M4 Max -> M5 Max

[kozz]

Opinion on going from M4 Max -> M5 Max would you upgrade or wait to see what improvements the M6 Max offers.

Main use - daily tasks but would like to enjoy gaming on the side such as the upcoming Crimson Desert and hope to get into app development using AI.

Thank you.

 

[Basic75]

Is there anything your M4 Max isn't doing well enough that an M5 Max will fix? I'd wager the answer is "no".

 

[DougFNJ]

From the reviews I've read, they've said there is not a compelling reason to upgrade from an M4 Max, but M1 M2, and M3 Max users will see the difference. You'd take a hit on the resale of the M4 Max along with the extra cost of the M5 Max, and the projected price increases for the M6 Max sounds like it could be significant.

 

[RetroGamer360]

I made the upgrade from 16” M4 Max to M5 Max. The M4 Max was already more than what I needed and the M5 Max is even more so. I did it knowing full well that it wasn’t necessary or the financially sensible thing to do. I am fortunate to have recently received a bonus from work and decided this was how I wanted to treat myself. Nothing earth shattering with my new MacBook but also very happy with its performance.

 

[kozz]

From the reviews I've read, they've said there is not a compelling reason to upgrade from an M4 Max, but M1 M2, and M3 Max users will see the difference. You'd take a hit on the resale of the M4 Max along with the extra cost of the M5 Max, and the projected price increases for the M6 Max sounds like it could be significant.

Thank thank you for your insights, I’m gonna take a hard look at it over the next few weeks as I probably won’t decide to do anything until April to let more reviews come out to give me more time to decide.

One of the reasons why I went from M3 Max to M4 was the potential resale value tanking as I do typically sell private and do the monthly option through Apple and just dump all the money into the balance, which means it ends up getting paid off quicker so that’s something that I am considering with my potential upgrade now.

Potential downside is if I do it now, convincing the boss a.k.a. wife to let me do it again as early as October / November would go over like a turd and a punch bowl 😂

 

[kozz]

I made the upgrade from 16” M4 Max to M5 Max. The M4 Max was already more than what I needed and the M5 Max is even more so. I did it knowing full well that it wasn’t necessary or the financially sensible thing to do. I am fortunate to have recently received a bonus from work and decided this was how I wanted to treat myself. Nothing earth shattering with my new MacBook but also very happy with its performance.

Thanks for your thoughts! Definitely not necessary here, or even the financially responsible thing to do! But the idea of a shiny new toy is sometimes hard to resist, of course the rumored M6 and changes potentially so soon doesn’t help. If those weren’t flying around, I would’ve probably jumped on it already. Are there any games you’ve played on it yet and do you have an opinion on the differences between the two?

 

[RetroGamer360]

I’ve played a little bit of World of Warcraft, Baulder’s Gate 3, and Cyberpunk. Noticed the most improvement with BG3, likely owing to the improved CPU performance. WoW was a modest improvement with Cyberpunk falling somewhere in between. Certainly nothing to complain about as far as performance, but I’ve had a Razer Blade 16 w 3090 and more recently an Asus Zephyrus G16 w 5080.

On the surface they both had build quality close to the MacBook Pro, and when plugged in their performance was very good, but the minute you take them off the plug, they become terribly slow and the battery life is only a couple of hours. It’s amazing to me that the MacBook Pro can maintain the same level of performance whether plugged in or on battery. Additionally, even under moderate load, they got really hot (like really hot) and the fans spun up so load that I couldn’t hear the nearby tv or the sound of the game I was playing.

I found that the MacBook Pro, even with the M5 Max, is just an average gaming machine but it is an overall far better machine to live with day to day.