I've had a 13 inch M3 (10 GPU core) MacBook Air with 16GB RAM and a 1TB SSD for a couple of years, and while it's a good machine for most things, there are some tasks, mainly GPU or RAM intensive ones, where it clearly shows its limits, and I was also finding having just 1TB of built in storage a pain since I have to constantly use it with an external SSD with my lossless audio files and DSLR RAW photos, which currently take up around 1.5TB combined. Last week I ordered a 16 inch M5 Max (40 GPU core) MacBook Pro with 64GB of RAM and a 4TB SSD with some money I had in savings, and it's due to come in a few days time (I'm planning to sell my MacBook Air to someone). I chose to buy it with specs that should still be good for my needs in around 5 years time, and I'm wondering what performance boost I can expect to gain over my current MacBook Air?
I suspect based on what I know about the two machines that it's roughly along the lines of the following:
Single core CPU performance: 1.4x
Multi core CPU performance: 2.5x
GPU performance: About 5x in terms of raw performance (4x the number of cores plus a core architecture that is 2 generations newer), but probably around 10x when it comes to sustained GPU tasks due to the Pro's fans which reduce throttling
Disk speed: 4-5x
Memory bandwidth speed: 6x
I think device snappiness is primarily based on single core performance, but I suspect SSD speed and memory bandwidth also play a role, making real world snappiness (which is fine on my M3 Air when not doing intensive tasks) likely feel about 2-3x in practice, particularly when it comes to launching software.
I suspect based on what I know about the two machines that it's roughly along the lines of the following:
Single core CPU performance: 1.4x
Multi core CPU performance: 2.5x
GPU performance: About 5x in terms of raw performance (4x the number of cores plus a core architecture that is 2 generations newer), but probably around 10x when it comes to sustained GPU tasks due to the Pro's fans which reduce throttling
Disk speed: 4-5x
Memory bandwidth speed: 6x
I think device snappiness is primarily based on single core performance, but I suspect SSD speed and memory bandwidth also play a role, making real world snappiness (which is fine on my M3 Air when not doing intensive tasks) likely feel about 2-3x in practice, particularly when it comes to launching software.