Looking forward to reviews of the new chips from the usual publications! But before those drop, I’m curious what you all think about who each chip is intended for?
The way I see it, the highest-end chips (including the M1 Max, for example) were clearly targeted towards filmmakers, people who work in 3D, and big-scale audio productions. But now, based on the marketing messages this week, it seems that has changed:
Base M4 is being pushed towards folks who need a computer and think AI will solve all their problems
M4 Pro seems targeted to developers, 2D (graphic/digital) designers, photographers, computer science people, data folks, etc. A lot of these folks used to get pushed to the Max-level chip. Especially since it now goes up to 64GB of RAM, which is (for me anyway) the biggest reason why a lot of pros in those fields gravitated to Max chips before.
M4 Max seems like it’s targeted exclusively to high-end filmmakers working on big-budget films (when they talked about Davinci Resolve today, they specifically mentioned the version used on Hollywood lots, not the free version). It also looks like they’re targeting composers working with well over 100 tracks (symphonic work), and folks who do visual effects and 3D rendering that want to work in real-time.
At this point, while many of us are power users who want the best, my gut says that we should all be considering moving downstream (which is wild). I am not comfortable with this, because I’m used to desiring the best, but we’ve moved well past Intel Xeon performance in a laptop form factor with the Max chip now.
Am I reading the room wrong? Would be curious to get thoughts from other demanding professionals in this forum.
I’m a retired I.T. manager that has never need more than an 8gb MacBook. But the main reason I found for a user needing a machine with more ram and processor, was the need to produce more work per hour than their current computer would allow.
I think it is way too soon to be worrying about next gen hardware. Film and music professions should already know if they need a faster computer. And business professions will probably be using server based solutions from Microsoft and Google for the foreseeable future.
I’ve always discouraged “future proofing” because we cannot know the future. The return of the Mac Pro one year before the announcement of Apple Silicon shows the danger in doing that.
Myself and many other professionals who rely on photoshop, virtual machines, etc, are not future proofing by getting 64gb of RAM, however it’s available. It’s practically a requirement for a lot of these fields.
I see now that 64gb of ram is available with the M4 Pro on Mac mini, but to get 64gb of ram on a MacBook Pro, you still need the M4 Max variant (and unbinned at that). Bummer!
My personal definition of future proofing is buying a lot more ram and storage than I would probably need for the next three years. For example if I found 16GB of ram was not quite enough for my current work I would upgrade to 32gb rather than 64gb.
I was more generous when sizing mid range computers that would be used years longer than Macs & PCs.
Gotcha. I went from 16GB early in my career to 32. Then, when it was obvious I was in swap all the time and could benefit from more, I doubled it. No need yet to go further; I rarely go above 85% usage and very rarely enter swap.
I just find the high-end chip spread interesting here: where is Apple trying to encourage people to go? Where are the gotchas?
M3 Pro felt under-powered. M4 Pro seems beastly. M4 Max seems very high-end, except in laptops, where you need to get the biggest chip to get 64GB of RAM. (Very weird to me since that config goes up to 128GB if you want it to.)
So we’re not in a place where it all makes perfect sense yet.
To me as someone who works in enterprise data, this work has almost entirely moved into the cloud with services like Snowflake and Databricks and almost everyone with “Data” in their title would be fine with 32gb of RAM or less and processors just need to be able to run web browsers and light VS Code sessions (and Excel…). All serious compute needed is performed in the cloud (academia excluded, they like their local compute imo).
As a nerd, this infuriates me because I want the biggest, baddess PC built to crunch some numbers but most of us don’t anything beyond the base M4 Pro or even just the M4.
The move back down to 4 efficiency cores for the Pro is good. I think M4 Pro does look like a sweet spot if your memory needs are met and you wouldn’t make much use of the extra GPU (and GPU definitely gets used in your profession; it’s just not the most important thing.)
My hunch is that some of the silicon allocation swings in the tiers between M2, M3 and M4 are driven by yields in addition to marketing. As time goes on, the tradeoffs in space allocation on the SoCs won’t be felt as much and we should see more boring and predictable chip tiers.
And I expect this trend will continue to grow, especially as AI becomes more useful to individuals and small businesses.
I’ve never cared for a “fire breathing” computer. I always enjoyed using the least amount of computer possible. Probably because I started out when the disaster plans I made had to work on T-1s (1.544Mbps) and dial-up.
Later the availability of a room full of servers provided all the storage needed for an entire company. And when the majority of our programs were written to run on servers there was less need for powerful client computers.
