M1 or Core i7, 32GB MacBook Pro

Certainly seems like M1 gets A LOT of support here. I will talk to IT and see if I can get a 16GB machine, instead of the puny 8GB. Here’s hoping for some good news.

Depending on what you’re doing with your Mac, 8GB could be plenty.

But, as others have said here many times, more memory never hurts. :slightly_smiling_face:

I had a bit of a similar situation in April and needed to consider which 13“ Macbook Pro to choose and I finally ended up opting for the Intel Mac. For me the main reason was that some apps still were not optimized for Apple Silicon (and some still aren’t to this day I believe) and as a Microsoft Consultant I simply could not rule out the possibility of needing to run Windows software at any point (in my case Power-Bi is and probably will never be available for Mac). So I went for the „safe“ option for now.
So far I’m very happy with my „legacy architecture“ Mac and I feel good that just in case I could very simply run a VM with Windows (Server, 10, 11).

All that is to say: hardware wise I would have opted for the M1 version, but for software compatibility I chose the Intel version.

Just some food of thought maybe?

My daughter has a 2020 16” pro (16gb) that she uses to record music. She’s a vocalist and needs to stop recording “often” waiting for the fans to stop howling.
She wants to move to an M1.

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At this point, the RAM doesn’t seem to matter much. But in the future- I don’t know.

Assuming you don’t need 32GB for your work applications or else the 8 wouldn’t have been offered? I agree you should try to get a 16GB M1.

I wouldn’t consider the Intel without dedicated graphics—the SoC GPU is way better than Intel Iris, in my opinion.

It’s too bad the choice is being offered now when a potential next gen Apple Silicon device may be close to release, but since you’re being offered a repurposed 2020, maybe you can swap out again in 2022.

When I am having Webex all day long and using a wired headset, I can hear the hiss of the fan in my teleconference. It’s like a background noise that gets on my nerves, especially when I am in a stressful call. I had to order a wireless, over-the-ear headset. That way, I don’t hear the fan even though it is still blasting away.

One time, I connected the Mac to an external monitor via USB-C port (which also charged it) and piped in Spotify music into the monitor’s built-in speakers. After 10 minutes of playing soothing music, the monitor started to blast out a loud whine and white noise! I thought my speakers finally gave in and broke, only to realize that it was the noise from the fan, amplified 10X by the speakers. I am not sure technically how the fan noise got piped through the USB-port into the speakers in the monitor. It’s as though the port got sorted or the fan noise “leaked” into the port.

All this is to say that the fan is definitely a deal breaker for me. While the Pro’s Core i7, 32GB and 512G storage sounds like an end-game machine in paper, I am afraid I have to agree with you guys.

I asked IT if there is a M1 with 16GB available and he said yes but I have to wait a week. Sure, I can wait. It is with heavy heart that I have to bid the Pro good bye (btw, IT said that the Pro is new in box, not used!) even though we never met :slight_smile:

I will update over here my experience with the M1. Thanks for sharing, everyone. It was a good discussion!

Reading back what @Gruber said, this is very true, for me, at this moment:

To acknowledge how good they are — and I am here to tell you they are astonishingly good — you must acknowledge that certain longstanding assumptions about how computers should be designed, about what makes a better computer better, about what good computers need, are wrong.

Some people will remain in denial about what Apple has accomplished here for years. That’s how it goes.

I have the Intel 13” MacBook Pro i5 with 16GB from 2020. It’s quiet and the heat is more than acceptable.

I have a 16” mb pro 32g. My son has a M1 air with 16g. His is the better machine - quiet, damn fast and does not radiate your lap. Even if one does a mildly cpu intensive job, the 16” gets hot. Except for the larger display, i am not at all impressed with that mb pro.

If you have no critical apps that must use an intel processor, i’d say go with the M1.

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Reports are that Monterrey solves the hot and noisy external monitor issues with the Intel macbooks. So if you are going to be desktop mode only, you can still use the intel one. That 256gb on the M1 will fill up fast and remember you only have two ports and one of those will be for power, so you will need the added expense of a dock. If you do not need boot camp’d windows, the M1 would probably be the way to go WITH a dock for external hard drives.

I agree to most people’s comment and sentiment here that the M1 Mac is generally a better machine then the Intel. I had a 16"MBP that I can cook an egg on it. However I do have issue with the limited RAM ( I have 16Gb) on my M1 Mac mini and I am struggling with memory from many apps that I have opened. I have another Intel Mac mini that has 32Gb of RAM and does not seem to have this memory issue.

The key offenders are Chrome (unfortunately I have to use Chrome from time to time, although I like Safari), Devonthink, Apple Mail and now the electron version of 1password (ver 8 early release) , see example of below.

Screen Shot 2021-10-08 at 5.40.02 pm

Screen Shot 2021-10-07 at 12.34.48 pm

Wow, never saw THAT on an Intel machine.

Your screenshot looks pretty normal to me in terms of application and the memory they consume. I’m surprised the Mac says that you have run out of memory. Interesting indeed.

agreed, I have not seen these warnings until I am using M1 Mac. I am currently on Big Sur 11.6 . Hope Monterey can manage RAM much better

Received my MacBook Air M1 with 16GB RAM and oh boy, it is super speedy and snappy! And no fan! Such bliss. Thanks for the recommendation. I now look at the old MBA intel with contempt! Pfffffttttt! :slight_smile:

Oh, I notice that there are some new function keys

  • the F4 now launches Spotlight. I must figure out how to launch Alfred instead
  • the Fn key can be changed to launch Emoji and Symbol, although, I can’t seem to get that working yet.
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I love the M1. It’s super fast and snappy. I had serious good experience in the first week. On the second week, once my company starts to install enterprise stuff, like Falcon Crowdstrike, Jamf, CrashPlan and whatever else, I do find that at times, there are pauses when launching an app, e.g. when I open Safari, the icon at the dock starts to do it’s jumps and no Safari was launched. When I liked a tweet in Twitterriffic, the rainbow circle starts appearing for a second or two. Activity Monitor shows low CPU, memory usage and yet, why these pauses? It is as though there are these apps are waiting for some other apps or services to allow them to go through. Or, they are trying to phone home. Or something else.

Ugh, enterprise apps are the worse! Leave my M1 alone! No wonder the intel Macs have been screaming!

Your situation makes me sad. Installing enterprise apps on an Apple Silicon Mac is like opening a crummy fast food joint in a fine art museum. I’m in a position where I can restrict my app usage to M1 native code only. (Except for EagleFiler, which has some complicated bits that have not been converted yet but which run seamlessly under Rosetta). And no !@#$%^&* enterprise apps. That’s why Windows machines were created…to run enterprise apps. :slightly_smiling_face:

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I have not told you that I am using HCL Notes as email client. Imagine running that on top of Java, which is running on top of Rosetta before being translated into M1 codes. That’s abomination!

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Sadly, I was not able to escape the world of enterprise software and Windows apps until I retired.

Lucky world with enterprise software running mainly online now. I touch those only with my Safari gloves on:)

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