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Apple unveils the new MacBook Pro featuring the M3 family of chips
- em1sar 3y ago[dead]
- netcraft 3y agoIts just so strange to me that they can release some of the most powerful and efficient hardware we have ever seen, and show it off by telling us we can now (checks notes…) check off tasks in a widget on our desktop.
- fassssst 3y agoYes the very first Mac OS feature mentioned was “now you can quickly see the weather.”
- duxup 3y agoThey really shouldn't mention the weather until they fix that app. That app is so inexplicably bad, it feels like an intern's summer project.
- nforgerit 3y ago> They really shouldn't mention the weather until they fix that app. After your edit: What a pity! I thought to have just read a great one-liner about the climate crisis and how tech people want to solve everything applying tech.
- jwestbury 3y agoMy biggest pet peeve: Apple has decided to convey low/high temperatures different than standard. Every major weather agency and app advertises the daily low as the low temperature during the night following the advertised high. Apple, on the other hand, advertises the lowest temperature during that calendar day. This is a small but crucial difference. If I want to know the coldest temperature it will reach tonight, I need to look at the hourly forecast, because it's quite possibly that the low for today will be for 1am this morning (the past) whilst the low for tomorrow will be 11pm tomorrow, without an advertised daily low for tonight.
- duxup 3y agoThat app is like a series of contradictions. At times it seems very averse to tell me about perception on the main screen ... EXCEPT the notifications where it sends me double notifications about rain, snow, whatever all the time, and it's right maybe 15% of the time, maybe.
- Alex3917 3y agoDon’t forget it can also play Myst.
- catchnear4321 3y agomyst with ray tracing is just upgraded crysis. no one intends to play it. that it can be played is the important part.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- truncate 3y agoand watch Monarch: Legacy of Monsters.
- n8cpdx 3y agoAfter several minutes of scientific computing, 3D rendering, game development, movie production, and Xcode, among others.
- dmix 3y agoThey showed music production in Logic / Protools about 50% of the human scenes too, which can be demanding.
- burntcaramel 3y agoLooks like it’s raining outside, time to fire up the three AAA games available on this thing.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- MikusR 3y agoMacs are great to run Geforce Now.
- balls187 3y agoAnd Xbox Cloud
- cptcobalt 3y agoApple's lack of serious long-term dedication to 3D gaming is such a self-own that makes their 3D gaming benchmarks feel weak & thin. I'm hopeful the Game Porting Toolkit + advances in this years macOS (Gaming Mode, better support with MoltenVK and SPIRV-Cross, etc) start a publishing shift toward macOS as a target platform, but I can absolutely see Apple taking their foot off the gaming gas pedal again.
- ethbr1 3y agoI think it's great computing hardware has finally met the threshold to run emacs as it was intended.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- robertoandred 3y agoDid you miss the opening video?
- skydhash 3y agoI was just reading something related to that (can't remember the text) but the gist was that improvement in hardware do not follows software as they try to limit the control that the user has over that hardware. My own impressions after 4 years with apple devices is that there is no expert mode on the Mac. It, and the iPhone and the iPad, are computing appliances, something you use to get work done. They either work for you, or they don't. The mac is more flexible than the others, but the whole ecosystem is trending towards making your workflows fitting the tools, not the tools fitting to the workflow.
- scarface_74 3y agoSo exactly how does the Mac keep you from running software you want to run?
- skydhash 3y ago- Notarization - Opaque apps - Locked down hardware - SIP,... You can go and find a solution for most of the shackles, but then you're likely to break down the whole system as it was not designed to be that way. The mac is fragile in terms of customizability. It's not that it's preventing running software, it's that it may break down if you do! (not that the others are better, but at least they're trying to be more resilient).
- scarface_74 3y agoYou can bypass notarization easily and SIP. By opaque apps you mean everything is not open source? What do you want to be able to do “unsolder the memory from the chip”?
- skydhash 3y agoTransparent apps for me means configurable up to the option of deleting them and replacing it for someone else. Instead of the tight coupling we have now in MacOS, I'd like to have federated applications bound by protocols instead of needing to update the whole system to add a single feature or fix a bug. I don't think you can delete stock apps without disabling SIP or something. I don't need to unsolder the chips, or do anything hardware wise, but I'd like to be able to use the hardware without the OS if needs be. That's why I say it's an appliance. It makes sense in terms of business, but it's not like the user is free to use the device how he wants.
- kibibu 3y agoFinally, the promise of Active Desktop might be realized.
- mikhael28 3y agoWhere is the DirectX 12 conversion?
