M3 Macbook Pro options [Merged]

[slquoue]

Hi there,

I am finally upgrading my Mid-2014 Macbook Pro to one of the new M3 Macbook Pros. I was always planning to get the cheapest one, but the new entry level Macbook Pro is actually a bit of a downgrade from the previous lowest price M2 Macbook Pro (although obviously £300 cheaper).

Macboook Pro M3 14
8-core CPU
10-core GPU
8GB Unified Memory
512GB SSD Storage
£1,699

Macbook Pro M2 Pro 14
10-Core CPU
16-Core GPU
16GB Unified Memory
512GB SSD Storage
£2,149

Questions:

1. Is there any way to find out how the performance of the M3 chip compares to the M2 Pro chip?

2. Will 8GB of RAM be enough for me? This seems like a very low number but I appreciate RAM may be more efficient nowadays?

The main intensive tasks I will be doing on this computer are:

1. Editing photos reasonably frequently in Adobe Lightroom.
2. Very occasionally editing using Adobe Photoshop.
3. Playing Baldur's Gate 3

Thanks for your help.

 

[Basic75]

Will 8GB of RAM be enough for me? This seems like a very low number but I appreciate RAM may be more efficient nowadays?

I'd get at least 16GB. Not sure what you mean with "more efficient", over the years everything is just getting fatter and needs more RAM.

 

[galad]

If you want to play Baldur's Gate 2 get the M2 Pro.

 

[Algus]

I'm a strong supporter of the base M1 Air and believe it remains a great computer even after yesterday's announcement. Absolutely no issue with an 8 GB RAM configuration

But I can't imagine spending this much on a computer and settling for 8 GB RAM. The entry unit for the 14'' MBP seems insane to me. 16 GB RAM/256 GB SSD would have made a lot more sense to me as an entry unit

 

[slquoue]

I'm a strong supporter of the base M1 Air and believe it remains a great computer even after yesterday's announcement. Absolutely no issue with an 8 GB RAM configuration

But I can't imagine spending this much on a computer and settling for 8 GB RAM. The entry unit for the 14'' MBP seems insane to me. 16 GB RAM/256 GB SSD would have made a lot more sense to me as an entry unit

Why insane? Agree 8GB is low but if I pay the extra £200 then I'm still saving £200 on the Pro model which I don't think is worth the extra for my use case.

Do I really need a Pro chip to play BG3?

 

[OrenLindsey]

The M2 Pro will be much better, for literally everything except raytracing and mesh shading. Those will be the only ways that the M3 chip is better. Otherwise, M2 Pro is a lot better. I can list out the reasons if you like.
Also, the Pro chip has a way better GPU, which will be a big upgrade for gaming (which you said you want to do).

To be honest, the M1 Pro chip would be the best for you. It is still better than the M3 chip (I think, the benchmarks aren't out yet) and you get a better computer (it has more ports, more memory bandwidth, etc), more ram, and faster SSD. I would try to find one of them on the Apple refurbished store, or maybe new, open-box or refurbished on eBay.

 

[slquoue]

What Apple chip and RAM do you use to play Baldur's Gate 3? Does it run perfectly?

I'm trying to get as many responses as possible to help me with a decision re which M3 Macbook to buy.

Thanks

 

[tis100]

Apple said the M3 would have around 20% more CPU and GPU performance than the M2.

We can estimate the performance of the M3 MacBook Pro 14" by adding 20% to the benchmarks of the M2 MacBook Air 15".

Model	Single Core (CPU)	Multi-Core (CPU)	Metal (GPU)
M2 MacBook Air 15"	2,589	9,742	45,546
M2 Pro MacBook Pro 14"	2,638	12,100	73,652
M3 MacBook Pro 14"	3,107	11,690	54,655

The M3 would be about 18% faster in single core tasks, 3.4% slower in multi-core tasks and 25.8% slower in GPU tasks than the M2 Pro.

Personally, I would pay the extra £200 for the 16GB. It helps stretch the machine in the long term.

Larian says the minimum requirement for Baldur's Gate 3 is 8GB, but recommend 16GB.
Adobe says the minimum requirement for Adobe Lightroom is 8GB, but recommend 16GB.

 

[HDFan]

Is there any way to find out how the performance of the M3 chip compares to the M2 Pro chip?

If you can, wait until the preliminary reviews start coming in next week. Even better wait until the longer term reviews come out a few weeks after launch. Apple marketing claims can be, er, sketchy.

 

[slquoue]

Apple said the M3 would have around 20% more CPU and GPU performance than the M2.

We can estimate the performance of the M3 MacBook Pro 14" by adding 20% to the benchmarks of the M2 MacBook Air 15".

