The MacRumors Show: Are the M3 MacBook Pro and iMac Worth the Wait?

[switz]

Folks, Apple has never been the cheapest price in the market. My IIfx in 1990 cost over $10,000 then with those dollars, not corrected to today's number. It had the 68040 processor, 32kb of ram and a 80 mb 5" hard drive. The 21" color monitor and video card were an additional several thousand dollars.

So when I bought my 2022 M1 Ultra Mac Studio with 128GB of Ram and 8TB SSD along with two Apple Studio Displays for around $10,000 of todays depreciated purchasing power dollars, I got a bargain.

In the late 70s, the Seagate ST-506 was one of the first Winchester (sealed discs vs removal media) 5" 5 MB drives and cost $1,500. The controller was another $1,500.

Our depreciated dollars of today just do not buy as much this year as they did last year or the year before. (Inflation anyone?)

My December 2019 16" Intel I9 top model with all of the options maxed out (64GB of ram, 8TB SSD and Radeon Pro 5500M video with 8GBb of GDDR6 memory) cost over $6,300 with sales tax after my 10% military discount and 6% cash back at that time. With my 10% military discount and 3% cash back, the fully loaded M3 16" MacBook Pro would cost $6285 before sales tax. So the reality is there is not much of a price increase for the quantum leap in performance of the new equipment.

There is a world of computing difference between these two generations of 16" MacBook Pro and the new one does not have roaring fans to dispel lots of heat.

 

[bradman83]

Clearly we are now at the Meh phase with Apple folks... what I mean is, before Apple Silicon, Apple was at the mercy of Intel and their chip schedule. Very erratic updates and people would complain about the LACK of updates to the laptop line. Now that Apple controls the CPU and GPU, which is now on a once a year update schedule so far, now people complain that the update is just MEH...

Tough crowd for sure.

What's odd is that Apple, even under Intel, updated the MBP on an annual basis. (The MBA Apple let languish not for lack of chips but for lack of interest in Intel's under-powered Y series chips).

 

[Konigi]

First time watching your show. I enjoyed it!

 

[eropko]

Folks, Apple has never been the cheapest price in the market. My IIfx in 1990 cost over $10,000 then with those dollars, not corrected to today's number. It had the 68040 processor, 32kb of ram and a 80 mb 5" hard drive. The 21" color monitor and video card were an additional several thousand dollars.

So when I bought my 2022 M1 Ultra Mac Studio with 128GB of Ram and 8TB SSD along with two Apple Studio Displays for around $10,000 of todays depreciated purchasing power dollars, I got a bargain.

In the late 70s, the Seagate ST-506 was one of the first Winchester (sealed discs vs removal media) 5" 5 MB drives and cost $1,500. The controller was another $1,500.

Our depreciated dollars of today just do not buy as much this year as they did last year or the year before. (Inflation anyone?)

My December 2019 16" Intel I9 top model with all of the options maxed out (64GB of ram, 8TB SSD and Radeon Pro 5500M video with 8GBb of GDDR6 memory) cost over $6,300 with sales tax after my 10% military discount and 6% cash back at that time. With my 10% military discount and 3% cash back, the fully loaded M3 16" MacBook Pro would cost $6285 before sales tax. So the reality is there is not much of a price increase for the quantum leap in performance of the new equipment.

There is a world of computing difference between these two generations of 16" MacBook Pro and the new one does not have roaring fans to dispel lots of heat.

Hope you are not using 128Gb RAM just to browse internet.

 

[eropko]

Build one. Or , get a NUC and just install memory and a nvme ssd. If I needed to build a Mac to challenge my workstation I wouldn’t even get close. And this is counting the custom water cooling.

It got 128gb ddr5 memory, and i9 alderlake, a 4090 and a 2tb SSD. Compared to my studio m2 max, it was an absolute bargain.

Don’t get me wrong. I enjoy my studio, and my 15 inch mba. But, I’m not kidding myself into believing they aren’t ridiculously overpriced , and what I’m saying, is it’s getting worse and worse.