- johncalvinyoung 3y agoGoing to be looking for outside validation of that Max GPU performance before making a buy decision, I think. Biggest hopes for this generation were dramatically better GPU performance--and Apple says they've got it--but we'll have to see how that actually pans out. I was also hoping for a fourth USB4/TB4 port, which doesn't seem to be coming. Oh well.
- tough 3y agomeh
- mattkevan 3y agoLess space than a Nomad?
- nikolay 3y agoThe first in tech - skipping a generation in performance comparisons! M3 being always compared to M1, not M2!
- cheeze 3y agoI noticed that... Kind of weird. But guessing for marketing copy, "60% faster!" is an easier sell than 18% or whatnot.
- throwaway5959 3y agoThey had comparisons to both.
- veber-alex 3y agoAnd Intel CPUs
- kube-system 3y agoNot just Intel CPUs -- old Intel CPUs in old discontinued MacBooks.
- p_j_w 3y agoPeople with those Macs and the M1 are the most likely to be considering an upgrade.
- basisword 3y agoThis makes sense to me. Very few people are upgrading the M2 laptops they bought earlier this year. I'm finally in the market to move from Intel because visionPro dev requires Apple Silicon. Also - last Intel laptops were less than 4 years ago. Even as a power user I only upgrade every 3-5 years - regular users even less.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- p33p 3y ago
- nateb2022 3y agoI believe the whole event contained 0 actual camera footage. Everyone on screen, down to Tim Cook, was an animated prop.
- salil999 3y agoThe event ended saying the entire event was shot on iPhone and edited on a Mac.
- schott12521 3y agoI was sitting here thinking to myself, "There's no way its that dark in Cupertino right now??" I guess they never said it was a live-streamed presentation..
- minimaxir 3y agoPrerecorded presentations are prerecorded.
- madeofpalk 3y agoThese events have not been live-streamed in like three years.
- russellbeattie 3y agoFirst thing I noticed since I'm sitting here in Mountain View looking at a nice sunset just above the horizon (or specifically, the Santa Cruz mountains), so nope, not close to dark yet. Maybe another hour.
- spullara 3y agoI get why they are calling out vs M1/Intel as this is primarily targeted at getting folks to upgrade but it is kind of annoying that they aren't emphasizing the incremental vs the last generation. Also, the callout to AI developers to get an ok GPU but with 128 GB of unified RAM is pretty smart.
- smith7018 3y agoAgreed, though they at least put M2 comps on screen in most of the places they did the M1 comps.
- nextos 3y agoWill these M3 chips be competitive against cheap Nvidia cards for training small and medium sized networks? M2 weren't, and Metal support on Torch was sketchy. Getting better lately, though.
- spullara 3y agoFor training you want the best NVIDIA card you can afford. Doesn't make much sense to use a laptop for training IMHO. There is an argument that the M3 Max is the best non-datacenter chip for inference with the ability to scale to 128 GB of memory.
- nextos 3y agoSure, I am thinking a bit ahead. That is, a Mac Mini / Studio / Pro with a M3 Max / Ultra could be interesting.
- p33p 3y agoM3 is absolutely impressive, but the event overall was... short? Uneventful? Underwhelming?
- fassssst 3y agomeh, they need to do something with the industrial design or OS. Feels like they made a big bang with M1 and then kind of stagnated.
- smith7018 3y agoIf we're to believe them, the new M3 Max is "up to 11x faster" than the maxed out 2019 16" Pro. That doesn't seem like they stagnated.
- sixothree 3y agoDidn't they intentionally gimp the thermals on those machines though?
- throwaway5959 3y agoWhat do you expect? A 2x improvement in performance every year? There are limits to physics that would hit pretty quickly at that rate.
- fassssst 3y agoSomething like a better screen, wireless, camera, weight reduction, ports, gaming initiative, I don’t know, something more exciting than just a spec bump.
- throwaway5959 3y agoThey did give the MacBook Pros better screens and a better 1080p camera. It’s also way better at gaming with the improved performance. What ports do you want them to add?
- amelius 3y ago> Basecalling for DNA sequencing in Oxford Nanopore MinKNOW is up to 20x faster than the fastest Intel-based MacBook Pro and up to 36 percent faster than the 16‑inch MacBook Pro with M1 Pro. What does the average consumer know about basecalling? I mean, they are still selling just consumer electronics. Scientists and industry use Linux and Windows, and speed isn't the main reason.
- fnordpiglet 3y agoIronically a parallel comment laments they showed off checking the weather. Can’t win if you’re apple!
- kllrnohj 3y agoThere's an entire industry of consumer products that take massive amounts of compute called "gaming". Apple could have showed off the chips performance at that. Or at least something like photo or video editing?
