Hmm … I do a lot of Final Cut but not huge projects. Might just go for the M1 Pro and spend the money on a big SSD and a good monitor.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
M1 Pro vs. M1 Max: Real-World Performance Test
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I’d argue THIS is real world scenario.But how does it perform watching cat vids on YouTube?
AFAIK, Apple has never given different support cutoffs based on the level of chip in the model you buy. That applies to both software (the last OS that works for that model) and hardware (when a model is designated as vintage or obsolete).
This is great to know, and a good article by MacRumors. My workflow revolves around working in large 3d files in Vectorworks and auto cad. Rendering can be part of my workflow, but mostly it's navigating large 3D spaces with complicated geometry. The M1 Max seems to be great for this. As a lifetime Mac user, I've only recently hit the point in my career where I honestly need high performance machines. Its kind of nice to get the reassurance that the extra price was worth it.
Btw this was the first post on Mac rumors on my new MBP 14".
Btw this was the first post on Mac rumors on my new MBP 14".
Not sure what you're expecting. Apple makes a pretty good scissor keyboard, but scissor keyboards by their very nature just don't have a very high ceiling. The only way I could see them improving on it is if they used sculpted PBT keycaps, but they're not likely to do sculpted or PBT anytime soon.
Plenty of other reviewers have already tested it. They perform the exact same on battery. Max tech on YouTube has done this a couple times when comparing to other laptops
They could give them more than 0.9 mm travel, like the 1.3 mm on the Dell XPS (which is also the travel the 2014-2015 MBP's had, and that KB was much-loved) or the 1.5 - 1.8 mm on the ThinkPads (which are often cited as having the best laptop KB's).
Last edited:
Mine's gonna arrive in the first half of december, as I deleted the order twice in these 2 weeks.
I originally had to sacrifice the SSD by getting 512GB as the configuration I wanted was already a bit outside my budget, but now I changed my order for a 1TB SSD as I have gotten some decently paid work (I freelance), allowing me to pay for the extra space.
The rest of the computer is the maxed out 16".
I think that having to wait an extra 2 weeks for the computer is worth the extra space.
I actually have an external thunderbolt 3 enclosure and an nvme that reaches around 2000 MBps R/W in it, however I need the After Effects Cache folder (400GB in my case) to be on the fastest drive I have, and I'd be better off with the amazing speed of the native SSD.
To be fair the relative lack of speed the orders are suffering from, in a weird twist of fate, worked to my advantage as the order stayed for a long time in the "elaboration" stage, which allows the buyer to cancel it still; if the orders would have been fasted I'd be stuck with the 14" 32GB 512GB that was the model I purchased as soon as the keynote ended.
At least I'm consoling myself that I'll first experience monterey in a fairly patched state and perhaps a few more programs will have been optimized for apple silicon.
As a matter of fact I'm testing the Apple Silicon beta for After Effects on my mini M1 and it is surprisingly stable, perfectly usable, the only problem being most third-party plugins not being compatible yet.
Scripts work well, though.
I originally had to sacrifice the SSD by getting 512GB as the configuration I wanted was already a bit outside my budget, but now I changed my order for a 1TB SSD as I have gotten some decently paid work (I freelance), allowing me to pay for the extra space.
The rest of the computer is the maxed out 16".
I think that having to wait an extra 2 weeks for the computer is worth the extra space.
I actually have an external thunderbolt 3 enclosure and an nvme that reaches around 2000 MBps R/W in it, however I need the After Effects Cache folder (400GB in my case) to be on the fastest drive I have, and I'd be better off with the amazing speed of the native SSD.
To be fair the relative lack of speed the orders are suffering from, in a weird twist of fate, worked to my advantage as the order stayed for a long time in the "elaboration" stage, which allows the buyer to cancel it still; if the orders would have been fasted I'd be stuck with the 14" 32GB 512GB that was the model I purchased as soon as the keynote ended.
At least I'm consoling myself that I'll first experience monterey in a fairly patched state and perhaps a few more programs will have been optimized for apple silicon.
As a matter of fact I'm testing the Apple Silicon beta for After Effects on my mini M1 and it is surprisingly stable, perfectly usable, the only problem being most third-party plugins not being compatible yet.
Scripts work well, though.
Is yours a 15" or 13"? Mine's a 15", is typically connected to a 4k plus at least one other monitor, and I've only had to replace the battery once. The current one is 2.5 years old, and is at 90% capacity after 405 cycles. Here's the status from Coconut Battery:
I'm wondering if RAM and SSD make a difference on the Geekbench scores, as my 16" M1 Pro, 32GB, 2TB just got 1769 single core and 12383 multicore (39467 Metal)... ?
Now that the new MacBook Pro models have been available for a week, we've been able to do more in-depth testing. In our latest YouTube video, we pit the entry-level 14-inch MacBook Pro with an M1 Pro chip against the high-end 16-inch MacBook Pro with an M1 Max chip to see just what you're getting with the upgrade to the M1 Max.
Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos.
Priced at $1,999, the base 14-inch MacBook Pro features an M1 Pro chip with an 8-core CPU, a 14-core GPU, 16GB unified memory, and a 512GB SSD. The $3,499 high-end 16-inch MacBook Pro we compared it to in this video has an M1 Max chip with 10-core CPU, 32-core GPU, 32GB unified memory, and 1TB SSD. The two machines represent the most affordable and the most expensive stock MacBook Pro models that don't take into account upgrade options.
In our testing, the M1 Max unsurprisingly outperformed the lower-end M1 Pro chip, but what was a bit of a surprise was how well even the base M1 Pro chip did in our tests.
In Final Cut Pro, a video export test saw the M1 Max machine export a 6-minute 4K video in one minute and 49 seconds, a task that took the M1 Pro 2 minute and 55 seconds. When it comes to 8K RAW footage, both machines were able to handle the load. The M1 Max MacBook Pro performed close to flawlessly, while the M1 Pro had a few issues with dropped frames and stuttering, but was ultimately able to keep up.
For comparison's sake, the 2017 Mac Pro that we have is not able to handle 8K footage as well as the base model 14-inch MacBook Pro with M1 Pro chip. The M1 Max ultimately did better with our Final Cut Pro testing because of the 32 GPU cores, but the M1 Pro machine offered impressive performance.
In a Blender test, a complicated image of a classroom was rendered in just 8 minutes and 23 seconds on the M1 Max MacBook Pro, a process that took the M1 Pro MacBook Pro 10 minutes and 58 seconds.
We tested the memory in both machines by opening up a series of apps that one might use in a video editing workflow, like Final Cut Pro, Lightroom, Chrome, Safari, Music, and a few others, and there were zero performance hiccups across either MacBook Pro model. Intel machines with 16GB RAM often see issues with this same setup, so again, even the low-end MacBook Pro is doing well here. Both the 512GB SSD in the base model and the 1TB SSD in the 16-inch MacBook Pro performed about the same, with a 128GB file transferring from an external SSD to an internal SSD in 44 and 43 seconds, respectively.
As for straight Geekbench numbers, the MacBook Pro with M1 Max earned a single-core score of 1781 and a multi-core score of 12785, while the MacBook Pro with base M1 Pro chip earned a single-core score of 1666 and a multi-core score of 9924. Metal scores came in at 38138 for the M1 Pro and 64134 for the M1 Max.
You're going to want to watch our full video for the complete performance comparison as we also did some other tests on the two machines. All in all, if you have a workflow where seconds matter, like exporting video or working with large 3D files, you're going to save time with the M1 Max, but the M1 Pro, even the base model, is still a very capable machine.
Article Link: M1 Pro vs. M1 Max: Real-World Performance Test
Fair enough. I've seen all of MaxTech's videos (I think) and hopefully they'll do a 14" M1 Pro to Max comparison. My point was that there are "not loads" of videos....they will emerge in time no doubt
Glad I went with the Air I bought a few days ago. My M1 Air just scored 1743 in Single Core in Geekbench 5. In other words, it's faster than the (base) M1 Pro for my daily office tasks, and even faster than my 5900x.
A better challenge might be a more modern game like Control. At Ultra on a 4k monitor, even an RTX 3090 desktop can manage only ≈60 fps.
Of course, all these AAA game comparisons are meaningless until one is released that is optimized for AS.
I'd love to see the 2016 MacBook Pro tested against these new M1 Pro/Max machines,
as 2016 and 2021 both are remarkable chapters in the MacBook Pro lineup.
Geekbench scores of the 3 are:
MacBook Pro (15-inch Late 2016)
Intel Core i7-6820HQ @ 2.7 GHz (4 cores)
M1 Pro 8-core CPU, a 14-core GPU
M1 Max 10-core CPU, 32-core GPU
https://www.macrumors.com/2021/11/03/m1-pro-vs-m1-max-performance-test/
as 2016 and 2021 both are remarkable chapters in the MacBook Pro lineup.
Geekbench scores of the 3 are:
MacBook Pro (15-inch Late 2016)
Intel Core i7-6820HQ @ 2.7 GHz (4 cores)
- Single-Core Score: 791
- Multi-Core Score: 3202
- Metal score: unknown
M1 Pro 8-core CPU, a 14-core GPU
- single-core score: 1666
- multi-core score: 9924
- Metal score: 38138
M1 Max 10-core CPU, 32-core GPU
- Single-core score: 1781
- multi-core score: 12785
- Metal score: 64134
https://www.macrumors.com/2021/11/03/m1-pro-vs-m1-max-performance-test/
Last edited:
Identical in single core test, in multi notebooks with more cores obviously proportionally higher scores. In real life, slightly less difference I guess.