Intermediate M1 Pro chip comparisons

[patearrings]

Just looking at the m1 pro chips available on apples site and i'm wondering which of the intermediate m1 chips people feel is the best value for money. Apple didn't say a lot about these chips, they really just emphasised the fact there was a pro then a max, but there are scales of pro before you reach the Max.

what do people think?

 

[leman]

Well, it depends on how much performance you want and how much money you want to spend. All of them are kind of good and the pricing is very fair.

For example, the cheapest 14“ (6+2+14) will outperform the similarly priced XPS 15“ most of the time, while giving you at least twice as much battery life, better connectivity, a vastly better display and a more portable chassis. Even the higher end 16“ models with Max, will outclass workstation laptops of similar price.

 

[patearrings]

Does more GPU cores give you actual better graphics, or just faster processing power?

 

[htnt7919]

The best value is buying used m1 max with apple care in 7 months , you will get 30-40% discount.

 

[leman]

Does more GPU cores give you actual better graphics, or just faster processing power?

Faster processing power that you can use to get better graphics.

 

[Krevnik]

Faster processing power that you can use to get better graphics.

Higher settings or higher frame rates, depending on what you value. Relevant if the MBP allows games to use go up to 120fps on the built-in screen (fingers crossed).

While I went with the M1 Max more to try to get enough oomph to let Affinity Photo keep up with real-time compositing/effects for years to come in my larger hobby projects. There's a couple of games I wouldn't mind playing on it more often, and 120fps would be rather nice after getting used to it on my gaming PC.

 

[o’bluetouring]

I’m also debating if I should do 8/14, 10/14 or 10/16 M1 Pro. Coming from a mid 2014 MBP 15 i7 with 16gb, I know any of the new configurations will feel like light speed, but I’m also trying to future proof it so it can last me another 6-7 years like my old MBP.

Typically I don’t do any heavy work on my MBP, but I started doing some architectural design work on it running AutoCAD through Parallels (and running 34” external monitor), and it got the job done. It might be a little slow opening up files and dealing with multiple xref’s, but there is no lag during drafting or panning the drawings.

I think I’ll go with 32GB ram just so Parallels gets a little more juice, but I’m not sure if I should settle for 8/14, 10/14 or 10/16 core configurations.

 

[edfoo]

I think I’ll go with 32GB ram just so Parallels gets a little more juice, but I’m not sure if I should settle for 8/14, 10/14 or 10/16 core configurations.

Someone said if you are planning to get 32GB RAM, then you should just go for M1 Max rather than M1 Pro because the price increase is not as much as going from 16GB to 32GB RAM.

 

[Belazor]

Someone said if you are planning to get 32GB RAM, then you should just go for M1 Max rather than M1 Pro because the price increase is not as much as going from 16GB to 32GB RAM.

That turned out to not be true, because if you upgrade the CPU, they also add the cost of the RAM.

 

[Tagbert]

I’m also debating if I should do 8/14, 10/14 or 10/16 M1 Pro. Coming from a mid 2014 MBP 15 i7 with 16gb, I know any of the new configurations will feel like light speed, but I’m also trying to future proof it so it can last me another 6-7 years like my old MBP.

Typically I don’t do any heavy work on my MBP, but I started doing some architectural design work on it running AutoCAD through Parallels (and running 34” external monitor), and it got the job done. It might be a little slow opening up files and dealing with multiple xref’s, but there is no lag during drafting or panning the drawings.

I think I’ll go with 32GB ram just so Parallels gets a little more juice, but I’m not sure if I should settle for 8/14, 10/14 or 10/16 core configurations.

Are you planning on running AutoCAD on ARM Windows on Parallels? That sounds very brave. 😊

 

[o’bluetouring]

Are you planning on running AutoCAD on ARM Windows on Parallels? That sounds very brave.

I looked it up briefly and I think people had success running AutoCAD & Revit through Parallels on M1 Macs with the latest ARM releases from Windows Insider. I didn’t look through too many articles but can you let me know what issues I might run into?

