302 for a difference of 1.6 percent.

Other than the M3 chips, there's not much new with the MacBook Pro models. The M3 Pro and M3 Max come in a Space Black color, which is much darker than expected in person, and it is indeed resistant to fingerprints as Apple promised.

The only other new feature is a slight change to the brightness of the display, which is 600 nits for SDR content, up from 500 nits. You won't see any other changes, with the machine offering the same design and internal specs.

We'll have a video of the M3 Max MacBook Pro coming up in the future, as those machines will start delivering to customers later this week.

Article Link: Hands-On With the New M3 Pro MacBook Pro
 
  • Like
Reactions: Michaelgtrusa
While everyone was worried about "only" 7-17% CPU increase, it seems M3Pro got the same power GPU as M2Pro.
 
  • Wow
Reactions: maxoakland
Dan, there's a little chipmunk trying to squeeze the last bit of its tail into your sweater.
😂😂😂

Those mics influencers are wearing more frequently these days are interesting looking. The audio quality is good though so I guess that is what matters most.
 
...MacRumors videographer Dan Barbera was in New York so he popped over to the Grand Central station Apple Store...
It's Grand Central Terminal:
Grand Central Terminal goes by many names, including Grand Central, the Terminal, and GCT. Just don’t call us “Grand Central Station”—that refers to the US Post Office down the street or the subway station below.
 
Ooo, am I the only one excited about the color matched MagSafe cable? Now the whole cable is space black vs. the plug being white on the other colors?

Now lets make other usb-c/MagSafe space black?
 
  • Like
Reactions: Cape Dave
It does. Just got mine delivered now and it looks great.
As soon as I took the wrap off I said to myself, "oh yes." Put a keyboard cover on and proceeded to use my new Apple toy. I thought it was going to be a lot thicker than it really is. The close-ups in videos made it look chunkier than it really is. This is my second MBP. My first was the 2012 model.
 
Just in terms of performance, it's hard to justify getting this over an M2 for an extra $400. However, I'd like to know:

1) SSD. which versions use single module vs two modules. (did they fix the SSD issue from M2?)
2) Battery life. has this improved at all over M2?
3) is the screen improvement even perceptible?
 
Ah, thats where my ovens heating element got to.

On a serious note, I do like how much more solid the Pros feel compared to the MacBook Airs. I always feel like I'll bend it, but never happened.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 4odomi
Just in terms of performance, it's hard to justify getting this over an M2 for an extra $400. However, I'd like to know:

1) SSD. which versions use single module vs two modules. (did they fix the SSD issue from M2?)
2) Battery life. has this improved at all over M2?
3) is the screen improvement even perceptible?
I think the upgrade proposition is best for those at the stage of upgrading an intel MacBook from 5 years ago.
 
I think the upgrade proposition is best for those at the stage of upgrading an intel MacBook from 5 years ago.
Mine would certainly be an upgrade either way. my mpb is an early 2015 Intel.

I don't need to upgrade very often b/c my work laptop is a windows machine and my desktop is custom built, mostly running linux. but mac owns the laptop space as far as I'm concerned.
 
Ke
As soon as I took the wrap off I said to myself, "oh yes." Put a keyboard cover on and proceeded to use my new Apple toy. I thought it was going to be a lot thicker than it really is. The close-ups in videos made it look chunkier than it really is. This is my second MBP. My first was the 2012 model.

Did you just say keyboard cover. Man. So disappointed. Enjoy though. My apple devices go naked. 15 pro max sadly already has a small scuff on the casing edge. Whatever.
 
Is a 6% generation on generation Multicore performance increase “scary stagnation”?

Should we buy the 16” MBP M3Pro for $4,299 AUD or the M2Pro refurb for $3,399 AUD.

Hmm. 26% price rise. 6% performance increase. :/

Excuse me, let's not forget that's also a 6% darker grey as well.

Seriously tho if I was able to game more the raytracing would be nice, but even then it still seems to do very little for most games outside of a select few that implement it well. I wouldn't mind having the latest and greatest, but eyeballing the M2 Pros this year for sure. The people who were angry about seeing such a fast MBP update this year may not have all that much to worry about after all.
 
Just in terms of performance, it's hard to justify getting this over an M2 for an extra $400. However, I'd like to know:

1) SSD. which versions use single module vs two modules. (did they fix the SSD issue from M2?)
2) Battery life. has this improved at all over M2?
3) is the screen improvement even perceptible?

1) it's actually two chips vs four (one chip gets the 1.5k/1.5k scores). And yes, it appears they did as folks w/ the 512 are showing in the 5k/5k'ish area.
2) it seems like it has based on initial reviews
3) it's just a software change to increase brightness. You can achieve this and more with a variety of 3rd party apps
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.