• chevron_right

      Testing Apple’s M3 Pro: More efficient, but performance is a step sideways

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Thursday, 9 November - 14:37 · 1 minute

    A 14-inch MacBook Pro with Apple's M3 Pro inside.

    Enlarge / A 14-inch MacBook Pro with Apple's M3 Pro inside. (credit: Andrew Cunningham)

    When Apple announced the first three chips in its M3 processor family, the M3 Pro immediately stood out. Not because it was a huge leap over the prior generation, but because it was the first time we had seen Apple reduce key specs like transistor count, CPU and GPU core count, and memory bandwidth from one generation to the next.

    Transistor count is an imperfect proxy for performance, but adding transistors is one of the primary ways to improve a chip's performance (ramping clock speeds up is another, which we'll revisit shortly). Both the M3 and M3 Max feature substantial transistor count boosts compared to their M2 counterparts—from 20 billion to 25 billion for the M3, and from 67 billion to 92 billion with the M3 Max. The M3 Pro has 37 billion, down from 40 billion in the M2 Pro.

    That didn't tell us much by itself, but it did set us up to expect an M3 Pro that was a modest-at-best improvement over the M2 Pro. Now that we've been able to test one in a 14-inch MacBook Pro, we can confirm that this is the case. The M3 Pro is still decidedly faster than the regular M3, and building a chip with fewer transistors on a newer 3 nm manufacturing process has other benefits. But there's a wider performance gap between the M3 Pro and M3 Max than there was in the M2 generation, and you'll need to wait for the M4 generation before you see substantially faster Pro chips.

    Read 14 remaining paragraphs | Comments

    • chevron_right

      As rumored, the Mac Studio gets an M2 refresh, including fused-together M2 Ultra

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Monday, 5 June, 2023 - 17:21

    M2 Studio shot with monitor overhead

    Enlarge / Apple's new Mac Studio offers the M2 Ultra chip, which, like its M1 counterpart, provides vastly greater computing power. (credit: Apple)

    CUPERTINO, Calif.—The Mac Studio will be refreshed this summer with chips based on the M2, including the M2 Max and new M2 Ultra, the "most powerful chip" ever released "for a personal computer."

    The M2 Pro and M2 Max have previously been seen in MacBook Pro models released late last year , but the M2 Ultra will be a first. In the M1 line, the Ultra was the top-of-the-line chip with substantially better performance than the Pro or Max—particularly in graphically intensive tasks. M2 Ultra will support 192 GB of unified memory, 800 GB/s memory bandwith, and a 24-core CPU and up to 76 cores of GPU. Apple claims the M2 Ultra will work 30% faster than the M1 Ultra, and that a single system with the Ultra can work machine learning datasets that would choke systems with discrete GPUs.

    The M2 Max is "up to 50 percent faster" than the prior Max-based Studio, according to Apple, and features a 12-core CPU, 38-core GPU, and up to 96 GB unified memory, with 400 GB/s memory bandwidth.

    Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

    • chevron_right

      Useful accessory upgrades for your MacBook Pro or Mac mini

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Thursday, 6 April, 2023 - 13:00 · 1 minute

    The latest MacBook Pro.

    Enlarge / The latest MacBook Pro. (credit: Samuel Axon )

    Apple’s latest 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pros were released in January with new M2 Pro chips, alongside the new Mac mini with M2 and M2 Pro options. The range of configurations across these models offers users everything from a power-efficient document editor (though they'd certainly be overkill for that) to a full-on video and photo editing powerhouse.

    Whichever you choose, you're likely going to need some accessories—that's the nature of things with any new PC purchase, but with Macs in particular. Given that, we examined a handful of accessories to complete the package and help you get the most out of your workstation.

    Apple Magic Keyboard with Touch ID and numpad for $160

    (or without Touch ID and numpad for $99 )

    Apple Magic Keyboard with Touch ID and numpad

    (Ars Technica may earn compensation for sales from links on this post through affiliate programs .)
    Apple’s Magic Keyboard is my favorite keyboard pairing with either the MacBook or Mac mini. If you opt for the version with Touch ID, you gain the Apple-specific perk of unlocking your computer with your fingerprint. But aside from its Mac-compatibility, the main reason I use this keyboard is its battery life.

    Read 33 remaining paragraphs | Comments

    • chevron_right

      512GB version of the new MacBook Pro has a slower SSD than the Mac it replaces

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Wednesday, 25 January, 2023 - 15:45 · 1 minute

    The 14- and 16-inch M2 MacBook Pros.

    Enlarge / The 14- and 16-inch M2 MacBook Pros. (credit: Apple)

    In our review of Apple's new M2 MacBook Pros , our testing showed that the laptops' internal storage speeds were higher than those in the M1 MacBook Pros they replaced. But that won't be true for all models—9to5Mac has discovered that for the entry-level models with 512GB of storage, the M2 MacBook Pro's storage is slower than that in the M1 version.