 

[Chancha]

That turned out to not be true, because if you upgrade the CPU, they also add the cost of the RAM.

Still some would argue the Max having double the memory bandwidth than the Pro, thus the same 32GB amount will be more performant on the Max. Though in real world test this may not be that noticeable depending on your task.

 

[edfoo]

That turned out to not be true, because if you upgrade the CPU, they also add the cost of the RAM.

That is what I meant if someone is planning to upgrade from 16GB RAM to 32GB RAM. By choosing M1 Max, the RAM is automatically increased to 32GB.

 

[Belazor]

That is what I meant if someone is planning to upgrade from 16GB RAM to 32GB RAM. By choosing M1 Max, the RAM is automatically increased to 32GB.

No, if someone is planning to upgrade from 16 GB RAM to 32 GB, that does not mean they should choose the M1 Max.

The cost of upgrading from the M1 Pro to the 24 GPU Core M1 Max is £200.
The cost for 16 GB to 32 GB RAM is £400.

By only upgrading RAM, the cost increases by £200.
By upgrading to the M1 Max 24-core, the cost increases by £600.

Still some would argue the Max having double the memory bandwidth than the Pro, thus the same 32GB amount will be more performant on the Max. Though in real world test this may not be that noticeable depending on your task.

My understanding is that this only really matters for GPU-bound tasks. Whenever I see someone talking about memory bandwidth, they’re only ever referring to the GPU.

For instance, a software developer (like myself) doesn’t care that much about GPU performance, so the memory bandwidth may not make that much of a difference.

This is just what I’ve picked up from reading around, I could very well be wrong and I’d be open to a more hardware-oriented person clarifying

 

[edfoo]

No, if someone is planning to upgrade from 16 GB RAM to 32 GB, that does not mean they should choose the M1 Max.

The cost of upgrading from the M1 Pro to the 24 GPU Core M1 Max is £200.
The cost for 16 GB to 32 GB RAM is £400.

By only upgrading RAM, the cost increases by £200.
By upgrading to the M1 Max 24-core, the cost increases by £600.

Wait a sec, so what is the cost of only upgrading from 16GB to 32GB RAM? £200 or £400?

 

[Belazor]

Wait a sec, so what is the cost of only upgrading from 16GB to 32GB RAM? £200 or £400?

Only upgrading RAM from 16 GB to 32 GB is £400.

The CPU upgrade costs £200, but because the CPU has a minimum of 32 GB RAM, upgrading CPU also adds the £400 for RAM upgrade to the machine's cost.

 

[Arctic Moose]

The only difference I am interested in is the fluidity and smoothness of the GUI animations.

I absolutely hate the glitchy and laggy interface of my 5K iMac (Radeon Pro 580 8 GB, 64 GB, 4.2 GHz i7, 2 TB SSD) when starting applications, using menus, moving windows, etc. (I wish I could just turn ALL the animations entirely off, especially in Photos.)

I would also welcome any improvement I can get in both the Lightroom interface, and previewing and performing operations on .dng files.

I don't know enough about how these activities use resources (CPU vs. GPU and single-threaded vs. multithreaded) to understand if I will see any benefit from more CPU or GPU cores, or the increased bandwidth of the Max.

The order I have placed is for Max/10/24/32GB, but wondering if perhaps I should downgrade to Pro/8/14/32GB and save some money, which I would only do if this is expected be exactly the same experience for these specific tasks. Any thoughts?

 

[Tagbert]

I looked it up briefly and I think people had success running AutoCAD & Revit through Parallels on M1 Macs with the latest ARM releases from Windows Insider. I didn’t look through too many articles but can you let me know what issues I might run into?

Oh, I have no information. I have just been curious about running arm windows and adding AutoCAD on that seems like it would multiply the complexity and risk. I used to use AutoCAD back in the 80’s and 90’s and always had a fondness for it.