Worth Upgrading from M1 MBA to new base M1Pro MBP?

[amitdoc2b]

The new base MBP has Apple M1 Pro with 8-core CPU, 14-core GPU, 16-core Neural Engine. I’m confused if that CPU speed is the same as the 8-core M1 from the MBA or does the MBP have a faster processor in those same cores? I know the GPU is double but not sure that impacts speed. Also, is the price upgrade from $899 to $1999 worth it value wise in terms of collective new features? Thanks.

 

[DMG35]

It honestly depends on what you are using your MacBook Air for. I don’t think you are going to see a major speed jump for day to day activities, but the ports, screen, speakers, and camera are pretty nice.

 

[Tikatika]

My question as well, perfectly stated!

 

[Sensamic]

Absolutely not unless you are a pro video editor. Too much money. MI MBA is a beast for years to come.

 

[amitdoc2b]

It honestly depends on what you are using your MacBook Air for. I don’t think you are going to see a major speed jump for day to day activities, but the ports, screen, speakers, and camera are pretty nice.

I understand I may not see a major jump but curious if there’s a jump at all or if it’s the same processor speed in terms of benchmarks like the graphs they showed for the 10-core.

 

[davidg4781]

It honestly depends on what you are using your MacBook Air for. I don’t think you are going to see a major speed jump for day to day activities, but the ports, screen, speakers, and camera are pretty nice.

This is what I’m considering right now. I don’t have a PC, my mini died a while back. I’ve just been using iPhone so I’ve really been waiting for these new Macs.

The M1 MBP was good but I wanted to see what else came out. I’m really considering the 1TB 14” M1P. I don’t need all that power, right now, but that display is amazing! I just don’t know if it’s worth an extra $700.

 

[Bodhitree]

It all depends if you have the money to spare. Personally I don’t actually need a new laptop, and digging into my savings to fund the purchase would seem to be a secondary priority compared to the roof repair that I know is just around the corner.

 

[Deliro]

It all depends on your use cases. What do you intend to do? I use my MBA for consumption and productivity, it excels in this. I won't see any difference really in my day to day use cases. If you're doing hard core 4K+ photo and video editing, sure it would be better. I mean on a professional level. It's a sweet device, no doubt. But for my use cases it's not worth it.

 

[Fidgit]

Do you do any of the things this machine handles well, as a job? If not, it’s almost certainly not ‘worth’ upgrading, but then you have to factor in the many years of Apple slowly burying into your conscious, making you want the new shiny fast thing, and you do want it don’t you, you really want it, and you deserve it too, your neighbour has one and you deserve it more than him, you need it.

 

[Natrium]

I understand I may not see a major jump but curious if there’s a jump at all or if it’s the same processor speed in terms of benchmarks like the graphs they showed for the 10-core.

Let’s take a look at the graphs and info shown during the Apple event:

M1 8c CPU: 4 performance and 4 efficiency cores (performance: 100)
M1 Pro 8c CPU: 6 performance cores and 2 efficiency cores (performance: not disclosed)
M1 Pro/Max 10c CPU: 8 performance cores and 2 efficiency cores (performance: 170 or up to 70% faster)

If increasing the performance cores from 4 to 8 (100% more) gains up to 70% better performance, we can assume increasing the performance cores from 4 to 6 (50% more) gains up to 35% better performance.

To put this in perspective, let’s say opening a Word document on the M1 Air takes 3 seconds, it would take (3/1.7) at best 1.8 seconds on the 10c M1 Pro/Max and (3/1.35) at best 2.3 seconds on the 8c M1 Pro. Note: this assumes all performance cores are used, if Word uses a single performance core or an efficiency core when opening a document, then the performance will be exactly the same.

So for light use it doesn’t make that much difference and likely not a difference at all. It will be noticeable on more intensive medium to long lasting tasks as well as GPU intensive tasks (we’re comparing the CPU now).

However, you get less battery life: up to 15 hours for the M1 Air and up to 11 hours for the MBP 14 inch with the M1 Pro.

The MBP 14 inch is also much more expensive than the M1 Air ($1999 vs $999).

Thus, in my opinion for light tasks upgrading would do more harm than good.

 

[unobtainium]

Let’s take a look at the graphs and info shown during the Apple event:

M1 8c CPU: 4 performance and 4 efficiency cores (performance: 100)
M1 Pro 8c CPU: 6 performance cores and 2 efficiency cores (performance: not disclosed)
M1 Pro/Max 10c CPU: 8 performance cores and 2 efficiency cores (performance: 170 or up to 70% faster)

If increasing the performance cores from 4 to 8 (100% more) gains up to 70% better performance, we can assume increasing the performance cores from 4 to 6 (50% more) gains up to 35% better performance.

