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

fpnc said:
I guess the M3 Pro is fine for what it is, a decent upgrade over the standard M3. However, my disappointment is what it APPARENTLY will do to the performance equation on the next Mac mini.

With the M2 Pro the Mac mini could have been considered as being at the low end of the "pro" experience for Apple silicon. But with the M3 Pro's restricted CPU and memory (only a 4GB increase in maximum RAM) I don't see how it can compare in any way to a Mac Studio with the M3 Max. I guess that could be one of the reasons why Apple made this change and it means that I am no longer considering an M3 Mac mini Pro for my desktop.

That said, might we see an iPad with the M3 Pro? Seems quite possible and that may be another reason for the de-spec on the M3 Pro. Seems like what they have done is to emphasize power efficiency and lower cost and that's exactly what they'd want for an iPad. Plus, it will probably improve margins on the Mac mini Pro or at least allow them to hold steady given the apparent price increases that TSMC has demanded for their advanced fabrication processes.
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THIS is what has me annoyed. And I’m sure Apple is aware of what it’s doing… moving many customers further up the product food chain and paying more. Apologists will defend Apple to the end but I don’t need their explanations. I spent 16 years in the financial media. But, as a consumer, it doesn’t mean that I have to like it.
 
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Biro said:
THIS is what has me annoyed. And I’m sure Apple is aware of what it’s doing… moving many customers further up the product food chain and paying more. Apologists will defend Apple to the end but I don’t need their explanations. I spent 16 years in the financial media. But, as a consumer, it doesn’t mean that I have to like it.
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You don't have to like, and nor do you have to buy it? The specs are not exactly hard to find, nor are they hidden by Apple, so its a matter of choice.

Quite why they configured the M3 Pro I'm not sure, but I doubt its about cost, but still a puzzle.
 
Do we already know if this M3 Pro benchmarks of 15.000 points on GB 6 see from the unbinned version? Because if that score is from the 11 core machine, the 12 core one will probably be a good improvement .
 
This is the cPU from the M3 Pro 12 cores

Mac15,6 - Geekbench

Benchmark results for a Mac15,6 with an Apple M3 Pro processor.
browser.geekbench.com
and this is the GPU from the M3 Pro

Mac15,6 - Geekbench

Benchmark results for a Mac15,6 with an Apple M3 Pro processor.
browser.geekbench.com
and this the GPU from the M2 Pro: 6% faster!

MacBook Pro (14-inch, 2023) - Geekbench

Benchmark results for a MacBook Pro (14-inch, 2023) with an Apple M2 Pro processor.
browser.geekbench.com
 
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fpnc said:
With the M2 Pro the Mac mini could have been considered as being at the low end of the "pro" experience for Apple silicon. But with the M3 Pro's restricted CPU and memory (only a 4GB increase in maximum RAM) I don't see how it can compare in any way to a Mac Studio with the M3 Max.
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The entitlement to expect a Mac mini (Pro) to be comparable in performance to a $2000+ Mac Studio (Max).
 
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The M3 Max - the fastest laptop in the world by a significant margin (CPU 25%+ faster than any other real laptop, 20% faster than the fastest 10 lb gaming laptops with 330 watt PSUs, which are really AIOs with a built-in UPS) - does qualify as scary fast.

Even its GPU beats all but a few (RTX 4090 Mobile)gaming laptops and seemingly all mobile workstations it's been tested against. It seems The tests that show it in the RTX 4060/4070 range are running under Rosetta or using OpenCL. Native, it matches or beats the 4080, but not the 4090. In PCMag's tests, it seems to be running competitively or even better than the RTX Ada 5000, the workstation version of the 4090, in non-gaming tests (Macs always perform better in non-gaming tests than they do in games).

There is one scary fast update (M3 Max)

One decent to decent+ generational update (base M3)

One disappointing generational update (the M3 Pro, victim of a product line rejiggering) - although PCMag's review of a binned Pro came out better than I had expected.
 
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Tiring the thread now. Would like to reiterate Apple published the specifications of each product, and each variation of chip before the products were on sale

So if you don't like the specs of the M2 pro....don't buy it? SIMPLE
 
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mike2q said:
The problem is that silicon competitors are improving at a much faster rate so Apple's watt/performance superiority will be very short lived if it continues at this pace.
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I think this is missing the point. The other M3 chips made serious gains. The M3 Pro, it seems, was deliberately held back to place it more evenly between the M3 and M3 Max, which is why the gains were more modest. Still unfortunate, but this variant doesn't indicate the trend for the whole M line.
 
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Harry Haller said:
Agreed.
Looking forward to to the M3 Studio Ultra.
Hopefully by WWDC.
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That will be an interesting chip/machine. If it projects out as it seems to (similar to the gains from M2 Max to M2 Ultra), it will be among the fastest single-CPU workstations ever made, and its GPU power will be pretty close to the top of single GPUs (probably not as close to the absolute fastest as the CPU.
 
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