On the other side you can't build workstation to challenge mac (size/performance/noise/power consumption) too.

 

[Tagbert]

What would everyone think if they kept the single core speed of the Pro chips always at least 5% above the non-Pro chips? Surely with the better thermal dissipation they could achieve that?

That would require that Apple slow down the M base chips to setup the difference. Heat dissipation isn't the limiting factor. Chips can run stably up to a certain speed. After that they become unstable. Apple likely sets the speed of their chips up to but not over that line.

 

[ric22]

That would require that Apple slow down the M base chips to setup the difference. Heat dissipation isn't the limiting factor. Chips can run stably up to a certain speed. After that they become unstable. Apple likely sets the speed of their chips up to but not over that line.

Usually if you cherry pick the chips, up the voltage and improve the cooling you can increase the clock speed, which should offer a tad of extra performance? It's always been that way with Intel and AMD.

 

[justdanyul]

On the other side you can't build workstation to challenge mac (size/performance/noise/power consumption) too.

Sure. Performance versus power consumption, and video editing performance is great on the Macs. Thus why I got the Macs haha.

The noice though, I will say you can get close. I watercool the non Mac workstations (I got a few) . In casual use, you can make near silent. And to be pedantic, you could use external radiators to build a silent beast in a small form factor (this is actually going to be my next pc building project)

 

[Marty80]

Folks, Apple has never been the cheapest price in the market. My IIfx in 1990 cost over $10,000 then with those dollars, not corrected to today's number. It had the 68040 processor, 32kb of ram and a 80 mb 5" hard drive. The 21" color monitor and video card were an additional several thousand dollars.

So when I bought my 2022 M1 Ultra Mac Studio with 128GB of Ram and 8TB SSD along with two Apple Studio Displays for around $10,000 of todays depreciated purchasing power dollars, I got a bargain.

In the late 70s, the Seagate ST-506 was one of the first Winchester (sealed discs vs removal media) 5" 5 MB drives and cost $1,500. The controller was another $1,500.

Our depreciated dollars of today just do not buy as much this year as they did last year or the year before. (Inflation anyone?)

My December 2019 16" Intel I9 top model with all of the options maxed out (64GB of ram, 8TB SSD and Radeon Pro 5500M video with 8GBb of GDDR6 memory) cost over $6,300 with sales tax after my 10% military discount and 6% cash back at that time. With my 10% military discount and 3% cash back, the fully loaded M3 16" MacBook Pro would cost $6285 before sales tax. So the reality is there is not much of a price increase for the quantum leap in performance of the new equipment.

There is a world of computing difference between these two generations of 16" MacBook Pro and the new one does not have roaring fans to dispel lots of heat.

Thats what was killing them off then, until Steve Jobs revived life back into the company with new products and competitive pricing that appealed to the average consumer.

Move forward to today and we are heading back to the 80’s. Old recycled product designs, that are very costly, with poor software builds.

Apple is heading into a world of hurt, Consumers want new products and competitive prices for there homes and businesses.

The ivision pro is neither a new product and nor is it cheap. I prefer a phone and macbook over a sun visor that sits on my head.

 

[sideshowuniqueuser]

I think at this stage the question is really are Mac’s worth it at all anymore? The tax keeps growing and it’s getting to a stage where it really hard to justify.

I mean, right now, an 1TB to 2TB upgrade cost 2.67x the price of a similar performing 2tb Samsung 990 pro The markups are starting to border insanity.

Well, the truth is, you have a choice of Apple, who make astoundingly good machines. Or any other brand, who don't quite cut it.

So yeah, I find the buying process to be a frustrating process of thinking very long and hard about exactly how much RAM/SSD I need/want both now, and in the nearish future. It shouldn't be this way, and wouldn't, if Apple didn't take the complete and utter p*ss with their upgrade prices.

However, on the iPhones front, there are some competitors which in some ways are not as good, and in other ways, better. For me personally, particularly with respect to how and when I use my phone, I've recently come to the conclusion that the Google Pixel phones are actually better, and am waiting for the Black Friday sales to pick up a Pixel 8.

