M2 Pro vs M3

[zionbrian]

Hi!

I know there are no guarantees, but based on the normal progression of these chips, do you feel the regular M3 chip will be faster than than the M2 Pro? My two options are getting a Mac Mini with the M2 Pro or waiting for an iMac with an M3 if/when it comes out (I'd prefer an iMac with the monitor built in, but I would get the Mini if there is a big enough difference).

I would just be using it for music recording.

Thanks in advance for any advice!

Brian

 

[Longplays]

If you are willing to wait 12 months then wait.

 

[herbert7265]

Just my point of view…!

You need (!) something today, get what suits your needs AND what is available today.

There will always be “the next better thing”, but if you always wait for it you will wait forever…!

Herbert

 

[Rnd-chars]

Depends on your use case. M3 will certainly be faster at:
- single core and multi-core for processes that use 4 or fewer threads
- neural engine computations
- hardware features exclusive to the M3 (like the rumored ray tracing)

The M2 Pro will be faster at:
- multi-core processes that use 5 or more threads
- GPU constrained workloads
- memory-bandwidth constrained workloads

If you’re not in a hurry, I’d wait for the M3 since:
- you could then compare actual numbers and decide what the right fit is
- you want an iMac anyway

 

[dandeco]

I suspect the M2 Pro will still be marginally faster than the base-line M3. Plus, you can configure an M2 Pro Mac with 32 GB of RAM; I'm not sure if the base-like M3 will let you. (Then again, the base-line M1's limit was 16 GB of RAM, and the base-line M2's limit is 24 GB.)

 

[bobcomer]

If you always wait for the next thing, you'll never buy anything, because when that comes around, there's the M4 to wait for.

Buy what you need, when you need it, or even just want it. Waiting because the M3 is supposed to come out next year just doesn't make sense to me. Apple may just decide the M3 isn't good enough and you'd have to wait years for the next version, and it really isn't going to be that much faster, especially buying a lower end model.

 

[JPack]

We just don't know what M3 is yet.

Is it a low-risk design based on A16? Or high-risk A17? Will the focus be on general computing, graphics, or ML?

Too many unknowns to make a conclusion. But based on M2 vs. M1 Pro, the Pro will perform better in most cases.

 

[koyoot]

Everything depends on how high transistor budget Apple has to play with.

If N3 shrink is from M1 die size - we are looking at 60% increase over 16 bln transistors = 25.6 bln.
If its a shrink from M2 die size - we are looking at 60% increase over 20 bln transistors = 33.7 bln.

In first case scenario - Apple has around 25% more transistors to play with than with M2.

In second scenario - M3 has equal amount of transistors to M1 Pro.

In the first scenario we can expect two additional GPU cores, over M2 and thats it.

In the second scenario we can expect something like 192 bit bus, 6P/4E and 16 Core GPU in the full configuration making it equal to M1 Pro solution.