To put this in perspective, let’s say opening a Word document on the M1 Air takes 3 seconds, it would take (3/1.7) at best 1.8 seconds on the 10c M1 Pro/Max and (3/1.35) at best 2.3 seconds on the 8c M1 Pro. Note: this assumes all performance cores are used, if Word uses a single performance core or an efficiency core when opening a document, then the performance will be exactly the same.

So for light use it doesn’t make that much difference and likely not a difference at all. It will be noticeable on more intensive medium to long lasting tasks as well as GPU intensive tasks (we’re comparing the CPU now).

However, you get less battery life: up to 15 hours for the M1 Air and up to 11 hours for the MBP 14 inch with the M1 Pro.

The MBP 14 inch is also much more expensive than the M1 Air ($1999 vs $999).

Thus, in my opinion for light tasks upgrading would do more harm than good.

Great analysis, at least until benchmarks come out.
I think that for light tasks, the 14” base won’t be a big upgrade in terms of performance. That doesn’t mean you absolutely shouldn’t upgrade — it still has a way better screen, more ports, faster SSD (which will impact the perceived speed as much or more than any CPU gains), more base RAM and storage, better speakers, better webcam. And then there will be noticeably better performance on intensive tasks and anything that uses GPU.

 

[DNichter]

I think it just comes down to money. You don’t need it of course, but there are a lot of nice to haves with this machine. I went ahead and picked one up to share with the wife.

 

[Hunter5117]

To put this in perspective, let’s say opening a Word document on the M1 Air takes 3 seconds, it would take (3/1.7) at best 1.8 seconds on the 10c M1 Pro/Max and (3/1.35) at best 2.3 seconds on the 8c M1 Pro.

I would say this is a bad example. Opening a Word document is a pretty easy task for any CPU, I don't think you are going to see much difference on any of the M1 machines unless it is a huge gigabyte file with lots of raster graphics. Now opening a huge Photoshop document, or rendering video, etc will show the difference.

 

[amitdoc2b]

Let’s take a look at the graphs and info shown during the Apple event:

M1 8c CPU: 4 performance and 4 efficiency cores (performance: 100)
M1 Pro 8c CPU: 6 performance cores and 2 efficiency cores (performance: not disclosed)
M1 Pro/Max 10c CPU: 8 performance cores and 2 efficiency cores (performance: 170 or up to 70% faster)

If increasing the performance cores from 4 to 8 (100% more) gains up to 70% better performance, we can assume increasing the performance cores from 4 to 6 (50% more) gains up to 35% better performance.

To put this in perspective, let’s say opening a Word document on the M1 Air takes 3 seconds, it would take (3/1.7) at best 1.8 seconds on the 10c M1 Pro/Max and (3/1.35) at best 2.3 seconds on the 8c M1 Pro. Note: this assumes all performance cores are used, if Word uses a single performance core or an efficiency core when opening a document, then the performance will be exactly the same.

So for light use it doesn’t make that much difference and likely not a difference at all. It will be noticeable on more intensive medium to long lasting tasks as well as GPU intensive tasks (we’re comparing the CPU now).

However, you get less battery life: up to 15 hours for the M1 Air and up to 11 hours for the MBP 14 inch with the M1 Pro.

The MBP 14 inch is also much more expensive than the M1 Air ($1999 vs $999).

Thus, in my opinion for light tasks upgrading would do more harm than good.

Thank you, I didn't know that the M1 Air had 4 performance/4 efficiency and the M1 Pro had 6/2. This was the sort of info I was looking for aside from if the cores had any faster processing speeds. Just based on performance, you are right that it is likely going to not be there value-wise. But I was looking at a whole value perspective, such as the experience of a larger, brighter, higher quality screen, along with more ports, better graphics, better webcam, ability to fast charge, and a new physical form factor. Adding them all together to the performance is what I'm trying to consider if it is worth the value. The fact that the M1 Air and Pro's cores are not exactly the same is certainly a positive point (4/4 vs 6/2).

 

[MrGunny94]

I'm upgrading from the M1 MBA. I had a 16" i9 which I sold during the summer and got the Air to try out my workflow... I do a lot of IDE, Terminals, 30-45 tabs open on Edge/Safari + a lot of apps and the "big baddy" MS Teams.

I do 10gb of swap every day but it gets the job done and for sure it hiccups a bit here and there due to the swap and running out of memory.

Got the 14" Pro 10+16 GPU with 16GB, however I got 15 days to test it and see how it goes