Why did you upgrade from an M1 / Pro / Max / Ultra?

[throAU]

I REAALLY hope the upcoming Macs will be enough to get me to upgrade from my M1 Max MBP (32c GPU/32GB/1TB) because I have disposable income right now that's just sitting there. I develop on my machine while powering a 4K OLED monitor and 1440p secondary monitor and play OSRS on it running Runelite all day.

Have done m1 generation to m4 and it was a huge jump, m5 is even faster single thread.

M1 seems fast until you work on something m4 and up 🙂. Not that m1 is slow, but the improvement is noticeable in responsiveness!

 

[TarkinDale]

Once I realized how good Crossover is at playing PC games from my Steam library, I upgraded my M1 Air to a 10-core M4 Air for the better GPU performance.

Really? What sort of games? One thing I miss is a good library of games, but I’d hate to be battling crashes or complex set ups.

 

[dmr727]

Really? What sort of games? One thing I miss is a good library of games, but I’d hate to be battling crashes or complex set ups.

Since it's a MBA, I have to stick to titles that are a generation or two back from what's out now for acceptable performance. At the moment I'm working through Witcher 3 again, but I've been known to fire up Skyrim or a couple of the Fallout titles too. It's not perfect - for example the mouse pointer sometimes appears when it shouldn't, so I found a utility that forces MacOS to hide the pointer when I play. That sort of thing. But there's enough of a community on the Mac that plays games under Crossover so you can generally find solutions to most problems.

 

[maflynn]

for example the mouse pointer sometimes appears when it shouldn't, so I found a utility that forces MacOS to hide the pointer when I play

What utility?

 

[dmr727]

What utility?

Sorry, forgot all about answering your question. I'm using StealthPointer:

GitHub - Alien4042x/StealthPointer: StealthPointer – A minimal macOS menubar app to hide or show your mouse cursor with customizable global hotkeys. Especially useful for Wine gaming, fullscreen apps.

StealthPointer – A minimal macOS menubar app to hide or show your mouse cursor with customizable global hotkeys. Especially useful for Wine gaming, fullscreen apps. - Alien4042x/StealthPointer

github.com

 

[benwiggy]

Needs an "I didn't -- it still works fine" option.

 

[mdcmdcmdc]

M1/16GB/1TB MBP here. I haven't upgraded yet, but I will as soon as the M5 Pro MBPs launch.

The M1 is still plenty powerful for nearly everything I do, including email, internet, MS office, and personal finance. But it's been struggling since late 2024 with photo processing using Lightroom and plugins. Many operations are slow, and I've gotten a few "out of memory, force quit something" messages from macOS.

I'm waiting for the M5 Pro for Thunderbolt 5.

 

[TarkinDale]

Since it's a MBA, I have to stick to titles that are a generation or two back from what's out now for acceptable performance. At the moment I'm working through Witcher 3 again, but I've been known to fire up Skyrim or a couple of the Fallout titles too. It's not perfect - for example the mouse pointer sometimes appears when it shouldn't, so I found a utility that forces MacOS to hide the pointer when I play. That sort of thing. But there's enough of a community on the Mac that plays games under Crossover so you can generally find solutions to most problems.

Thanks for answering. I should check to see which games have good compatibility. I really want to play Pioneers of Patagonia.

 

[dmr727]

Thanks for answering. I should check to see which games have good compatibility. I really want to play Pioneers of Patagonia.

Crossover's website has a searchable list of games people have tried and the various results. You can also try it for free for a month and work through your game library to see what works and what doesn't.

 

[mblm85]

I'm still on my 2000 M1 MacBook Air and still very pleased with its performance.

At the time I bought it, I had thought that I'd eventually upgrade to an M4 or M5. However, I can't justify it. Not when the M1 isn't struggling or missing out on much.

I'm actually toying with getting the worn out battery replaced instead.

 

[iBug2]

Still on M1 Max but I might upgrade to M5 Max or wait for M6 Max. I'm mainly going to update for faster AI tasks. I started using Final Cut Pro heavily and magnetic mask is pretty slow an M1 Max. And I assume with each new update, Final Cut Pro will receive more and more AI backed processes which will run much much faster on newer processors.

Other than that, M1 Max is still very very fast for everything I do.

 

[DLary]

I have a M2 Ultra and have been using Topaz Video AI to improve and upscale old gun camera and flying videos. I plan on getting an M5 Ultra when (if) it comes out. It would be nice to see estimated processing time reduced.

 

[cubbie5150]

Granted, my needs are much less than what they were in December 2021 when I took delivery of my 16" M1 Pro, but I won't be even looking at upgrading until M6 at the earliest. Back in December 2021, my assumption of the AS future was that I'd be upgrading at M5. I might even hang on to M1 Pro til it dies. 🤷‍♂️ I just haven't have much appetite for spending and I don't see that changing soon.