M3 Pro Chip Barely Faster Than M2 Pro in Unverified Benchmark Result

[ender78]

Agreed. Apple have made the likelihood of gaming on Macs taking off almost zero. They're have to change so much, and throw a ton of money at developers too, as the market share is so tiny.

Adding Ray Tracing support to the platform is one of the tools for wooing those developers. Since Apple is so open about their strategy lol, I see this as one of the first signs that they are re-evaluating their previous stance on gaming. Agreeing that its not going to happen organically but will take extensive investment.

The Gaming market is one of the last that Apple has been completely unable to penetrate.

Genius idea just came to me. When Apple reveals their AI plans at WWDC 2024 they will also re-announce the iServe. 24 M3 Ultra CPUs in a 1U form factor. This will let Apple compete with the likes of Nvidia for raw GPU compute for AI.

 

[CarAnalogy]

The entire tech space is dunking on Intel's 14th gen processors but Apple will get a pass with M3 being a flop.

Why?

I…haven’t seen anyone doing either of those things? All indications are M3 will be a big success. And Intel’s 14th gen is the only thing that has me considering building a PC again. Intel’s CEO of the last year seems to finally be putting them back on track.

Good times all around, seems like to me. Now let’s get those storage and RAM specs up. We have SSD vendors laying people off, meanwhile Apple is buying smaller modules and charging as much as ever for upgrades.

 

[bcortens]

Apple increased the number of efficiency cores and reduced bandwidth to increase efficiency, reduce heating and increase battery life. For most users, the M3 Pro has waaaaaaaaay more performance than will ever be used. Those uses simply will not have a better experience using their laptops by increasing the performance cores. However, they will have a better experience with a cooler, quieter laptop that has longer battery life. And for those who actually need more performance, Apple has an option for you too.

What is this based on? If the M3 Pro has waaaay more performance than they need why are they buying the Pro at all? The Pro had the potential to be a middle ground between base M3 and M3 Max. Instead it is just an M3 Plus instead.

 

[bcortens]

Here's my guess (might have been already mentioned here but I am not going to read 600+ messages): It seems that Apple realized that they have put too much capability into the basic M chip and are trying to adjust it by spreading the performance across the lineup within which one clearly see a progressive increase from the basic to Max and the Ultra, while there still is a discrepancy between chip generations. Basically, M1 and M2 were too impressive to their own detriment.

The rebalancing of the lineup did not need to move the Pro down the lineup to achieve this. The M3 Max is already far more capable than the M3 Pro and even a hypothetical M3 Pro that was not de-contented would still be quite far from the Max. This is just justifying Apple moving the Pro capabilities down-market without moving the price down-market.

 

[mr_jomo]

Embargo is lifted --- gogogo!

Edit: H' Moly, the M3 Max is .... FAST :-D

 

[avkills]

The current Mac Pro is the only machine that is a joke. Had they found a way to keep the same amount of PCIe bandwidth as the 2019 model, it would have been less of a joke. And the max memory pool.

Time will tell, but I still think Apple should have done one more Intel version of the Mac Pro; that would have given them more time to actually make a suitable desktop version of Apple Silicon.

 

[beanbaguk]

Yet 99.9% of owners won’t be able to tell any difference in performance between an M1 and M3 Pro.

Let’s face it. The majority of Mac users buy for show. I’ve seen so many in coffee shops and work spaces owning M2’s and all sorts, yet all they do is work on web applications, office suites and social media.

Very few are ever pushed to their full capabilities.

 

[brofkand]

2020-22 were an outlier.

Time will tell.

 

[4nNtt]

Apple seems to be changing its place in the lineup. It seems to be built closer to the M3 unlike last generation where it resembled a chopped M2 Max. Maybe it even means M3 Pro coming to MacBook Airs or an even higher end iPad Pro. It might even be compelling for Vision Pro.

 

[PsykX]

To those YouTubers who said the CPU in M3 Pro was actually slower than M2 Pro : It's not.

