The Mac Studio still has massively more RAM capacity than the M4 Pro. And the competition isn’t standing still. Apple needs to keep the pedal to the metal. If that means releasing an M4 Pro with a CPU faster than the M2 Ultra from 2022, so be it. If Apple doesn’t do it, then someone else will.
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M4 Pro Chip Benchmark Results Reveal an Extremely Impressive Performance Feat
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Still probably not close on the GPU for those who need that, but even so, if I were buying this year instead of last year for the MacBook Pro, I would select the 14" M4 Pro (high) with 48GB memory and 2TB SSD. That would save me nearly $1000 over my current 14" M3 Max (high) with 64GB memory and 2TB SSD.
The M3 Max is honestly more than I needed. 48GB was the minimum I would've went for last year, but I upgraded to 64GB because I think it was only $200 more and wanted to keep this thing for at least 6 years. But they didn't offer more than 36GB on the M3 Pro, and the M3 Pro was barely better than the M2 Pro. At this price you can still get a lot of power and upgrade sooner since it's cheaper. This M4 Pro is so much faster now and has 4 hour longer battery life than my M3 Max, so between that and the lower price, I would've gone M4 Pro for sure. It's just that I couldn't wait any longer to get off of Intel—it was so hot with no battery life!
That all being said, I am very happy with 14" M3 Max. The battery life still gets me through a typical 10 hour workday when I need it to (about once or twice per week, most days I'm docked) and my battery health is still at 100% somehow. But I'm sure when I'm getting closer to 5 or 6 years down the road from purchase and the battery degrades, the 4 extra hours of battery life from the M4 Pro will be useful.
The M3 Max is honestly more than I needed. 48GB was the minimum I would've went for last year, but I upgraded to 64GB because I think it was only $200 more and wanted to keep this thing for at least 6 years. But they didn't offer more than 36GB on the M3 Pro, and the M3 Pro was barely better than the M2 Pro. At this price you can still get a lot of power and upgrade sooner since it's cheaper. This M4 Pro is so much faster now and has 4 hour longer battery life than my M3 Max, so between that and the lower price, I would've gone M4 Pro for sure. It's just that I couldn't wait any longer to get off of Intel—it was so hot with no battery life!
That all being said, I am very happy with 14" M3 Max. The battery life still gets me through a typical 10 hour workday when I need it to (about once or twice per week, most days I'm docked) and my battery health is still at 100% somehow. But I'm sure when I'm getting closer to 5 or 6 years down the road from purchase and the battery degrades, the 4 extra hours of battery life from the M4 Pro will be useful.
Yeah, but like... Hinging on the example you gave, I don’t think a Mac Studio is getting obsolete any earlier than it would if we had smaller jumps in M4 and beyond. Is the Studio with M2 Max comparatively poorer value now? Undoubtedly so, but whoever’s buying a Studio or a Mac Pro likely sees value in the higher memory ceiling and PCIe respectively. You buy what you need right now and whatnot.
This year’s max is bad. The CPU is almost the same as the Pro, like how M1 and M2 were
iPad Pro M4 - 3977
I’m happy at least you’re seeing my point here.
I mean let’s look at the competition, I don’t see people with 12th gen Intel Core getting too worried about being swept away with 13th or 14th series update because while performance upgrade is there, it’s not that massive for people to just keep worried about buying a “too slow” last gen chips.
I mean isn’t this expected for a company like Apple though. They aren’t really building massively different processors. They are largely building one processor and using core counts to down bin as usual.
They aren’t developing distinct processor lines to limit generational gains on “down brand” SKUs.
This affords them a massive savings across their manufacturing and it also benefits consumers as we get meaningful gains.
You don’t need to upgrade because a new processor performs better on paper. You upgrade when you have a need the new machine solves. As always in tech…
Yeah I think that just depends on your needs in terms of CPU vs GPU. Once you get into the Max realm of GPU core counts, it’s probably hard to leave 😆 I also have a feeling a tricked out mini would throttle at least a little bit, whereas the studio basically never does (from what I’ve heard).
They are not afterthought. The entire M3 lineup is delayed a bit and M4 is on schedule.
Oh god, the Mac Studio and Mac Pro sales are going to come to a complete standstill...
I don't have to imagine - the jumps from iPhone 4 to 4S, to 5, to 5S were all 2X faster than the year prior. Somehow everyone survived.
And the very company you are talking about is losing the competition…
A horrible problem indeed. Tim Apple should be sacked.
And that’s exacltly my point! 😅 Those are confusing times to get an iPhone, just like when should I buy a Mac now. Any older iPhone at that time (which wasn’t cheap) is just 2x slower all of a sudden.
Yes I’d rather have a slower paced, boring updates just like we have with iPhones now. People with iPhone 14 could be just as happy skipping the 16 because it’s not much of an upgrade (unless you want USB C)
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NVidia with their slow, baby steps iteration of GPUs would like to disagree though? 😉
Try talking about 3090 to 4090 “baby steps”.
The only thing Nvidia is doing differently is that they raise the GPU price significantly in recent years so the price per performance is nearly constant because they are close to monopoly now. Do you think raising prices each and every year is truly better?
Can someone more knowledgeable explain how this makes sense? How does a core that’s 50% faster than another lose when testing multi core and the faster core has more cores on the chip?
My man... just because Apple, or anyone, makes a newer faster (even if a lot faster) computer, does NOT mean the computer that you currently have gets slower. Buy what you need when you need it.
You won't know that until the machines are out and they get actual software run on them. For example, we don't know yet how good the thermals will be. Will the fans come on with the mac mini? How loud they will be etc.
The new processor node has more transistors on chip. Millions more. That's where the difference comes from. The clock speed on the M4 is higher as well.
Intel is a chip maker as their core business. Meaning, they develop distinct product lines. They limit performance gains across their product lines by not designing those improvements into the line to begin with.
Apple isn’t trying to blow their CPU design out in terms of complexity where they are developing the chips as distinct product lines. That would bloat their costs like crazy.
They want a design they can develop for the top then as silicone manufacturing issues happen they can down bin during validation. Allowing them to use the same core chip across their whole lineup.
Massive win for them and us.
M4 cores are much, much faster than M2 cores. However, M2 Max has more cores (8 performance, 4 efficiency) vs. M4 (4 performance, 6 efficiency).