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M3 Pro Chip Barely Faster Than M2 Pro in Unverified Benchmark Result
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...and that's ignoring the improved battery life, extra memory and whatever GPU improvements (such as ray tracing) don't show up in one (probably cherry-picked) CPU benchmark.
It was always going to be Apple's choice whether to spend the "3nm dividend" on battery life or performance - and they've quite sensibly gone for battery life with the Pro and performance with the Max.
Anyway, the target market for M3 Pro MBPs isn't people with M2 Pro MBPs bought less than a year ago. iPhones need to have a one year cycle because many people still get phones on contracts which encourage them to upgrade every 12-18 months. If you're buying a "pro" computer for business then 3-year leases are common, and tax rules about claiming expenses tend to encourage a cycle of 3 years or so.
Sure, a few deep-pocketed individuals might be persuaded to buy new $2000-to-$5000 computers every year, but the prime target customer for a M3 machine is going to be someone upgrading from an Intel Mac or a 2020 M1 system from before the M1 Pro launched. Heck, the M1 Pro was only released 2 years ago. This is mainly Apple's opportunity to get as many customers as possible weaned off Intel.
...plus, as has been pointed out, the advantage of the Max over the Pro is now a lot clearer with all-round better performance and RAM capacity. I can see people upgrading from M1 Max to M3 Max if they need that performance and have a business case for spending the money.
I keep hearing about ray-tracing; is that useful for anyone outside of gamers and people who render photos/video?
I can't find any use for it, at all, since I do neither of those, on my Mac or iPhone.
It's for 3d artists crowd who were whining Blender render times are meh.
This is what I’m curious about. With more efficiency cores, I bet there is an improvement in battery life. I saw on the Apple website the battery testing for the M3 pro/max was done with an M3 pro so I imagine the M3 max would get worse battery life.
I’m upgrading from an M1 Pro (trade-in) so the performance boost for me would be more noticeable than an M2 Pro user. I don’t think these new laptops are really meant to be marketed to existing M2 users anyway.
I have between 7 and 12 meetings a day. Frequently visiting customers around the world presenting stuff… Do group 2 and I would love a 15” air.
Why won’t I get one? I keep losing my dongles (currently have a 16” intel pro with only usb-c), and half the time dongles borrowed from the audience don’t work.
I can say the ”business execs & product managers” group really need an HDMI port.
That’s not exactly my point though. My point is the perception of their changes isn’t helping them, whether they matter or not.
A totally unfair comparison. The M1 introduced a revolutionary laptop computer CPU+GPU+Unified Memory architecture. All future M-series are just evolutions of this technology so there is no reason to ever expect another such performance, or power improvement as was witnessed going from Intel x86 to Apple's M-series.
If you’re looking for lower prices, wait for sales of the new MacBook Pros. I saw an article on this site that some vendors are already discounting the new MBP’s by $200 and they haven’t even come out yet. Give it till Black Friday or if not that, a month or two and see what sales pop up. You can certainly buy an M2 Pro right now on sale, but given a short period of time, sales on the new stuff are inevitable.
When was the last time Intel gave us that level of performance increase in only 9 months which is half the typical 18 month Intel cycle time.
I bought the new M3 Pro less for the performance upgrade from my M2 Pro and more for the black case.
Apple's new M3 Pro chip with a 12-core CPU offers only marginally faster CPU performance compared to the M2 Pro chip with a 12-core CPU, according to a Geekbench 6 result spotted today by Vadim Yuryev, co-host of the YouTube channel Max Tech. This is only a single benchmark result, so further results are needed to ensure accuracy.
Apple announced new 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models with M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max chips on Monday. This benchmark result appears to be for the 14-inch model, based on the "Mac15,6" model identifier listed.
The result shows the M3 Pro has a single-core score of 3,035 and a multi-core score of 15,173. If these scores are accurate, the M3 Pro is up to 14% faster than the M2 Pro in terms of single-core performance, but only up to 6% faster in terms of multi-core performance for the most demanding tasks and workflows.
Both the M2 Pro and M3 Pro are equipped with up to a 12-core CPU, but the M3 Pro has only six high-performance cores and six efficiency cores, while the M2 Pro has eight high-performance cores and four efficiency cores. So while the M3 Pro is manufactured with TSMC's 3nm process, compared to 5nm for the M2 Pro, the chip's resulting performance gains are diminished due to it having two fewer performance cores. The M3 Pro also has 25% less memory bandwidth and one fewer GPU core compared to the M2 Pro.
