I presently have a 14" MacBook Pro M1 Pro 16gb/512gb, so the base version of M1 Pro. I've had it since launch and it's served me well. Lately, I've been running out of RAM which has been leading to lag and slowdowns. Use case is heavy multi tasking but nothing individually is super intensive. I spend most of my day on video conferencing and running multiple browsers, lots of tabs and lots of productivity programs open at once (usually 2-3 excel spreadsheets, 1-2 numbers spreadsheets, pages, 2-4 word documents, outlook, mail, one note, powerpoint, etc). The reason for some duplication is that my job(s) consists of a lot of content switching and a lot of back and forth between my primary role with some consulting and I'm also an adjunct professor. Lately, I can't even scroll a word document. It just freezes then goes back to the top which is super annoying when I'm trying to grade papers in-between meetings. I haven't been maxing out the processor power of my M1 Pro, but my memory pressure has been nearly constantly yellow or red so I'm looking at another 14" MacBook Pro. I'd consider Air, but am thinking I'd want the nano texture display option. I have a privacy filter on the screen now that is there to cut down reflections. Would a M5 32gb or M4 pro 48gb be better in my use case?
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M5 or M4 pro?
- Thread starter soloz2
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For your work seems either processor will work. If just a bit more RAM will fit the bill, the M5 at 32GB is $2000, while M4 Pro at 48GB is $2400. It sounds like the extra 8GB will handle your apps, so the M5 gets you there for less $. (sorry did not account for nano texture in prices). You could also buy that base M5, load up your workflow and see how the memory works for a week. If not enough, take it back and get M4!
For your current usage, I would recommend the M5 GB RAM.
Good luck on your decision!
richmlow
Yeah, I'm really thinking the M5 is enough on the processor front. The part that makes me hesitate is lower overall RAM and TB4 instead of TB5.
I watched that and am on the fence. I think for my use case the M5 would likely be a bit snappier, so it's really more a question of if 32Gb ram is good for the next 4-6 years or if it would be better to go with 48gb and M4 pro.
How much?
It seems the consensus is the M5 would likely be sufficient and be a bit cheaper. I think as I said above I am hoping whatever I get will last me 5+ years. I had thought about upgrading last year or earlier this year during the back to school sale and didn't and now I'm kicking myself a bit, but I thought I'd be good for 5 or more years with what I had. It's just increasingly been frustrating to run into memory pressure issues on a daily basis.
I recommend the 14" MacBook Pro M5, 10-core CPU, 10-core GPU, 24GB RAM, 1TB SSD.
richmlow
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Thanks for the replies. I decided to give a M5 MacBook Pro a try. Ordered 32gb RAM, 1Tb SSD and the 14" nano texture display. I was going to go to the Apple Store yesterday to double check if I wanted to spend the $ on the nano texture display, but ended up not getting there and was getting a glare off the screen of my M3 MacBook Air so I went with the nano texture display. Sadly, nothing with nano texture looked to be in stock anyway so it would have to be special ordered anyway.
I got my new computer one week ago and so far I like it. I haven't had the same lag and slowdowns, but I am still having some issues where the memory pressure gets yellow even with double the RAM. As I'm still within the return window does this indicate I likely need more RAM, or is it maybe a bug as there are a couple programs that seem to be culprits. For example, a single browser tab might use 2-3Gb and then the toolkit for my backup hard drive might use 1-2gb and yesterday morning the camera hub for my old webcam was using like 3gb. Those feel like it shouldn't be the case.
Browsers can be real memory hogs. I just looked at Firefox on my M3 Air (24GB) and it was “using” 25GB with only one window and 4 or 5 tabs. Nothing that were obvious hogs, but some websites are bad for that. In comparison, I have DuckDuckGo running with about 15 tabs in 2 windows and it shows only 2GB in Activity Monitor.
Try some other browsers and see if that reduces your memory usage.
Try some other browsers and see if that reduces your memory usage.
Either would be fine but if RAM’s your thing like I do as an engineering student that does a lot of cad and coding in addition to multitasking and playing Roblox I’d prefer m4 pro 48GB MacBook Pro. That’s the one my friend and I have. There’s also cheaper options on third party sites like Micro center or B&H as it’s not a custom built model.
If you want latest or greatest get the m5 32GB ram MacBook Pro. You need to get it direct from Apple due to this being a custom build.