Model	Single Core (CPU)	Multi-Core (CPU)	Metal (GPU)
M2 MacBook Air 15"	2,589	9,742	45,546
M2 Pro MacBook Pro 14"	2,638	12,100	73,652
M3 MacBook Pro 14"	3,107	11,690	54,655

The M3 would be about 18% faster in single core tasks, 3.4% slower in multi-core tasks and 25.8% slower in GPU tasks than the M2 Pro.

Personally, I would pay the extra £200 for the 16GB. It helps stretch the machine in the long term.

Larian says the minimum requirement for Baldur's Gate 3 is 8GB, but recommend 16GB.
Adobe says the minimum requirement for Adobe Lightroom is 8GB, but recommend 16GB.

Thanks. I'm sold on the extra £200 for the RAM.

Do you think it's worth the further £200 for the M3 Pro? The extra port and ability to connect a second monitor I can live without, so it's just whether the extra 2GB RAM and CPU/GPU would make a substantial difference to how BG3 plays / Lightroom runs...

 

[tis100]

The M3 Pro has little to no multi-core CPU improvement and a 10% improvement in GPU compared to the M2 Pro, according to Apple.

The single core CPU score should be about the same for both the M3 and M3 Pro. We'll add 5% to the multi-core CPU score and 10% to the Metal GPU score to the M2 Pro from the previous post to get the following chart:

Model	Single Core (CPU)	Multi-Core (CPU)	Metal (GPU)
M3 MacBook Pro 14"	3,107	11,690	54,655
M3 Pro MacBook Pro 14"	3,107	12,705	81,017

The M3 Pro would be about 8.7% faster in multi-core tasks and 48% faster in gpu tasks than the base M3.

In real world use, the CPUs would generally feel about the same, but the GPU would feel noticeably faster depending on the workload.

But practically, for your workload now, it probably doesn't make much of a difference. It would only make a difference if in the future you want to play more GPU intensive games or you start doing high volume batch processing in Lightroom.

I put the £200 upgrade to the M3 Pro in the nice to have, but not totally necessary pile, especially if the budget is tight.

And like @HDFan said, if you can wait a week, we'll have access to actual benchmarks of these machines. The numbers i've generated are estimates based on Apple's self-reported claims of these new processors.

 

[picpicmac]

Early results are already on Geekbench.

The M3 Geekbench numbers look good. Posted this elsewhere:

Here's a typical (and is the latest) for a MacBook 14" with M2 Pro:

 

[picpicmac]

The Metal (and Open CL) scores still have the M2 Pro ahead of the M3:

 

[Burnincoco]

M2 Max 30c 32ram. Almost perfect at 2k res capped at 60fps, some stutter here or there, nothing bothersome, all ultra settings.
Fans go to 100% in some areas

 

[diamond.g]

M2 Max 30c 32ram. Almost perfect at 2k res capped at 60fps, some stutter here or there, nothing bothersome, all ultra settings.
Fans go to 100% in some areas

16" or 14"?

 

[Burnincoco]

16" or 14"?

16

 

[slquoue]

Hi all,

I'm considering the following options:
M3 £1,589 with edu discount
M3 with 16GB RAM £1769 with edu discount
M3 Pro £1,939 with edu discount

I'll be using the Macbook for Adobe Lightroom and Baldur's Gate 3. I know benchmarks are starting to come out now so any thoughts on what to go with?

Thanks!

 

[OrenLindsey]

Hi all,

I'm considering the following options:
M3 £1,589 with edu discount
M3 with 16GB RAM £1769 with edu discount
M3 Pro £1,939 with edu discount

I'll be using the Macbook for Adobe Lightroom and Baldur's Gate 3. I know benchmarks are starting to come out now so any thoughts on what to go with?

Thanks!

Do not get #1. You need more than 8GB ram. If I were you, I'd go for the M3 Pro option, but you decide if it's worth the extra money.

 

[TallManNY]

What Apple chip and RAM do you use to play Baldur's Gate 3? Does it run perfectly?

I'm trying to get as many responses as possible to help me with a decision re which M3 Macbook to buy.

Thanks

I have a M2 Pro mini (which has 16gb of RAM) and play BG3 on it. It runs at about 40 FPS at high settings and 1080 graphics. I'd say that is definitely good enough. But I'm not at Act 3, which is supposed to be more visually demanding. I'd guess that my Mac is about as weak a Mac as you can have and basically not have any serious compromises on the graphics and game play. I'm nearly certain it won't run on 8gb of RAM since even with 16gb of RAM on my machine the memory pressure goes into yellow territory.

That said, this is certainly a game in which you don't need high FPS since it is turn based combat. So if it chugs down to 30 FPS when I get to Act 3, that is going to be fine. If I put the graphics at Ultra, then the FPS drops below what I would call playable. But I also see almost no difference between graphics at high versus ultra.