And the GPU will be leaps and bounds better than in the M2 Pro, thanks to performance improvements along with native Hardware Ray-Tracing. It was about time.

All in all, I would choose the M3 Pro over the M2 Pro any time of the day.

 

[mrmister]

Apple increased the number of efficiency cores and reduced bandwidth to increase efficiency, reduce heating and increase battery life. For most users, the M3 Pro has waaaaaaaaay more performance than will ever be used. Those uses simply will not have a better experience using their laptops by increasing the performance cores. However, they will have a better experience with a cooler, quieter laptop that has longer battery life. And for those who actually need more performance, Apple has an option for you too.

If they had done any of this for those reasons, they would have talked about it. They haven't. They also didn't update the battery life estimates with longer ratings for Max Pros. Because this is fantasy thinking that sounds great, but is made up after the fact the justify this.

Believe me, I like this made up story. But there's no actual evidence any of it is true, and Apple literally didn't talk about any of these 'improvements' that don't actually exist.

 

[shardey]

If they had done any of this for those reasons, they would have talked about it. They haven't. They also didn't update the battery life estimates with longer ratings for Max Pros. Because this is fantasy thinking that sounds great, but is made up after the fact the justify this.

Believe me, I like this made up story. But there's no actual evidence any of it is true, and Apple literally didn't talk about any of these 'improvements' that don't actually exist.

The one fact still stands the M2 Pro has 8 p cores and 4 e cores wheras the M3 Pro has 6 and 6. This has to be the reason the multicore performance benchmarks aren't seeing as much gains as people has hoped.

 

[Apple Fan 2008]

You do realize that a minor refresh is minor, right?

 

[Telekinetic]

M3 and 24GB is just going to be better choice than M3 Pro and 18GB unless you really need those extra GPU cores or two external displays, which I don't.

I had originally ordered the base M3 Pro but changed my order to M3 with 24GB that is going to cost the same.

 

[ric22]

Adding Ray Tracing support to the platform is one of the tools for wooing those developers. Since Apple is so open about their strategy lol, I see this as one of the first signs that they are re-evaluating their previous stance on gaming. Agreeing that its not going to happen organically but will take extensive investment.

The Gaming market is one of the last that Apple has been completely unable to penetrate.

Genius idea just came to me. When Apple reveals their AI plans at WWDC 2024 they will also re-announce the iServe. 24 M3 Ultra CPUs in a 1U form factor. This will let Apple compete with the likes of Nvidia for raw GPU compute for AI.

Unless they can separate GPU and CPU when configuring Macs, Mac gaming will never ever get off the ground.

 

[jclardy]

Lower memory bandwidth affecting overall performance?

Doubtful - it's likely the simple explanation - M3 Pro has 6 power cores/4 efficiency, M2 Pro has 8/2.

But the difference is the M3 Pro can be upgraded to more CPU cores, M2 Pro can't. And M3 Max actually gets more CPU cores as well, whereas M2 Max is 10 across the board, except for the Ultra. As an iOS developer - M1/M2 Pro were amazing as the Max gave basically no benefit (Other than GPU), so no need to upgrade. With the M3 Max, however, this is not the case and the user actually has to make a choice on how much power they want.

The M3 is the first look at how Apple actually wants to sell computer configurations. M1/M2 were just to get people started on the transition..now it is time to make $$$ and make people bump up the lineup.

 

[HVDynamo]

Not sure what disagreeing means in this context—they did it for reasons, and the reason is to sell more Max chips. Inherently that’s less good for us, the public.

I get that these boards are apologist, but does anyone actually believe that’s not why this was done, in the current rough waters for all laptop sales.

I think it was done to provide a more stepped approach to performance between the Base, Pro, and Max variants. In the M1 and M2 the CPU cores were identical between Pro and Max so if you really just needed CPU power there was zero reason for the max. From a tiered structure I think this actually makes more sense.... But it's definitely a hard sell when we had what we did for the M1 Pro and M2 Pro.