    The high-level Blackmagic Disk Speed Test shows the 512GB version of the M1 Pro MacBook Pro with a 4,900 MB/s read speed and 3,951 MB/s write speed, while the M2 Pro version shows a 2,973 MB/s read speed and 3,154.5 MB/s write speed. That's a drop of 40 percent for read speeds and 20 percent for write speeds.

    The difference appears to come down to the NAND flash memory chips Apple is using for its SSDs. The old MacBook Pro, per its iFixit teardown , used four 128GB NAND chips in a 512GB SSD, while 9to5Mac's M2 Pro MacBook Pro appears to use a pair of 256GB NAND chips. Fewer chips likely mean lower costs for Apple—but also fewer places for the SSD to read from and write to simultaneously, which reduces overall speeds.

    Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

    • chevron_right

      2023 MacBook Pro review: A refined second generation

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Monday, 23 January, 2023 - 14:38

    One of the interesting side effects of Apple's move toward using its own silicon in the Mac is that the Mac update cycle now looks a lot more like the iPhone's: mostly predictable, regular updates that offer modest generation-to-generation boosts to performance and maybe a few additional refinements or new features.

    That's very much the case with the 2023 MacBook Pro. For most intents and purposes, it is the 2021 MacBook Pro. The only difference is the inclusion of the new M2 Pro and M2 Max chips for boosted CPU, graphics, and machine learning performance over 2021's M1 Pro and M2 Max, plus some connectivity upgrades that directly address some of our very minor quibbles with the otherwise excellent 2021 models.

    That said, the 2021 MacBook Pro was far from a disappointment when it launched, and the market hasn't changed enough in the past two years to make the mostly similar 2023 models any less attractive. These are still the best laptops you can buy for many use cases—provided you don't mind spending a small fortune, that is.

    Read 12 remaining paragraphs | Comments

    • chevron_right

      New M2-powered MacBook Pros and minis have 8K video, Wi-Fi 6E, dozens of cores

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Tuesday, 17 January, 2023 - 15:41 · 1 minute

    M2 MacBook Pro models, side by side, slightly open

    Enlarge / Apple's M2-powered MacBook Pros. You could—theoretically, according to Apple, running certain apps, etc.—sit in front of one of these devices for up to 22 consecutive hours. Bring coffee. (credit: Apple)

    Apple has unveiled new systems based on its M2 Pro and M2 Max chips, giving the MacBook Pro and Mac mini line 8K video output, Wi-Fi 6E, up to 96 GB of unified memory on the highest-spec machine, and what Apple claims is the longest-ever Mac battery life.

    The latest M2 systems on a chip (SoC) that power the systems are the biggest change since those in the last set of Pros and minis ; the hardware for both looks broadly similar to their prior releases. You can buy an M2 Pro with up to 12 CPU and 19 GPU cores and 32GB of memory. The M2 Max is something else: You get an upper limit of 38 GPU cores, double the memory bandwidth of the Pro (from 200 to 400GB/s), and up to 96GB of unified memory.

    Apple clocks the M2 Pro in a new 16-inch MacBook Pro at up to 40 percent faster than its own M1 Pro MacBook Pro at the broadly defined "image processing in Photoshop" metric and 80 percent faster than an Intel-based Core i9 MacBook Pro. For Xcode compiling, Apple cites a 25 percent gain over the M1 Pro and a 250 percent leap over the Core i9.

    Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

    • chevron_right

      Report: M2 Pro and M2 Max Macs coming in 2023, not 2022

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Monday, 31 October, 2022 - 21:35

    The 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pro from 2021.

    Enlarge / The 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pro from 2021. (credit: Samuel Axon)

    For months, there have been rumors that Apple would launch new, M2-based Macs—specifically MacBook Pro and Mac mini models with new M2 Pro or M2 Max chips—sometime before the end of this year. But now two usually reliable insiders and Apple CEO Tim Cook are signaling that those new computers will arrive sometime in early March instead.

    During a recent call with investors last week, Cook began a sentence with "as we approach the holiday season, with our product lineup set," suggesting that there will be no new hardware announcements from Apple in 2022.

    Further, analyst Ming-Chi Kuo tweeted several weeks back that he expects the new MacBook Pro models in early 2023.

    Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments

    • chevron_right

      The MacBook Pro will get the M2 treatment as soon as this fall

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Monday, 18 July, 2022 - 19:56

    Second-generation refreshes of the current 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro design could arrive as soon as this fall, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. The updated laptops will feature more powerful chips based on Apple's M2, he claims.

    In his weekly Power On newsletter, the journalist—who has accurately reported on upcoming Apple products before—wrote that the overall design of the MacBook Pro is "likely to stay roughly the same," with no major new visual changes or features beyond what comes with the M2 generation of system-on-a-chip.

    Gurman predicts that, unsurprisingly, the two new MacBook Pro models will offer buyers a choice between an M2 Pro and an M2 Max chip. These chips will be much faster and more oriented toward heavy-duty workflows than the M2 that shipped over the past couple of months in the 2022 refreshes of the MacBook Air and 13-inch MacBook Pro.

    Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments