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chchchttt123

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Dec 12, 2019
25
9
Plan to buy the base 14'' model and keep it for 3-5 years.

Is the base model enough? Do you recommend to pay extra $300 for 2 more cpu cores and 2 more gpu cores (given promotion is added this year)?

No photo/video editing.
 

donster28

macrumors 68000
Oct 5, 2006
1,726
811
Great White North
We're spoiled by really fast machines nowadays and the base model is more than enough for everything you will put on it. Having said that, the laptop will most definitely slow down slightly on you in 3 years time so buy it based on what you need now to get the best out of it.
 

ebika

macrumors 6502a
Nov 17, 2008
840
791
Chicago
It really depends on what type of software engineering you’re doing. Are you writing iOS or Android apps? The base model 14” is more than enough. Are you developing micro services where you want to run a significant number of containers for databases and dependent micro services locally to replicate a section of your cloud infra? 16GB RAM might cramp your setup (but the CPUs and GPUs are fine). Outside of heavy gaming (irrelevant with the new Apple silicon right now because very few mainstream games target Apple silicon) or video editing, there are very few use cases where you’d come close to utilizing the full CPUs or GPUs on any of the current models. Perhaps some of the more exotic machine learning models, or an image rendering farm running locally. Typical software engineering tools aren’t going to tax these machines that much except for their memory usage.
 

mousouchop

macrumors 6502a
Oct 22, 2008
814
118
New York
I am wondering the same, as someone that already ordered the 8 CPU, 14 GPU, 32GB RAM and 1TB.

I exclusively program, with maybe some light graphic work (like icon and logo work, simple stuff). I am hopeful this will be plenty for that, for some time to come.

I bought hoping for a 4-6 year lifetime. Wondering how much more longevity in the 10CPU/16GPU combo.

One “win” I can think of, is that if Apple didn’t quite crack the nut on the thermal management, the 8/14 split will be better cooled that the 10… maybe?
 

ChronicLynx

macrumors regular
Aug 5, 2018
104
135
I have a powerful desktop if I really need to go beyond the base MacBook performance. I’m not a big fan of paying Apple’s markup if you don’t absolutely NEED it. Odds are that in a few years you can put that extra cash toward the new base model with even higher standard specs.

Also 16GB is plenty still for most software engineering work unless of course virtualization or containers are involved as said above.
 
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chchchttt123

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Dec 12, 2019
25
9
It really depends on what type of software engineering you’re doing. Are you writing iOS or Android apps? The base model 14” is more than enough. Are you developing micro services where you want to run a significant number of containers for databases and dependent micro services locally to replicate a section of your cloud infra? 16GB RAM might cramp your setup (but the CPUs and GPUs are fine). Outside of heavy gaming (irrelevant with the new Apple silicon right now because very few mainstream games target Apple silicon) or video editing, there are very few use cases where you’d come close to utilizing the full CPUs or GPUs on any of the current models. Perhaps some of the more exotic machine learning models, or an image rendering farm running locally. Typical software engineering tools aren’t going to tax these machines that much except for their memory usage.
Thank you, this is very insightful.
Right now I'm in my early career (backend/infra development). I'm not sure I will deal with containers (probably yes). I agree that memory is more important than cpu/gpu. But $400 for 16GM more RAM is really hard to justify its price. If it was $200, it would be an instant upgrade for me.
 

chchchttt123

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Dec 12, 2019
25
9
I am wondering the same, as someone that already ordered the 8 CPU, 14 GPU, 32GB RAM and 1TB.

I exclusively program, with maybe some light graphic work (like icon and logo work, simple stuff). I am hopeful this will be plenty for that, for some time to come.

I bought hoping for a 4-6 year lifetime. Wondering how much more longevity in the 10CPU/16GPU combo.

One “win” I can think of, is that if Apple didn’t quite crack the nut on the thermal management, the 8/14 split will be better cooled that the 10… maybe?
Yeah, but given how big the fans are this year, I think it doesn't make too much different between 8/14 and 10/16
 
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PerfumedPonce

macrumors member
Oct 28, 2021
35
34
I currently have an unopened 8 core 16GB 14" MBP machine sitting in my house and part of me is wondering if I made the right choice.

I work as a Scala developer (non spark, non big data). All builds on large codebases are done on my clients machines I only use my machine for personal projects and POCs. I can't imagine I will miss the extra two CPU cores but part of me worries about future proofing.

I am of an age where I saw people get burned by Spectrum 16k v Spectrum 48K, Vic 20 v Commodore 64 and Acorn BBC B v Acorn Electron and some scars run deep...
 

DFZD

macrumors 65816
Apr 6, 2012
1,069
2,926
Here's some real world insight from another Software Engineer.

I make apps using Flutter. It means I use VSCode and occasionally Xcode, Nova/Coda and Android Studio.

I used MacBook Air 11.6 from 2016 to 2020 - It had 4GB Ram and 128GB Storage. It was enough for most tasks but
I couldn't really run a simulator for Android and iOS and needed a real device for development.

Then I upgraded to MacBook Pro 13 M1 and used it for an year. It had 8GB Ram and 256GB Storage. I wanted to buy the 16GB model but it wasn't available off the shelves. Surprisingly the device stood really well, and allow everything to run very smoothly.

Last week I have upgraded to the MacBook Pro 14 M1 Pro (8/14) base variant. So far it works really well, but honestly
for my current workload I have not experienced any speed upgrade. What I have really noticed is low battery life, almost half that of the previous MacBook Pro I had.

So unless you have very specific needs, the base model should be more than adequate for most things.
 
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