I am glad I selected M1Pro 16''instead of M1MAX 16''

[CeleryMan]

Since I was afraid that the more powerful processor/GPU will be more noisy etc. I better selected M1Pro. But still kept doubting if it was a right choice and Max maybe better and faster ? Well, now I am glad that I selected Pro. Finally perfect comparison came and Max is really a bit more noisy and has less battery life. And I will gladly wait few minutes more for the video rendering

Still waiting for it (Max is here - my son has it)

That's awesome. I'm glad you are happy with your purchase!

My for the 16" Max/64GB/1TB is still processing, but after reading the battery life reviews, I really want the 16" Pro/32GB/2TB version.

 

[PhoneI]

I don't need a single one. If I want external monitors it is much better to have a real computer not a laptop.

If I want better battery life I will get a real computer not a laptop

 

[kp98077]

Since I was afraid that the more powerful processor/GPU will be more noisy etc. I better selected M1Pro. But still kept doubting if it was a right choice and Max maybe better and faster ? Well, now I am glad that I selected Pro. Finally perfect comparison came and Max is really a bit more noisy and has less battery life. And I will gladly wait few minutes more for the video rendering

Still waiting for it (Max is here - my son has it)

I always go for the base model, no regrets!!

 

[Micka88]

If I want better battery life I will get a real computer not a laptop

You can connect both to the electricity (and a real computer will not run on battery)

 

[IllIllIll]

So the conclusion of our intrepid YouTuber, is that the more powerful chip, when worked hard, is faster but uses more power and therefore hotter with the fans on?
Well, blow me down, who’d ever have predicted that?

Why are people obsessed with such tiny differences? They’re all ridiculously powerful machines. There’s no such thing as perfection in the world, so buy your best fit and just enjoy doing whatever you do on it. And when you’ve done that, maybe get outside more and worry about the bigger things ?

Because insecure people feel the need to rationalize their purchases in order to bolster their own egos.

 

[Sowelu]

Real world comparisons on the forums (not running benchmarks) comparing the same usage on each machine has shown that the battery life between both the 16" Max and the Pro are very much the same (or very close) with every day tasks.

Heat and reduced battery life will lean towards the Max with heavy use, especially GPU intensive work. So the Max, when needed, will give you extra performance, but it shouldn't eat too much into your battery with every day normal tasks or at idle.

I've been setting up my 16" Max (32gb/2TB) for the past two days with non stop downloading, file copying, macOS 12.01 update, and so on, and it has never gotten passed a bit warm on the bottom, and the fans literally never turned on. As I sit here and type this, with 400GB of music and 300GB of photos indexing, this MacBook Pro is cool to the touch.

 

[M0RN!NG5TAR]

I've been setting up my 16" Max (32gb/2TB) for the past two days with non stop downloading, file copying, macOS 12.01 update, and so on, and it has never gotten passed a bit warm on the bottom, and the fans literally never turned on. As I sit here and type this, with 400GB of music and 300GB of photos indexing, this MacBook Pro is cool to the touch.

If you don't mind, can you please tell us exactly how much battery life was for your MacBook?

 

[Micka88]

Well, in the end the announced "battery life" is like the announced "petrol consumption" when in reality it will be at least twice more

And when you are going to use the battery it will deteriorate quite quickly ... I have Macbook Air for the last 10 months using it daily and on battery quite often and its battery condition is already "poor" and battery life nothing spectacular any more.

So you can test a new machine and be excited in theory but after a short time you are back to very mediocre (battery) life ... and you cannot change the battery later for a new one.

 

[SkiHound2]

I have the 16core 1TB Pro version and my biggest issue is more tied to the 16gb or ram vs 32gb I would be getting with the Max Chip. My RAM is always hovering at 13 of 16gb available memory - never experienced any slowdowns but it just bothers me it's always close to full.

My ideal computer would be the 16" M1 Pro w/ 32GB ram. Too bad Apple doesn't stock that configuration in stores.

How much of available ram a computer is using isn't all that meaningful. On an Intel iMac I have 40gb and even with not much stuff running Activity monitor says I'm using 28.4gb. The operating system will use the memory that's available. Now, with 11gb remaining I have quite a bit of extra memory. Memory pressure and the size of the swap file are more meaningful. If memory pressure is yellow or red, you could probably use more memory. Macos makes efficient use of memory and the design of the M class chips makes memory management more efficient. Max Tech on Youtube has a video comparing the same MBP; one with 16gb and the other with 32gb. He loaded up a bunch of programs and then started timing things like video rendering. The performance differences were pretty trivial. Unless you have a really demanding work flow I don't think the 16gb memory is going to be much of an issue.

 

[watchmainspring]

How much of available ram a computer is using isn't all that meaningful. On an Intel iMac I have 40gb and even with not much stuff running Activity monitor says I'm using 28.4gb. The operating system will use the memory that's available. Now, with 11gb remaining I have quite a bit of extra memory. Memory pressure and the size of the swap file are more meaningful. If memory pressure is yellow or red, you could probably use more memory. Macos makes efficient use of memory and the design of the M class chips makes memory management more efficient. Max Tech on Youtube has a video comparing the same MBP; one with 16gb and the other with 32gb. He loaded up a bunch of programs and then started timing things like video rendering. The performance differences were pretty trivial. Unless you have a really demanding work flow I don't think the 16gb memory is going to be much of an issue.

Yeah I saw that maxtech video. Crazy how the swap can act as ram without slowing the system.

 

[Sowelu]

It's interesting... I have 32GB of RAM and today is the first time I am seeing swap being used (after a week of heavy usage with no swap). But what's odd is, memory pressure is only at 9% with 17GB of memory showing as 'free'. Does the system just create and use a swap file regardless of how much ram you have and use?

 

[adamk77]

It's interesting... I have 32GB of RAM and today is the first time I am seeing swap being used (after a week of heavy usage with no swap). But what's odd is, memory pressure is only at 9% with 17GB of memory showing as 'free'. Does the system just create and use a swap file regardless of how much ram you have and use?

View attachment 1904433

In short, yes. The operating system is planning ahead, trying to react quickly in the case something suddenly asks for a large amount of memory. So it will eagerly swap out the unused data in memory onto disk even if you have plenty of free memory remaining.

Also, it's possible that your RAM usage was higher at some point, but it went back down by the time you checked activity monitor.