- popey 3y agoThe advert at the start seemed more targetted to creatives, not 'average' consumers - whatever they are. Also, are 'average' consumers watching this kind of marketing? I suspect not, only enthusiast nerds like us are?
- alwillis 3y ago> I mean, they are still selling just consumer electronics. Scientists and industry use Linux and Windows Anyone who's worked at a research university knows Macs are popular among professors, researchers and students. These folks also start companies and work in industry and they generally don't switch platforms unless it's absolutely necessary.
- ytpete 3y agoA lot of marketing is aspirational though. People want what the pros use. If it's their top hobby or they aspire to becoming one of those pros... then they want the best, no limits if they can afford it. Even if many of those buyers realistically never will hit those limits. I suspect that impulse sells a lot of MBPs, DSLRs back in the day, Photoshop licenses, sports cars, high end ski gear, etc. etc.
- rvz 3y agoAs expected, this aged perfectly well for the M3 3 year prediction [0] and the competition is already left in the dust before they tried catching up towards the M1. Now that Apple Silicon has stabilized for software support, it looks like a great upgrade from those stuck on Intel laptops since 2020 or below. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25549796 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25549796
- goosedragons 3y agoNot really? Qualcomm just showed off benchmarks beating M2 and all we have to go off is Apple's dubious relative graphs that have been essentially lies before (3090). We will see how they really stack up when both are in shipping products.
- scarface_74 3y agoAs I said before, let’s see a product first running Windows, with native software and a decent x86 emulator.
- goosedragons 3y ago?? It already exists? You can buy ARM Windows devices right now. I'm typing this on one. The x86/x64 emulator is pretty good but performance is limited by the slower CPUs.
- scarface_74 3y agoI’m referring to a Windows ARM chip using the latest Qualcomm chip that is suppose to be so good. All indications are that the Windows x86 emulator has relatively bad performance.
- goosedragons 3y agoWe can already use the Windows x86/x64 emulator. Unless you have specifics that Snapdragon X Elite performs worse under it than current chips we can expect about 60% the performance. Rosetta 2 is about 75%. Based on Qualcomm's Geekbench 6 numbers it'll have about the same x86/x64 performance as the M1.
- thot_experiment 3y ago"Liquid Retina XDR display" I'm thinking ol' Steve wouldn't have liked this branding direction.
- gizajob 3y agoMaybe they’ll soon up the resolution and have a Quadra XDR Display
- toddmorey 3y agomixed metaphors here
- andy_xor_andrew 3y agoDon't forget the MagSafe(TM) port, Force Touch(TM) trackpad, and Magic Keyboard(TM) with Touch ID(TM). (though tbh this is not a new thing from Apple, they did this even back when Jobs was around...)
- SushiHippie 3y agoThey only compare it to the M1, does anyone know how the M3 would compare to the M2?
- askonomm 3y agoIf you watched the video then you'd have seen most of the slides also featuring M2 comparisons. Though, not very impressive changes. Not enough for me to upgrade at least.
- dmix 3y agoI heard mini-LED might be announced this time, but I guess not?
- jjcm 3y agoFrom a marketing/product positioning perspective, I liked that Apple was focusing on performance per watt as their main selling metric. Yes it's fast and you can likely advertise on that alone, but the per-watt performance is just leagues ahead of everyone else, especially with them being the first to release with TSMC's 3nm fab. The 22hr advertised battery life is definitely a side effect of this. I'm super curious how long it ends up lasting in real-world tests.
- lern_too_spel 3y agoToday, we saw independent benchmarks of Qualcomm's new 4nm chip that provided 50% (Geekbench) to 100% (Cinebench) more multicore performance than M2, while using 23W. And it can efficiently encode AV1. Maybe M4 will catch up.
- scarface_74 3y agoWell, benchmarks are nice. But a processor is not an end user product. How do you think this is going to be as a product once you put it in a PC running Windows - especially as Microsoft struggles trying to get third party apps on ARM and MS’s own substandard x86 emulator
- JohnTHaller 3y agoI had a Thinkpad X13s for a while that worked quite well except for a video issue (used pawn shop purchases are a risk like that). Firefox, Edge, and MS Office worked great natively on ARM. LibreOffice worked just fine via the MS x86 emulator. And the X13s had the old Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 with less than half the performance. Granted, I wasn't doing any heavy lifting with it the month I had it. I mainly got it to test out my PortableApps.com stuff running under ARM. I'm doing it now on a Macbook Air M1 with Windows 11 running under UTM.
- scarface_74 3y agoThe entire value proposition of Windows is wide array of application support for every little niche app you could possibly want. You just named a few apps that are on Macs.
