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M3 Pro Chip Barely Faster Than M2 Pro in Unverified Benchmark Result
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Decent yes, scary nope!
I don’t think it will flop like the M2, but it will be nowhere near the M1 lineup. That was a major super cycle.
I appreciate Tim smartness. Besides they learned the lesson
After a “too good” M1 they made a “almost too good” M1 Pro and a too expensive for no improved benchmark M1 Max (vadim clearly showed). They have no reserve to ditch intel but made a clear difficult upgrade for M2 generation.
They made the mistake to simply scale the clock a bit but none were attracted by the M2 gen like from M1 and M1 Pro
So they decided to scale up with GPU for M3 “basic” and to make some space between Pro and Max in order not to repeat errors of first gen
From a marketing and segmentation point of you it is a smart move
After a “too good” M1 they made a “almost too good” M1 Pro and a too expensive for no improved benchmark M1 Max (vadim clearly showed). They have no reserve to ditch intel but made a clear difficult upgrade for M2 generation.
They made the mistake to simply scale the clock a bit but none were attracted by the M2 gen like from M1 and M1 Pro
So they decided to scale up with GPU for M3 “basic” and to make some space between Pro and Max in order not to repeat errors of first gen
From a marketing and segmentation point of you it is a smart move
Only minor improvements. Definitely not worth upgrading from 14" MacBook Pro.
Well not really
The 14” m3 pro is 18hrs despite the increase in efficiency. The entry m3 pro 22hrs and the 16” m3 pro is 22hrs too
A single unverified benchmark reported by a click bait YouTube pinhead? Who is foolish enough to believe this at face value? Apparently more than I can imagine…
It never made sense to have the Pro so close to the Max. Still happy with the speed of my M1 Pro, I‘m only updating to the M3 Pro because I‘m going from 14“ to 16“.
If you have an Apple Silicon and looking to upgrade, either don't or get the M3 Max, all else is dumb.
Brand image, and having no hardware competition for their software. If you use Windows or Linux, you can bash Intel but root for AMD (or vice versa). If you use macOS, there's no one to root for but Apple.
Maybe it should have come in titanium too.
This release was all about rebalancing their entire laptop lineup. The M2 Pro and M2 Max were too close to each other and the M2 13” MacBook Pro was the high-selling forgotten stepchild that was far too close to the 13” MBA. This move was very similar to last year’s move to differentiate the iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Pros with the iPhone 14’s retaining the prior year’s A15 processor with only an extra GPU core to separate it from the iPhone 13.
When creating larger gaps between products within the line, you’re going to have one year where one of the products will seem like barely an upgrade, just like the iPhone 14, while the iPhone 14 Pros took a much larger jump. This year is the effort to separate the M3 Pro from the M3 Max and to solve the weird problem of the 13” MacBook Pro, which results in the M3 Max taking a big leap ahead while the M3 Pro is only a slight upgrade. This is a clear attempt to widen the gaps between all products within the lineup The lineup is now much clearer with the MacBook Air 13” and 15” at the bottom, the M3 MBP as the entry level, the M3 Pro MBP as the medium level Pro machine and the M3 Max as the high end Pro machine. When the M3 MBA’s are eventually introduced, they’ll have their separation from the 13” MBP’s replacement, not necessarily by performance, but by perks such as the awesome screen, more ports, SDXC reader, and HDMI. Instead of a bunch of products all bunched together, we now have clear delineations in the product line and should make for an easier decision on what laptop to get.
If you’re a student or casual computer user, you’ve got two MBA’s to choose from. If you are dipping your toe in the Pro line, there’s the base 14” M3 MBP. If you’re a moderate Pro user, there’s the 14-16” M3 Pro MBP’s. If you’re a power user, you have the 14-16” M3 Max MBP’s. The move to make the M3 Pro a mild upgrade was completely deliberate and a good strategy to separate the products. The cost will be a year of poor M3 Pro sales, just like there was a year of poor iPhone 14 sales.
When creating larger gaps between products within the line, you’re going to have one year where one of the products will seem like barely an upgrade, just like the iPhone 14, while the iPhone 14 Pros took a much larger jump. This year is the effort to separate the M3 Pro from the M3 Max and to solve the weird problem of the 13” MacBook Pro, which results in the M3 Max taking a big leap ahead while the M3 Pro is only a slight upgrade. This is a clear attempt to widen the gaps between all products within the lineup The lineup is now much clearer with the MacBook Air 13” and 15” at the bottom, the M3 MBP as the entry level, the M3 Pro MBP as the medium level Pro machine and the M3 Max as the high end Pro machine. When the M3 MBA’s are eventually introduced, they’ll have their separation from the 13” MBP’s replacement, not necessarily by performance, but by perks such as the awesome screen, more ports, SDXC reader, and HDMI. Instead of a bunch of products all bunched together, we now have clear delineations in the product line and should make for an easier decision on what laptop to get.