Last year I bought a 16" M1 Pro MBP, with 32GB/2TB, and am so far extremely happy with this choice. The price tag is a lot, but I use it all day, most days, for work/study/play, so I can definitely justify it, and have no regrets.

However, for my son, he has a ~2014 MBA, of which he is a casual user of, and also has his high powered gaming PC which he built from parts himself, so it's not like he needs a laptop. So as much as I'd like to buy him a 13" MBA with 16GB/1TB, the price of it, especially with the upgrade Apple Tax, renders it a non-buy.

 

[sideshowuniqueuser]

Clearly we are now at the Meh phase with Apple folks... what I mean is, before Apple Silicon, Apple was at the mercy of Intel and their chip schedule. Very erratic updates and people would complain about the LACK of updates to the laptop line. Now that Apple controls the CPU and GPU, which is now on a once a year update schedule so far, now people complain that the update is just MEH...

Tough crowd for sure.

It's because:
- M1 blew everything out of the water.
- For 99% of us, the base M1 chip is so damn good that it is overkill as far as CPU/GPU power goes, and every upgrade since then is, yeah, meh.

If Apple want those 99% of users to be more excited, then they should concentrate more on:
- Increasing efficiency rather than GPU power, thus giving us more battery life.
- Reducing the price.
- Higher RAM options on the base chip.

On the subject of price reductions, it should be noted that for power users, each iteration has resulted in a real world price reduction. E.g. the M3 Max is now faster than the M2 Ultra for both single and multi core, but the M3 Max is much cheaper. Thus if your use case requires the M2 Ultra speed, then what you need just got cheaper.

However, for the 99% of us where the M1 is already overkill in CPU/GPU power, the base models keep going up and up in price from M1 to M2 to M3.

On the subject of efficiency vs power, what they really should do is create separate "mobile" and "desktop" chips. The mobile chips primarily concentrate on efficiency, and the desktop on power:
- M4 Desktop, M4 Pro Desktop, M4 Max Desktop, M4 Ultra Desktop
- M4 Mobile, M4 Pro Mobile.

 

[128KMac]

"Worth the wait"?? sigh. No one is "waiting" for an Apple update. Electronics are commodities. When you need one, you go buy one. You'll get the latest, most current tech at the time of purchase. There is no "waiting".

Odd.... I've been waiting. And now going to buy next week, after I actually get to touch the machine in the store.

 

[Niceisnice]

Clearly we are now at the Meh phase with Apple folks... what I mean is, before Apple Silicon, Apple was at the mercy of Intel and their chip schedule. Very erratic updates and people would complain about the LACK of updates to the laptop line. Now that Apple controls the CPU and GPU, which is now on a once a year update schedule so far, now people complain that the update is just MEH...

Tough crowd for sure.

Tough crowd indeed.

The lead Apple has in silicon is simply amazing, and the performance/power ratio of any of these chips is extraordinary. That's what we should cheer up here!

However, there is a single one issue: Prices of RAM/SSD upgrades. We are happy to pay more for the aforementioned silicon, but **not that much**!

 

[svish]

No significant features in the new MacBook Pro or iMac. iMacs should be updated more frequently.

 

[Mitochris]

"Better than average" is a huge compliment to Intel macbooks. They were bad. They seem even worse now, when we have M, feelsbad for people who bought expensive 2019 i9 a year before evolution.

at least my 2014 MBP can run 2 external displays.

 

[jgrove]

The performance gains are marginal and likely only a small percentage would benefit from them. The issue is that Apple want to release new phones and computers every year along with a new OS for both. This generates huge revenue even if the gains are slim, because people will buy them. For a new buyer this makes sense, but for those with M1 Pro, Max or even the M2 versions the gains are minimal in real world unless you are a small number of people that are desperate to shave a few minutes of video processing times. Let’s face it in less than 11 months we’ll see M4 which is likely already in development with as much fan fair for that, and the same questions will be asked again.