- goosedragons 3y agoAnd it still only does 1 external monitor on base M3... A $1600 laptop that can only use a single monitor. Wild.
- wilsonnb3 3y agoyeah it is indefensible to me at this point that the base chips are still limited to one external display. I was willing to cut them some slack with the original M1 chip, thinking there might be a decent technical reason for it with their first generation of laptop/desktop chips, but three years later it is absurd
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago> it is indefensible to me at this point that the base chips are still limited to one external display They’re the base chip for a reason. Why would you add a feature a small fraction of that chip’s users would use when you can use that space for something else?
- wilsonnb3 3y ago> Why would you add a feature a small fraction of that chip’s users would use when you can use that space for something else? Because it is a basic feature! I am not asking for the moon here, I have no idea why the idea that a laptop should support more than one external monitor is controversial on this site.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago> Because it is a basic feature Not according to Apple. And, frankly, not according to me. Most laptop users will never hook up an external monitor. They don't need to. That's a fair base case.
- goosedragons 3y agoMost users will never hook up a thunderbolt device so why not just have USB?
- salil999 3y agoWhatever opinions I have against Apple I just cannot deny their ability to not only innovate but also deliver every year. I wonder just how far into the future they're working on stuff internally at the company. Well done to this company.
- huytersd 3y agoIt’s like they can do nothing wrong. Everything seems so meticulously worked out and competent. Nothing good can last forever. Wonder how many more good years Apple has left.
- symlinkk 3y agoCool, the M2 should go on sale soon then!
- for1nner 3y agoUnfortunately this appears to be a drop-in replacement - can't click "buy" on any of the M2 MBPs if you can even get to the model page.
- walterbell 3y agoRetailers still have M2 MBPs..
- LTL_FTC 3y ago256gb of ram coming up! Wonder how this will affect nvidia with machine learning practitioners having so much unified ram for the gpu to work with.
- nanook 3y ago22 hour battery life.. Fuck me!
- mjsweet 3y agoRight at the end at the beginning of the credits it said it was shot on an iPhone 15 Pro and edited on a Mac. I think it might have been an MBP M3 Max… flashed by so fast. It’s fascinating that it was shot entirely on a phone.
- kmlx 3y agohere’s the PR video on how they made that happen: https://youtu.be/V3dbG9pAi8I?si=XqzYSZVpegOFMDTN https://youtu.be/V3dbG9pAi8I?si=XqzYSZVpegOFMDTN
- mjsweet 3y agoThanks for posting this. At the end of that video is this tidbit of information: Shot on iPhone Edited on Mac Additional pro software and hardware used. Special thanks to Blackmagic Design and Beastgrip.
- OhioMan2943 3y agoThe thin gradient text they used is out of step with most modern advertising, and even their own, I wonder what kind of advertising/design philosophy they're trying to push
- robertwt7 3y agoI wonder what fps is baldur gate’s 3 playing on m3, m3 pro and m3 max A lot of users are reporting not consistent 30fps on m1 even after larian studio worked with apple eng to port BG3 to mac
- smileybarry 3y agoTo be honest, Act 3 has ridiculous frame drops on a dedicated GPU. Act 2 is also heavy but Baldur’s Gate (the town) is just very graphically heavy for some reason. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s just that same performance issue.
- tiltowait 3y agoI'm surprised there's still no pro chip for the iMac, and I guess at this point we should assume there never will be. It's a shame. Give me a 27" M3 Pro with target display mode, and I'd be awfully tempted. As it is, there's nothing (other than that new color) that tempts me to update from my 16" M1 Pro, but I didn't expect there to be. I suspect I won't be eyeing upgrades until at least M5 and more realistically M6.
- johncalvinyoung 3y agothat, and the missing 27" iMac, seemed to very keenly indicate that if you want more power or more pixels, Apple will push you to buy a Mini + a Studio Display.
- wmf 3y agoMac mini + Studio Display. It's expensive but I don't know that an iMac Pro would be any cheaper.
- alwillis 3y ago> I'm surprised there's still no pro chip for the iMac, and I guess at this point we should assume there never will be. I wouldn't assume that. It's likely there will be a 32-inch iMac next year running on the M3 Pro or M3 Max.
- minimaxir 3y agoPer the benchmarks, the M3 family of chips is 15% faster than the M2 family of chips. That doesn't seem as much of a performance gain as expected given the move from 5nm to 3nm.
- luag 3y ago> Better for the Environment I wonder if with Apple's new support for repairability has translated to them making their new laptops more repair friendly. That would certainly be much better for the environment.