By limiting the M3 Pro's number of high-performance cores, Apple has created more differentiation between the M3 Pro and the M3 Max, which has up to 12 high-performance cores. However, as a result, the M3 Pro is only marginally faster than the M2 Pro.
Geekbench 6 results from earlier this week showed that the M3 Max is up to 45% faster than the M2 Max, while the standard M3 chip is up to 20% faster than the standard M2 chip, so the M3 Pro is by far the least improved chip of the series. Of course, the M3 Pro is still a significant upgrade for those coming from an Intel-based Mac. M3 Pro is also up to 20% faster than the M1 Pro chip, which is a decent improvement.
As always, benchmarks provide a useful reference point, but real-world performance can vary.
The new MacBook Pro models are available to order now, and M3 and M3 Pro configurations will begin arriving to customers and launch in stores on Tuesday, November 7. M3 Max configurations will launch later in November.
Article Link: M3 Pro Chip Barely Faster Than M2 Pro in Unverified Benchmark Result
The speed increases are paltry, but it’s still faster than I need. Too many people on here complaining about speed when they likely are just using a browser and excel.
The M3 Max sounds amazing. It will help sell a lot more Max Macbooks and Mac Studios. They obviously want more people to upgrade to the Max by trying to reposition the chip triad.
Previously the base Macbook 14" Pro was a far better value than upgrading the base Airs, and especially the 13" "Pro" It was so good that it was a better value than upgrading to the Max. I don't think they want that. They want to reposition each chip to a specific demo to get them to upgrade. At this point, to me, I do not think ANYONE should upgrade to any of the non-Max "Pro" versions. I think most people should just wait for the base M3 Airs and skip the Non-Max pros. ESPECIALLY skip the $1600 Macbook "Pro", I think it's bonkers that YouTubers are pushing this version. Absolutely nuts. If you do not require the performance, skip it and save some money with the M3 Airs.
Previously the base Macbook 14" Pro was a far better value than upgrading the base Airs, and especially the 13" "Pro" It was so good that it was a better value than upgrading to the Max. I don't think they want that. They want to reposition each chip to a specific demo to get them to upgrade. At this point, to me, I do not think ANYONE should upgrade to any of the non-Max "Pro" versions. I think most people should just wait for the base M3 Airs and skip the Non-Max pros. ESPECIALLY skip the $1600 Macbook "Pro", I think it's bonkers that YouTubers are pushing this version. Absolutely nuts. If you do not require the performance, skip it and save some money with the M3 Airs.
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LOL, you must have skipped a whole lot of Intel CPU "upgrades" with their barely noticeable improvements. The M3 is a nice upgrade from the M2 while the M3Pro is only roughly 10% faster than the 9-month-old M2Pro it's still a lot faster than the entry level M3. Meanwhile, the M3Max is a beast of a processor that is significantly faster than the M2Max. The M3Pro wasn't stripped to make the M3Max look better because the M3Max is the most significant processor upgrade Apple has made going from M1 to M2 to M3.
There's a very good reason why the 14" Macbook Pro M3 (but not Pro) is not available in 'Space Black'. There's also a very good reason that they didn't launch the Macbook Air M3 on Monday night.
My personal laptop right now is a 2017 Macbook Air i7 with a dead battery... so it's hard not to justify a new Macbook, but they don't make the choice easy...
Macbook Air 13" M2 (16GB/1TB) - $1799 (Midnight)
Macbook Pro 14" M3 (16GB/1TB) - $1999 (Space Grey)
Macbook Pro 14" M3 Pro (18GB/1GB) - $2199 (Space Black)
My personal laptop right now is a 2017 Macbook Air i7 with a dead battery... so it's hard not to justify a new Macbook, but they don't make the choice easy...
Macbook Air 13" M2 (16GB/1TB) - $1799 (Midnight)
Macbook Pro 14" M3 (16GB/1TB) - $1999 (Space Grey)
Macbook Pro 14" M3 Pro (18GB/1GB) - $2199 (Space Black)
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Wow, this is one of the most insightful comments I have ever read - NOT! Dude why are you even posting here when it's obvious you are just stuff up? People are trying to have serious conversations not making stuff up and to rag on Apple.
Possibly if you’d like battery life to be a tad better.
But generally speaking, iterative upgrades aren’t worth it.
The chassis is just over two years old; why would there be a new form factor?
Yes, and there are embarrassing laughs when you forget yours.