 

[scgf]

Don’t get me wrong. I enjoy my studio, and my 15 inch mba. But, I’m not kidding myself into believing they aren’t ridiculously overpriced , and what I’m saying, is it’s getting worse and worse.

I don't see it. I just looked on Amazon UK and I could buy an M1 Mac mini for around £500. I really don't feel this is in any way overpriced, it is far and away better than any similar Windows machine. It is a fairly low-priced entry into the macos system and is a powerful bit of kit. I've never known the price of entry so low.

 

[DarthDon]

Dual CPU? Do you understand the current architecture of their chipset? They have dual CPUs except shared high bandwidth memory and other functions.

Of course. However, a customized system could expand/double the respective capacities of the performance cores and efficiency cores by 2 processors. This would definitely be possible with a modified control architecture. On the other hand, turning the additional bandwidth on or off on a mobile device (800GB/s?) would set new standards for mobile devices. I'm pretty sure that such a multiprocessor system will be used in the Mac Pro sooner or later.

 

[TheOldChevy]

I admire their ability to chat about nothing for 45 minutes

I admire people ability to listen to them chatting about nothing for 45 minutes.
It's enough to read two chapters of Walden...

 

[eropko]

at least my 2014 MBP can run 2 external displays.

2 x 6K@60Hz?

 

[eropko]

Sure. Performance versus power consumption, and video editing performance is great on the Macs. Thus why I got the Macs haha.

The noice though, I will say you can get close. I watercool the non Mac workstations (I got a few) . In casual use, you can make near silent. And to be pedantic, you could use external radiators to build a silent beast in a small form factor (this is actually going to be my next pc building project)

No cheating allowed, radiators are considered part of build size )

 

[Any name]

I think at this stage the question is really are Mac’s worth it at all anymore? The tax keeps growing and it’s getting to a stage where it really hard to justify.

I mean, right now, an 1TB to 2TB upgrade cost 2.67x the price of a similar performing 2tb Samsung 990 pro The markups are starting to border insanity.

Senile dementia, product of an excessive night ritual of VR headset

 

[Username-already-in-use]

I can’t believe one of these two complained that Apple caused too much hype just by scheduling it at 5pm Pacific 🤣

Tech vloggers, man.

 

[Konrad]

Macs are somewhat irrelevant and mostly due to apple absurd greed, as frequently mentioned, in memory and storage cost. In some professional environments it is tolerated, but to a very limited degree, thus in the global market spread Mac’s are hardly visible. I also would wish for governments (EU would be a good candidate) to throw mandates at A. prohibiting sales of „disposable” product by ensuring modularity. For both, customer interest and environmental protection. So as to render the next „Mother Earth” episode just a bit less laughable.

PC vendor market share worldwide 2023 | Statista

The overall market leader in the global personal computer market in 2023 was Lenovo with a market share of 24.7 percent with HP Inc.

www.statista.com

 

[3xBoom]

Summary generated by Claude.ai

Here is a summary of the key points from the transcript:

- The hosts were disappointed with the recent Apple event announcing new M3 chips and MacBook Pros. They felt it could have just been a press release.

- The M3 Pro and M3 Max chips offer more performance gains compared to M1 than M2 did.

- The M3 Pro actually has reduced GPU cores and memory bandwidth compared to M2 Pro. The M3 Max also has reduced memory bandwidth vs M2 Max.

- New 14" and 16" MacBook Pros with M3 Pro/Max offer minor upgrades - mostly just the new chips. No design changes except a slightly darker "Space Black" color option.

- The base 14" MacBook Pro with M3 chip could be a compelling upgrade for those still on M1 13" models, offering the redesign, better display, more ports, etc.

- The 24" iMac was also updated with M3 but zero other changes - disappointing given it's been over 2 years since the M1 version. Accessories are still Lightning.

- They expected at least some iPad updates as well but got none. The event felt "low effort" overall.

- Overall the new chips and Macs are good upgrades, especially coming from M1 models. But the event itself was underwhelming compared to expectations.

This is all good but I am not sure this summary justified its carbon footprint...