- clamprecht 3y agoIt's weird they mentioned something about how you can do 8K video editing with Premier Pro, but didn't mention Final Cut Pro X. Are they killing FCPX?
- wilsonnb3 3y agonah they just ported it to iPads, no way they are killing it
- skrrtww 3y agoBit disappointed that they're still using the same mini LED displays. After the iPhone announce, I was looking forward to proper OLED with 1600 nit peak for the MacBook Pros. Don't get me wrong, I'm very happy with my 16" Max display, but the dimming zones are quite visible, especially with poorly brightness-mastered content (some of which is on Apple TV+!). I can't watch the whole event, but the continued complete lack of marketing toward gamers I must say is also a bit disappointing. You have these fancy GPUs, Apple; go for the jugular!
- smith7018 3y agoIt's especially annoying that they announced ray tracing support but didn't show a real title using it. I wonder what happened internally because I'm sure they were working with partners to get it working... I mean, RE Village launched today on iOS and macOS and would've been a great demo for graphics and to boost sales.
- AprilArcus 3y agoOLED image retention makes them a bad match for desktop operating systems that have a lot of static elements like menu bars, docs, task bars, etc.
- rsynnott 3y agoAn OLED would actively put me off buying it for now, I think. Laptop screens are expected to keep operating a very long time; it seems likely that burn-in would shorten the product lifetime a lot. My current personal laptop is a 2016 13" Pro, and it's basically _fine_. People keep laptops for quite a long time now; I don't think OLED is there on durability.
- alberth 3y agoSwitching display tech is a massive ordeal for Apple. Because a huge point of pride for Apple is that regardless of the Apple device you are using, color accuracy & picture are the same and matched across devices (between iPhone / iPad/ Studio Display / MacBooks).
- drooopy 3y agoThe base M3 model (whose price is a bit over €2100 with sales tax in the EU) has 8 GB of non-upgradeable ram. Yikes.
- MikusR 3y agoThink different.
- Condition1952 3y agoIt’s pre-recorded so they don’t have to censor the audience’s boo
- toddmorey 3y agoYou can now spec a 14‑inch MacBook Pro up to $6,899.00. You’ll be so pissed when you leave that bad boy at Starbucks.
- spandextwins 3y agoCan't wait to see how AMD and NVIDIA respond with their new ARM offerings. It's going to be an interesting next few years!
- nateb2022 3y agoMy point of view as well! Several months ago I purchased the M2 MBA I'm currently using, and which I plan to use for the next 3-5 years. By the time I'm ready for a new machine, its excited to think about how far not only performance but efficiency will have increased by then. Perhaps we'll have reached a point where battery life will be measured in days instead of hours.
- resharpe105 3y ago13,3” MacBook Pro is discontinued in favor of 14” MacBook Pro with M3. I say good riddance. Would love it if they did made the bezel smaller on an iMac though, alongside the M3 upgrade.
- bluish29 3y agoI really don't know why apple is insisting on making the entry specs something like 512GB SSD and 8GB RAM for a ~$1600 device and worse for Their Mac Air line where it starts with 216GB SSD for $1000 (M1) or $1100 (M2). That's already a price tag of some of the high-end alternatives.
- bakugo 3y ago[flagged]
- hparadiz 3y agoI was close to getting the air for $900 from Costco but stopped in my tracks from the low storage and upgrading just the storage is +$500. A frankly insane mark up for 256 GB of storage.
- foldr 3y ago>and upgrading just the storage is +$500 The base model airs all have 256GB now. Upgrading to 512GB is $200, not $500. I don't think any Mx laptop has ever had a $500 charge for a one-level storage upgrade.
- hparadiz 3y agoThe base model is offered at a discount at Costco but there's no such discount for the next level up in storage so the mark up must take this discount into account.
- gorbypark 3y agoI think the worse thing is that many people don't even know it's a possibility to upgrade, if they want. I am not sure if it's the same in all countries, but third party sellers only have access to the base models to sell. I talked a nice couple out of buying a MacBook Air with 8GB of RAM at an in-store mini Apple Store at major department store recently. Of course the sales people don't mention that you can go to the real Apple Store and get models with 16GB (or 24 in the case of the M2 MacBook Air).
- jasoneckert 3y agoThrough several comparisons and careful word choices, it seemed clear that Apple is strongly hinting that Intel Mac users should seriously consider updating to M3, or Apple Silicon in general. This may indicate that the next version of macOS could support Apple Silicon exclusively.
- minimaxir 3y agoThat will only happen when all the Intel Macs are depreciated and no longer receive major OS updates, which will take a couple years (macOS Sonoma's minimum supported MBP is from 2018)
- veber-alex 3y agoThe baseline M3 model is a complete joke, 8GB of RAM and support for only one external display. This should have been a MacBook Air. Edit: Oh, and one less thunderbolt port, nice.