If you’re a student or casual computer user, you’ve got two MBA’s to choose from. If you are dipping your toe in the Pro line, there’s the base 14” M3 MBP. If you’re a moderate Pro user, there’s the 14-16” M3 Pro MBP’s. If you’re a power user, you have the 14-16” M3 Max MBP’s. The move to make the M3 Pro a mild upgrade was completely deliberate and a good strategy to separate the products. The cost will be a year of poor M3 Pro sales, just like there was a year of poor iPhone 14 sales.
Is no one going to point out multicore performance is going to be affected because the M3 Pro has 6 performance cores and 6 efficiency cores whereas the M2 Pro 12 core has 8 and 4 respectively? If it's only benchmarking the performance cores then that's a pretty obvious reason why the performance difference isn't as large as it should be.
I'm waiting for the GPU benchmarks on these M3 processors.
I'm waiting for the GPU benchmarks on these M3 processors.
Apple will still drop software support for the M2 Pro before the M3 Pro though. Watch the M3 get another 2 or so years or support.
MacRum*rs when the benchmarks are good: GeekBench performance revealed!
MR when the bench is bad: an unknown user spotted this somewhere in the GeekBench database, unconfirmed at this time
MR when the bench is bad: an unknown user spotted this somewhere in the GeekBench database, unconfirmed at this time
Alternatively, the purpose of the M3 Pro chip, as compared to a standard M3, is for a Mac with an additional port and supports additional external monitors. If you want higher performance get a M3 Max.
If you already are running a machine with an M2 pro chip: Congratulations, you don’t need an upgrade.
Some people here are weird. I swear Apple could release a line that's 100% better in every way and some of you would still call it a flop because it failed to meet your unrealistic expectations.
I think it’s great that anybody who’d like to have a pro machine can confidently buy M2 Pro at a discount.
Very obvious based on the 34% drop in Mac earnings, that Apple has allowed the Business MBA and consultancy folks to lead the show vs their engineering this cycle. Looks like they have different pricing and value strategies based on probable customer segmentation.
- Entry customers are getting the best value and improvement on MacBook pro this generation (with the 14" model changes vs 13" touch bar models), to encourage newer customers to jump in and also improve things for the most price-sensitive customers to encourage sales with this demo. They still gimp the ram so they can push a subset of these customers who can afford it to spend more.
- Really squeezed the mid-tier pro customers this generation: Most likely already in the Apple ecosystem or corp clients doing bulk orders, they decreased the value of the pro chip (savings on costs) to push more customers to either upgrade to max where Apple earns more per unit sold or Apple makes more from these customers due to the decreased increase profit per unit sold due to the decreased production costs. Ram situation would also really be felt with these customers to drive upsell here also.
- The most profitable per unit mbp customers and the customers who are most likely the least price sensitive now need to pay even more for getting fully specced SSD and RAM (fully specced now at $7,200 vs $6,499 for M2)
The space black addition also really comes across as a business consulting-type gimmick approach to pushing sales on the units where they are doing the most price gouging (pro & max chip), + creating another reason for some MBP users to upgrade from base M3.
- Entry customers are getting the best value and improvement on MacBook pro this generation (with the 14" model changes vs 13" touch bar models), to encourage newer customers to jump in and also improve things for the most price-sensitive customers to encourage sales with this demo. They still gimp the ram so they can push a subset of these customers who can afford it to spend more.
- Really squeezed the mid-tier pro customers this generation: Most likely already in the Apple ecosystem or corp clients doing bulk orders, they decreased the value of the pro chip (savings on costs) to push more customers to either upgrade to max where Apple earns more per unit sold or Apple makes more from these customers due to the decreased increase profit per unit sold due to the decreased production costs. Ram situation would also really be felt with these customers to drive upsell here also.
- The most profitable per unit mbp customers and the customers who are most likely the least price sensitive now need to pay even more for getting fully specced SSD and RAM (fully specced now at $7,200 vs $6,499 for M2)
The space black addition also really comes across as a business consulting-type gimmick approach to pushing sales on the units where they are doing the most price gouging (pro & max chip), + creating another reason for some MBP users to upgrade from base M3.
How does the M3 max screams rushed? It performas like an M2 Ultra in a freaking laptop.
Maybe you are just picking to focus on a very small number of loud voices.
Another dog-whistle for the drama-queens.
Most important benchmark is the battery life… of course 16” would last either best or beat last model, but one would think the the 3nm would be power efficient enough to stretch it longer. Few more days!
Just wondering, why is it always Intel? Doesn’t AMD deserve some love too?