 

[bcortens]

Doubtful - it's likely the simple explanation - M3 Pro has 6 power cores/4 efficiency, M2 Pro has 8/2.

But the difference is the M3 Pro can be upgraded to more CPU cores, M2 Pro can't. And M3 Max actually gets more CPU cores as well, whereas M2 Max is 10 across the board, except for the Ultra. As an iOS developer - M1/M2 Pro were amazing as the Max gave basically no benefit (Other than GPU), so no need to upgrade. With the M3 Max, however, this is not the case and the user actually has to make a choice on how much power they want.

The M3 is the first look at how Apple actually wants to sell computer configurations. M1/M2 were just to get people started on the transition..now it is time to make $$$ and make people bump up the lineup.

So this is just wrong, the M2 Pro came in two configurations.
6p+4e core 16 GPU core
8p+4e core 19 GPU core

The M2 Max also had 12 cpu cores not 10…

 

[Lakersfan74]

Apple gimps the base 14 inch in order to upsell. They know there are people that want 18GB ram, ability to run more than one external monitor and want that extra thunderbolt port. By looks of things people don’t mind being ripped off. 8GB ram, extra port and ability to run an extra monitor is not worth $400 increase.

 

[ender78]

Apple gimps the base 14 inch in order to upsell. They know there are people that want 18GB ram, ability to run more than one external monitor and want that extra thunderbolt port. By looks of things people don’t mind being ripped off. 8GB ram, extra port and ability to run an extra monitor is not worth $400 increase.

The people that buy anything other than the base model implicitly disagree with you.

 

[justinkim]

My M3 Pro 16” has shipped. I have to admit that l’ve been tempted to cancel and get a Max instead, but realistically speaking, I doubt that I’ll need the extra power given my workflows. Seeing as I’m upgrading from an Intel machine, I expect a substantial increase in power as it is.

 

[Jorbanead]

Apple knows what it's doing.
They sweeten the pot with colour if the performance gain isn't enough.

No. Apple knows that consumers want a physical change. It’s not because “performance gain isn’t enough”

The M3 Max is scoring similarly to the M2 Ultra. That’s a laptop chip performing the same as Apples most powerful desktop.

 

[0lf]

It is about the fact that the pro was repositioned for the same money: we complain because they decontented the chip relative to the previous pro.

The value proposition of the pro is worse than it was in previous generations. I know many will defend Apple regladles of how they change the value proposition but the changes this generation are not praise worthy …

So, from the data available, no less perf, same money so the value is worse 🙃
As I said, are you advising someone who is looking for a computer in this perf range to go toward M2 pro instead of M3 pro ?

And it is not about praising, but stop complaining for nothing.

 

[Motorola68000]

But with the M2 series like the mac Mini if you got 512GB the read and write speeds were slower by 3000Mbps over the 1TB, external cant make up for that sadly. I wonder if that tactic
going to happen in this generation of devices as well?

As you are referring to the internal RAM, I understood the problem was with the 256Gb being one chip, whereas the 512Gb is 2 and the 256GB was slightly slower. If as you say there is a 3000Mbs slowdown on the 512GB then it reinforces my case for an external, where a Thunderbolt/USB 4 will give you 2700Mbs, and where so many complain about lack of upgradability of Macs, and where external storage is upgradeable and easily replaceable. If you are bouncing 1TB of data around all day, then good luck, but luckily our business tends to be one where the data is for storage rather than bounced around. Also if you need the 1tb internal are you not backing up to an external anyway?

 

[bcortens]

So, from the data available, no less perf, same money so the value is worse 🙃
As I said, are you advising someone who is looking for a computer in this perf range to go toward M2 pro instead of M3 pro ?

And it is not about praising, but stop complaining for nothing.

The data available means the following:

M2 -> M2 Pro offers 46% performance increase
M3 -> M3 Pro offers 30% performance increase

46 > 30

Thus the value for money of the M3 Pro is worse than the M2 Pro was.