- minimaxir 3y agoIt does have a much better screen and relevant ports compared to an Air.
- electriclove 3y agoI imagine it will go into the MBA in the near future. This offers a low price point for an MBP
- sixothree 3y agoWait. Isn't it 8GB of _unified_ RAM?
- supergeek 3y agoThe craziest thing is that that single external display can be up to 6k/60hz! Surely for those 21.2 million pixels you could run 2 4k displays at 8.2 million pixels each.
- tedunangst 3y agoIt's not that easy to turn one fast clock into two slower clocks.
- IshKebab 3y agolol I don't think lack of clocks is an obstacle. Probably price differentiation.
- bonney_io 3y ago> This should have been a MacBook Air. Great, let's compare it to the MacBook Air, then. Compared to the 8GB/512GB M2 MacBook Air, at $1399, the M3 MacBook Pro has: - M3 chip - Slightly larger display with higher brightness, HDR, and ProMotion support - SD Card and HDMI ports For only $200 more! Sounds like an amazing "Pro" MacBook Air.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- minimaxir 3y agoMacBook Pro product page/tech specs is up: https://www.apple.com/macbook-pro/specs/ https://www.apple.com/macbook-pro/specs/ Prices for the old Pro/Max compariable SKUs seem changed: Pro SKU is $100 lower, Max SKU is $100 higher? Notably, starting at 18GB RAM for M3 Pro, 36GB RAM for M3 Max (+4GB bump for each) Pro/Max GPUs have lower memory bandwidth? Up to 12 hours battery life using wireless web on M3 Pro and Max 14 inch, 15 hours on 16 inch.
- johncalvinyoung 3y agoThe full 40c Max GPU is back up to the full 400GB/s bandwidth, but you're right, the Pro has significantly lower memory bandwidth, and the 30c Max does too.
- tunesmith 3y agoThey keep getting heavier. Not even sure I can reliably handle the 16" MBP with one hand.
- w10-1 3y agoI can't find any details on Dynamic caching. Anyone else? I'd be interested in instrumentation on the memory allocation.
- gzer0 3y agoApple showcased their continued silicon innovation with the new M3 chips. Here's what's new: Performance Leaps: * CPU Up to 15% faster than M2 * GPU Up to 30% faster than M2 * Neural Engine 60% faster than M1 New Capabilities: * Hardware ray tracing support * Up to 128GB unified memory (M3 Max) Efficiency: * Built on 3nm process * MacBook Pro up to 22 hr battery life Value: * 14" MacBook Pro starts at $1599 * 24" iMac starts at $1299
- MikusR 3y agoAlso negative 50gbps on memory speed
- MikusR 3y agoI was wrong, it's minus 50GB/s
- drBonkers 3y agoDoes that have a big impact on use-feel if you aren't doing data-write intensive tasks?
- sbierwagen 3y agoLLM inference speed is bandwidth limited.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- osti 3y agoPretty underwhelming a bit like the A16 release. They basically upped the frequency in A16 and that's how they got their single core performance improvement, not much of an IPC increase to speak of. Given the numbers they quoted, same story will repeat for M3. And A16 also came with a power consumption increase so the 3nm process from TSMC is disappointing as well.
- WatchDog 3y agoNo mention of the Ultra. Should we expect an M3 Ultra, with the interposer, or have they ditched that idea? I can't really tell from the die shot if it's been cropped out, or is just missing.
- gorbypark 3y agoThe Ultra will come when the Studio (and Pro, but that was just released) is spec-bumped, I am sure.
- amanzi 3y agoI just bought a 14" Macbook Pro on sale with the top spec M1 Pro and 1TB storage. I'm already amazed at how powerful and efficient this laptop is. I can't see myself wanting/needing to upgrade for another couple of years at least.
- ivolimmen 3y agoI would never buy an Apple device but damn the 128GB memory option is tempting. I am still looking for a decent (business) laptop that has 64Gb but the options I found until now are limited... Lenovo P-series offers 64GB max and the max I could get on Dell is 32GB. (If someone has alternatives: please enlighten me)
- lostlogin 3y agoWeird. There are Dell laptops with 64gb memory on Amazon. https://www.amazon.com/Dell-XPS-Business-Laptop-Processor/dp/B09PFFDJLL https://www.amazon.com/Dell-XPS-Business-Laptop-Processor/dp...
