Macbook pro: M5 Pro 24 GB vs M5 32GB Ram?

[ab2c4]

If Apple continues down the path of including more Liquid Glass eye-candy in the future, having the additional GPU cores and faster SSD that come with the M5 Pro vs base M5, will keep the OS and apps from feeling sluggish for a lot longer. Tahoe on my 2019 16” Intel MBP (with top end 5500M GPU with 8GB VRAM) routinely felt sluggish in terms of just populating icons in finder, the various Liquid Glass animations stuttering because it just couldn’t render the user interface fast enough (it’s also unlikely Apple spent much time trying to optimize it for Intel). At any rate, everything in Tahoe looks smooth on my M5 Pro. Also the 120Hz ProMotion display on the MBP helps keep the OS look and feel fluid and smooth.

I think you’ll do quite well for the next 5-10yrs (or until Apple stops supporting the M5 well into the future) with an M5 Pro given your uses.

Good information, thank you.

 

[TinaBelcher]

I just purchased the 14-inch m5 with 32 GB RAM and 1 TB.
More RAM will always be the better option, and even Apple knows it, as RAM is the reason for price increases.

 

[Geekett]

There will always be people saying «more, more, more», but for the OP usage, a base Macbook Air M4 or M5 (16 go Ram) would be already a powerful and blazing fast machine.
Futureproofing is often not worth the cost.

 

[mdcmdcmdc]

There will always be people saying «more, more, more», but for the OP usage, a base Macbook Air M4 or M5 (16 go Ram) would be already a powerful and blazing fast machine.
Futureproofing is often not worth the cost.

No question, a base M5 MBA or MBP is a powerful and blazing fast machine.

But RAM and CPU are two different things. If you think you might need the additional RAM, and it won't blow your budget, get it because you can't add more later.

Nobody ever said "I wish I hadn't bought so much RAM."

 

[MrGunny94]

There will always be people saying «more, more, more», but for the OP usage, a base Macbook Air M4 or M5 (16 go Ram) would be already a powerful and blazing fast machine.
Futureproofing is often not worth the cost.

True especially if you are on a 2/3 year cycle, like most professionals are... But 16GB if you are multi-tasking is quite low.. Soon 24GB should be the new baseline since you always en dup allocating 6-8GB to the OS.

 

[ikramerica]

with the M5 Pro you'll get:

significantly quicker export times
higher track count in Logic along with quieter dual fans under sustained load
better GPU

24GB of RAM shouldn't be limiting unless you're going for memory-heavy virtual instruments like string orchestra stuff, or VMs / local LLMs.

Regular M5 will a bit more battery life, but M5 Pro is already stellar. If I had to choose, I'd rather have the more powerful CPU + GPU

Just got the M5 Pro 24GB and the fans are NOT quiet under sustained load. My M1 Pro never got that loud.

Under normal load, you can’t hear anything. But just rendering 1 image in Archicad started to max the fans by the end, to the point it’s distracting to work while rendering while working on the M1 Pro was not a big deal even with the processors pegged.

The rendering is MUCH faster on the M5 Pro, but the fan noise is like I have my Core i7 back.

If you don’t expect to ever peg the processors, I would go with the M5 and more memory instead of the M5Pro and less memory.

 

[conmee]

Just got the M5 Pro 24GB and the fans are NOT quiet under sustained load. My M1 Pro never got that loud.

Under normal load, you can’t hear anything. But just rendering 1 image in Archicad started to max the fans by the end, to the point it’s distracting to work while rendering while working on the M1 Pro was not a big deal even with the processors pegged.

The rendering is MUCH faster on the M5 Pro, but the fan noise is like I have my Core i7 back.

If you don’t expect to ever peg the processors, I would go with the M5 and more memory instead of the M5Pro and less memory.

14” or 16”? I was running 30min and 60min Cinebench loops on a 16” M5 Pro and fans settled around 35% definitely audible but not 100%. My 14” M5 Max kicks the fans up to 95% and is like my 2019 Intel MBP running the same benchmarks. Luckily, I don’t do much sustained workloads other than local inferencing. I’ve noticed when I have qwen or Gemma running with LM Studio on a decent sized prompt, fans hover around 35-45% consistently. But haven’t got the fans to exceed 50% with local AI work.

Main downside to base M5 is memory capped at 32GB. Otherwise, when I tested the base M5 it was the quietest of all the M5 systems I tested. If I didn’t need more than 32GB, I likely would have just gone with a base M5.

 

[ikramerica]

14” or 16”? I was running 30min and 60min Cinebench loops on a 16” M5 Pro and fans settled around 35% definitely audible but not 100%. My 14” M5 Max kicks the fans up to 95% and is like my 2019 Intel MBP running the same benchmarks. Luckily, I don’t do much sustained workloads other than local inferencing. I’ve noticed when I have qwen or Gemma running with LM Studio on a decent sized prompt, fans hover around 35-45% consistently. But haven’t got the fans to exceed 50% with local AI work.

Main downside to base M5 is memory capped at 32GB. Otherwise, when I tested the base M5 it was the quietest of all the M5 systems I tested. If I didn’t need more than 32GB, I likely would have just gone with a base M5.

16” Pro 24GB.

It is so much faster than the 16” M1 Pro using Archicad, but that speed comes at a price.

It’s not like my wife’s dell with constant fans under just about any use, but reminds me of my MBP old i7 under full load.

Archicad pegged processors at 97% doing cineware render. So it’s pushing all 18 cores to the max.

I guess if I want to render and work at the same time I will need to use my ANC headphones.

 

[conmee]

16” Pro 24GB.

Archicad pegged processors at 97% doing cineware render. So it’s pushing all 18 cores to the max.

That’s another interesting point. I noticed when doing the Cinebench GPU vs CPU tests that my M5 Max with 40 GPU cores would run hotter when doing CPU tests. While CPU tests were running the temp was in the mid high 80s with 86° being the highest while the GPU tests settled in around low 70s with 75° being highest fans at 95% after 5 minutes with multi core CPU and GPU tests. The single core test didn’t crack 66° and the fan was 2%. Those CPU cores really kick up some heat.

 

[MrGunny94]

Just got the M5 Pro 24GB and the fans are NOT quiet under sustained load. My M1 Pro never got that loud.

Under normal load, you can’t hear anything. But just rendering 1 image in Archicad started to max the fans by the end, to the point it’s distracting to work while rendering while working on the M1 Pro was not a big deal even with the processors pegged.

The rendering is MUCH faster on the M5 Pro, but the fan noise is like I have my Core i7 back.

If you don’t expect to ever peg the processors, I would go with the M5 and more memory instead of the M5Pro and less memory.

Yup I noticed my fans are almost always on...

16' M5 Pro 48GB 1TB

 

[jabbr]

@ikramerica nooo bummer to hear that (no pun intended)

I'm wondering how the binned 15-core in the 14" compares. Maybe a more favorable thermal situation.

 

[ikramerica]

@ikramerica nooo bummer to hear that (no pun intended)

I'm wondering how the binned 15-core in the 14" compares. Maybe a more favorable thermal situation.

Under normal use there is no noticeable difference between an M1Pro and M5Pro in terms of heat.

But considering the binned M5Pro still has more cores and more GPUs than an M1Pro, and at a higher max clock, the M5Pro in the 14” is still likely to get too hot under max loading and also require fans blaring.

Not sure how Apple is going to “thin” the M7 MBP while also boosting performance. It’s not like the 2nm process can performs miracles where the 3nm hasn’t.