Well I’m retired now and don’t need much beyond writing code for microcontrollers and writing books about them. Frankly, the 2010 11" MacBook Air that’s sitting on a shelf here would be sufficient for that. But there was a time when I was crying out for a new computer every year with engineering work that sometimes would take days of CPU time to complete!
But technology caught up, even before Apple Silicon arrived. Programs that I wrote 25 years ago that crawled at the time run instantly on my 2020 Intel iMac with a virtual machine running Windows 2K. And the M3 MacBook Air I recently bought to have an Apple Silicon workstation as performance equal to that iMac plus my 2021 MacBook Pro combined. It’s crazy!
People know if they need a high end computer:
Applications won’t run on the lower end computer because of insufficient memory
Computationally intensive tasks that won’t complete before deadlines because the computer is too slow
One’s getting paid so much for the task that the expensive computer will save money.
Bragging Rights (generally these folk will want a massive Intel Windows gaming PC.)
I’m going to say that less than one person per thousand needs more than the minimal processor. The M4 is generally right for everyone. And you know it if it isn’t right for you!
So who should be buying the Pro and Max chips, then? Who’s the target market for each? I’m sure I phrased my original question very poorly, but that’s what I meant to ask.
People with heavy processing needs. Generally video and music production. Animation. Scientific and engineering programs, although these are more common on Windows. These people know who they are.
In February Christina Warren was quoted as saying , "I upgraded to a 14-inch M3 Max MacBook Pro this year (from a 14-inch M1 Max model) and if I’m honest, it was an upgrade I absolutely didn’t need to make.”
I imagine Apple sells a lot of computers to people that don’t really need an upgrade.
My guess would be many of the same kind of people who paid $20,000+ for the 2019 Mac Pro when it was released.
I’m running a M1 iMac and it has easily handled anything I’ve thrown at it. Being retired my needs are fairly simple. Most demanding tasks I’ve done lately was editing a bunch of photos and making a Keynote presentation for a talk I gave.
I think you hit the nail on the head here, asterisk, double dagger, etc. But that’s what I find so interesting: 5 years ago, a high-spec MacBook Pro would have been seen as a normal workplace tool for many, and now it feels like vanity for so many of us. It’s been a fascinating transition.
Those of you who are saying that folks who need it know they need it are correct, and I am one of those folks, but it’s awfully weird to watch as the ceiling starts to get way higher than your needs and you watch yourself slowly move down-market as a computing user.
I think your first post made perfect sense to me, with M4 being the new baseline, M4 Pro for devs and graphic designers and M4 Max for video and 3D artists. I think musicians can do well with any of these, but need to choose based on how they use their software (# of tracks, effects and whatnot).
Personally, I get a new Mac every 5-7 years, so I got the Mac Studio with the M1 Pro when it launched. I have no need for a M4 in this machine for what I do, and I expect it to last me for many more years. Yes, I do use Photoshop and Lightroom, but less frequently than I used to. A lot of that work has moved to the iPad Pro and the Affinity Suite of products.
Also, I have come to the realisation that I am NOT a videographer, never will be. I love watching what talented people can create, but realised a long time back what a huge investment video is in planning, capture and editing.
I’m tracking with you on this. I usually end up upgrading every 2-3 years; I find I chew through machines quickly. Not sure if my work is punishing or if it’s my acid-infused fingers (that also chew through guitar strings).
This Mac seems to be lasting much longer, though. Only a couple warning signs of potential failure so far. I could very happily do with double the efficiency cores, which are always pegged at 100% for me on my M1 Max, but otherwise everything is still kicking along well with my M1 Max.
for me memory is the big issue, and future proofing in terms of having enough for some years.
My thinking about chips is that Apple Silicon will last a reasonable period, but intel machines will become increasing limited
my current 2013 (i7 8Gb) MBA is undoubtedly out of power and memory
The M1 Mac mini which replaced it as my principal machine is definitely short at 16Gb for 3D modelling, and I seriously erred by not getting enough storage.
my wife’s i7 Mac-mini is only a few month’s older - if I’d realised Apple silicon was arriving shortly we’d have waited…
I think one of the challenges about choice is that each marginal cost is relatively small against the cost of early replacement.
I’ve learnt, despite retiring, I would better utilise my time with a laptop.
Minimally I need 1TB (and some reference storage for with an SD card would work) the question is how much memory? I’m certain 24Gb is insufficient (if 16Gb isn’t today)
Principle (large memory uses) 3D Modelling, databases and large scale data manipulation (for datasets being captured externally)
would 32Gb or 36Gb push me to an (early for me) upgrade(rather than get the best part of 10 years life)?