- baz00 3y agoYeah have a 64Gb dell here (precision 7670)
- delta_p_delta_x 3y ago> If someone has alternatives If you want notebooks with 128 GB memory, you want to look at the highest-end workstations. Dell Precision 7680 and 7780 (comes with new CAMM memory form factor) HP ZBook Fury 16 G10 Both of these have options for up to 128 GB (ECC) memory.
- pb7 3y agoGood lord are those things designed like shit.
- delta_p_delta_x 3y agoCould you elaborate on what you think is 'shit'? Do they look bad, are they functionally worse, or worse on performance/thermals/etc?
- pb7 3y agoYes, they look bad. They look like products that were designed by passionless bean counter MBA types that create products off a spec sheet with zero regard for the end user. It’s a 1.2” thick lump of plastic (somehow heavier than an all metal 16” MacBook Pro) that will creak and bend when you pick it up reminding you how little care was given to it. http://imgur.com/a/T2ZVZ8R http://imgur.com/a/T2ZVZ8R Horrific.
- merricksb 3y agoEarlier submission: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38078063 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38078063 (483 points/6 hours ago/590 comments)
- baz00 3y agoPerhaps the most interesting thing is the UK pricing. I paid £1899 for my M1 Pro. The M2 Pro was £2149. The M3 Pro is £1899 again for same spec. The insults however come now. There is now a £1699 8Gb option. Seriously in 2023? 8Gb?!?! And you can get an i7 Lenovo T14 gen 4 with 32Gb of RAM and 1TB disk for £1297. Every 8Gb RAM increment with Apple is a complete rip off. And the total build price for my silent i5-13500, 32Gb, 1TB desktop with an RTX 4070 and 27" 4k Dell monitor was £50 less than the base level 8Gb MacBook Pro. No thanks. I'm out.
- drcongo 3y agoBut, then you've got a Lenovo.
- nirui 3y agoLenovo Lenovo Lenovo.... where do I start... My Motorola (owned by Lenovo now) One Power phone got a dead pixel on it's screen :) My Lenovo monitor not only got a dead pixel, within a year it also developed a horizontal dead line. I was very lucky that it happened a month before the warranty expires. And after the repair, the new replacement screen also got a dead pixel on it :) My new Thinkpad dead within days after I received the machine, and it took over a month for the repair to complete :) The monitor and Thinkpad were directly brought from Lenovo, shipped straight out from their warehouses, so no one else to blame. Oh did I forgot the Thunderbolt controller firmware issue in my previous Thinkpad T480 :) It's safe to say I'm not very happy with Lenovo. ... But on the over hand, for who's planing to buy a Macbook, I usually recommend them to watch these videos first just to lift the spirit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yR7m4aUxHcM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yR7m4aUxHcM (this is part 3, there are also part 1 and part 2) I mean, guess why I'm still with Thinkpads :) BTW: It wasn't me who downvoted you :)
- baz00 3y agoyeah Lenovo support is shit. It's why I just buy two of them most of the time :)
- larodi 3y ago
- tetrisgm 3y agoThis release cadence seems too much. I don't have insights on why, but I'd be shocked if there's this much demand. Even a 2018 Mac works fine for most work information work.
- zapzupnz 3y agoWhat release cadence? One a year?
- dual_dingo 3y agoThis is the second generation of Macbook Pro this year. The M2Pro/Max where introduced only in January.
- tetrisgm 3y agoAs the other person said, it's been 9 months since the m2. You don't need to defend Apple here. They'll be fine. It's OK to question this.
- lotsofpulp 3y agoWhy should anyone care how often a business sells a newer product?
- breakfastduck 3y agoWell it's frustrating that basically no matter how close you buy a device to launch it's almost immediately invalidated. I got an M2 max 3 months ago and it's already last gen...
- lotsofpulp 3y agoWhat is the definition of invalidated? I am assuming your machine is still capable at doing what it did 3 months ago.
- marcus_holmes 3y agoSo. Tempted. Decent ports again, decent keyboard again, plus the M3 goodness, and it comes in black :) But the MacOS shitshow is a deterrent. Anyone know if you can install Linux on them?
- tmikaeld 3y agoWhy is MacOS a shit-show? And why would Linux be better?
- m463 3y agoto me, every release is more locked down and dumbed down. and privacy. I remember when macos used to ask you before sending data back to apple. Now it does it all day every day, with 1000 pages of privacy policy explaining what they do, but little or no ability to prevent it.
- marcus_holmes 3y agopretty much this. It's a consumer OS, same as Windows, designed to be as idiot-proof as possible and protect the user from making stupid mistakes. I'm not in that target market (though I still make a lot of stupid mistakes). Neal Stephenson said it better: http://www.team.net/mjb/hawg.html http://www.team.net/mjb/hawg.html
- nomel 3y ago> every release is more locked down and dumbed down. Do you have some specific examples, that are still a problem? You can still switch over to "unsafe" mode, and turn off SIP.
