I want more convincing evidence to upgrade! My thought about the Scary Fast announcement

[sleven]

I am a fan of Apple. Have been for a decade or two now. My current MacBook Pro, a 2015 13” i5 2.9GHz, works well. Only complaint is the battery - it needs to be replaced. I’ve been eying the 2021 MBP 14” M1 Max that BHPhoto has on sale. 32-core GPU, 64gb ram, 2TB hard drive. I want to have something capable of playing World of Warcraft, and am aware the M1 chipset would do pretty well.

Having learned of the ray tracing capabilities of the chipset in the iPhone 15 pro, I knew the M3 would also be capable.

Now to the situation - it was pretty darn clear in the event that they targeted intel-owning users like myself. 11x faster was mentioned.

I think what I want from Apple is a stronger comparison website. I want their marketing team to partner with the web team to create a tool allowing me to select my laptop to the M1/2/3 versions of the 14”.

I then want the ability to identify the cost per performance; solving for the best value - this I realize I will have to do on my own.

Guess I’m the meantime I’ll have to do the research on sites like geekbench and reviews from YouTube to find frame rates and such.

 

[JPack]

That would be nice, but $/perf metrics would way too clinical for Apple. Most people can already be convinced to upgrade if something is 2-3X faster than their current device. Apple also pushes on the other end by dropping support for old Macs in each new release of macOS.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

OP, sounds like you should wait for these to be loose in the wild and watch & read some OBJECTIVE reviews instead of hoping for something objective from Apple Marketing and/or leaning on "reviews" by what I call the "friends of Apple" cast who get earliest access (and thus lots of eyeball-driven, advertising money) and apparently pre-launch gift boxes too. There's no objectivity to be found pre-launch from such sources because the latter wants to stay on the "friends" list to keep that lucrative money flowing and Apple has tremendous self interest to move as much product as possible.

Once OTHER people possess these, some objective reviews can be posted and you'll get useful insights- both good and bad- that you can likely trust to paint a clearer picture.

The ONLY desire you express in post #1 is a desire to play a game. If this purchase is mostly about gaming, perhaps you should either buy a PC or buy yourself any Mac to scratch all other Apple itches and repurpose that 2015 MBpro as a Windows PC in bootcamp so it can be your gaming PC.

Just because Apple is improving hardware that can benefit games doesn't mean the big games will come. IMO, that will require significant resource allocations much like how AppleTV+ budget, talent and significant spend gets Apple exclusive and quality video programming. Until you see something similar for gaming, the developers will keep making games for the other players who do exactly that.

Such games are already thoroughly available on the PC side of things and you already have a good "PC" in disguise as a Mac now. A new battery could easily cost < $75- I just replaced one myself in my MBpro for $55. It's not as easy as it should be, but not so difficult it warrants tossing an otherwise good computer mostly over a battery.

If that MBpro is not quite scratching the gaming power itch, for a portion of what you might pay for that new super Mac, you can get a pretty robust gaming PC. High competition for important parts like RAM & SSD will buy you abundant hardware vs. the same stuff only from one source on our side of the wall. And again, the software- the games- are so much more prevalent on the platform that:

• works with game developers,
• flows lots of subsidy money to game developers,
• buys major gaming houses,
• employs large dedicated teams of game developers and
• doesn't very publicly attempt to sue major game devs into oblivion over a 30% cut right off the top.

Like you, I'm heavily invested in Apple hardware too. But for that itch and because Silicon basically terminates Bootcamp (and ARM Windows is not full Windows), I took less than what Apple charges for an 8TB SSD upgrade and got a pretty loaded gaming PC to pair with my Mac Desktop. You might consider doing the same.

 

[TGM85]

A 2015 MBP is still a great machine for basic stuff, but I would recommend upgrading to Apple silicon At this point. I replaced my 2015 13” MBP in late 2021 with an M1 Pro MBP and I have never regretted my decision. It’s a huge leap forward in performance.

If you want to save on cost, have a look at refurbished M1/M2 machines in Apple’s online store, they’re excellent value for money.

 

[matrix07]

If you want more bangs for your buck, go with older model like M1 or M2. M1 is already miles better than your MBP in term of performance and battery life.

 

[Velin]

I want to have something capable of playing World of Warcraft

Listen close. Buy whatever minimum Mac you need for true work and travel. Maybe an M2 Air, maybe an M2 Mini Pro, or a Studio. Get what you need, and no more. Do not throw thousands of dollars away on Apple ray tracing, a huge mistake.

Then, with the money you saved, build a PC gaming rig. Get the best GPU you can afford, and play your games on that. For a fraction of the price of a MacBook M3 Pro, you’ll have a great gaming rig. You’ll spend significantly less, and still have a good PC that does ray tracing right, and can play all the exclusive titles.

 

[sleven]

I think - I had hoped anyways - that because they kept pushing the message of the performance gains over the intel-based macs, we would have received some kind of tool on their website that allows us to compare models.

All of you provided some great feedback. I agree, that what I want to see - cost/performance - will have to be identified on my own.

It would be cool if MR had an article that also showed all M-series chips performance metrics on a chart.

It would also be neat if their pricing guide allowed an individual to specify the amount of ram and hard drive space, then showed the prices among resellers.

Other than geekbench, is there another cpu-comparison website I can use for data?