- breakfastduck 3y agoPeople say this every time. It's no more locked down than it was 10 years ago.
- znpy 3y agoI'm using a 14" M1 macbook pro for work and frankly, the hardware is good/okay but MacOS is awful. I'm keeping an eye on Asahi Linux, i might pull the trigger and use that on my macbook. But I'm skeptical about this, I might just buy a second hand thinkpad (as usual) or maybe a framework laptop (waiting for reviews on the 16" model) and call it a day.
- roneythomas6 3y agoAlso the base 14" M3 only has one external monitor support vs two in in M3 Pro and 2 Thunderbolt 3/USB C port vs 3 Thunderbolt 4/USB C ports.
- chx 3y agoYes and they do not make this clear and then people come crying to reddit when they find out. It gets even better with Apple steadfastly refusing to support MST well over a decade after its introduction so even if you have an M\d Pro or Max CPU many docks and chaining monitors will not work.
- watdoyoumean2 3y agohow do they not make it clear its literally on https://www.apple.com/macbook-pro/ https://www.apple.com/macbook-pro/ even on the order page https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/macbook-pro https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/macbook-pro
- thefz 3y agoThis is such a terrible way to segment the line.
- l5870uoo9y 3y agoI used to buy Pros for years until I more or less accidentally ended up with an Air for a period and never went back. Lighter, enough performance and cheaper.
- dijit 3y agoI'm using an M2 Air professionally for around a year now, it's excellent and it makes me seriously question why developers need macbook pro's. The only limitation I notice is that I can only have a single external display.
- packetlost 3y agoYeah, the single external display is the biggest limiting factor for me. The performance is generally there (except for more heavy compilations). I'm thinking of picking up a M3 Pro Mac Mini when those eventually release to combat the display limitations.
- breakfastduck 3y agoRAM and displays, for sure. But also, Airs used to be absolutely AWFUL devices in terms of performance when they were still intel. I think the stigma has stuck around.
- xcv123 3y ago> makes me seriously question why developers need macbook pro's For work I am developing a massive JVM monolith server application and even the M1 Pro 16" takes minutes for it just to start up. Compilation is also slow with millions of lines of code. I have SQL Server running on an x86 Linux VM with Rosetta in Docker. Need all the CPU I can get. The Macbook Air simply has less CPU performance and is thermally throttled. It would waste too much of my time. For my personal hobby C++ coding, the Macbook Air 8GB would be enough.
- geokon 3y agoHonest question，but how do you live with 8GB or RAM? I have 16 now and I run out regularly without doing anything too crazy (though in large part because Emacs and CIDER leak memory like crazy) Doesn't having to close background applications constantly absolutely maddening ?
- benterix 3y agoIt's great Apple realized cutting down on ports makes zero sense. My MBP has only two thunderbolt ports. I can see the new MBP also has HDMI, SD, and even microjack. I can finally throw my dongles and hubs away. That's the end of an ugly era.
- supergeek 3y agoYou get back ports, but those base model M3 MBPs only support a single external display. You get HDMI and 3 40gbps thunderbolt ports, but can only use one of them at a time for screens. You need to bump up to the M3 pro models to get multiple external display support.
- sccxy 3y agoThey realized? This new “basic” “pro” has only two thunderbolt 3 ports but “pro” “pro” has four thunderbolt 4 ports. Basic Pro even supports only one external monitor. Basic Pro is very misleading people when they buy MacBook Pro.
- CharlesW 3y ago> This new “basic” “pro” has only two thunderbolt 3 ports but “pro” “pro” has four thunderbolt 4 ports. My understanding is that it can't be branded Thunderbolt 4 because it only supports one external monitor, but that it's effectively Thunderbolt 4 in every other respect. The technical explanation for the limitation of the built-in display support is that the base SoCs have one Thunderbolt bus that supports 2 display outputs, one of which is used by the integrated display. Still, there are workarounds: https://www.macworld.com/article/675869/how-to-connect-two-or-more-external-displays-to-apple-silicon-m1-macs.html https://www.macworld.com/article/675869/how-to-connect-two-o...
- hbn 3y agoThat's not new, this laptop chassis launched in 2021. It's also thicker and brought MagSafe back!
- dang 3y agoRelated ongoing threads: Apple unveils M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38078063 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38078063 Apple supercharges 24‑inch iMac with new M3 chip - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38078068 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38078068
- broguinn 3y agoWow, way to drop the Baldur's Gate 3 spoilers, Apple!