Testing Apple's M1 Pro vs. M1 Max chips in the new MacBook Pro laptops

Speaker 1: Is Apple's new M one max chip, really that much faster than the new M one pro I read a bunch of benchmark tests where we run the same test on a bunch of different computers to see if it really makes a difference. Speaker 1: So in these new MacBook pros, 14 inch, which is a new screen size for apple and the 16 inch, you can get them with either apples, new chips, the M one pro and the M one, max, those are both better than the regular M one, which, uh, we started seeing in the [00:00:30] MacBook air, the 13 inch MacBook pro and the 24 inch iMac and the Mac mini last year. But they did not have a lot of graphics power to them. And that's what creative pros have been looking for because used to get, let's say a Mac war window system with an Intel CPU and an invi or an AMD GPU on max, you had your, uh, Intel and AMD combinations on windows. You could mix it up a lot more on these new max, no more discreet graphics options. Everything is bundled into that M one ship. Speaker 1: So the M one pro [00:01:00] you can get, uh, 14 or 16 GPU cores along with eight or 10 CPU cores. And on the M one max, you got the 10 CPU cores, and you can get 24 or 32 GPU cores. So there's a lot of options within those. And you can go into Apple's configurator and, and spec out your system anywhere from $2,000 to more than $6,000. Although a lot of that extra expense comes from from Ram and storage, uh, not just upgrading the CPU. So when I reviewed the 14 inch and 16 inch MacBook pros, I had a 14 inch with an M one pro, [00:01:30] and that was a 10 core CPU, 16 core GPU version. And I had a 16 inch MacBook pro with the M one max. And that was the 10 core CPU, 32 core GPU version. Now, in my initial testing, I didn't see a lot of daylight between those two chips and how they performed. Speaker 1: That's partially because I'm frankly, a fairly mainstream user. I do a little bit of video editing. I do some light 3d modeling. I play around in Photoshop, but illustrator a lot, but not so much that you were really push these new M one chips. [00:02:00] And frankly, I was fine with the regular M one in the MacBook air last year, I was able to do even the basic 4k editing I sometimes do in that in premier. So on these new systems, I ran the standard benchmarks. We usually run, which are frankly, very mainstream oriented geek bench, CNA bench. We took some high risk video files and we threw a bunch of color corrections and motion graphics on them and exported them and timed it in all those K the M one pro and the M one max performed very similarly, but they were both much, much faster than either the regular [00:02:30] M one from last year or, uh, a slightly older Intel based Mac, which you really can't get anymore outside of, I think the 27 inch iMac and maybe one Mac mini. Speaker 1: So that was our initial round of testing. When those MacBook first came out, I've now got on back and done some more testing and brought in some more expert voices to help me understand the difference between the M one pro and the M one max. One of the first things I did was call in a, uh, neighbor of mine from here in Brooklyn. Who's a VFX artist, works a lot in lighting actually. Uh, and let him sit [00:03:00] down and play with these two new systems. And he wanted to bring over a fairly heavy workload in a 3d program called Houdini. And we set that up and he had a fairly complex project. So we took that project and we rented it. And even there on the one pro and the one max, we did not see a big difference, although they were my much, much faster than the regular M one, cause I ran the same workload on last year's 13 inch back book pro, which is a regular M one ship. Speaker 1: So a big difference there, not so much a big difference in the [00:03:30] actual rendering time. However, my neighbor said that using the app, it felt much more responsive with the M one max that was in the 16 inch book pro so much so that when we were done with our demo session, he said, all right, now I'm ready to go out and buy a new MacBook pro I've been waiting for one of these and I'm gonna get the M one max. And I'm pretty much gonna max out the 16 inch MacBook pro with the M one max and the, and the storage and the ramp. So, so he felt that in-app responsiveness was enough to say, definitely get the max for him, [00:04:00] but he's also a very high-end professional, uh, much different than me or probably you. Then I went looking for more ways to test the graphics capabilities of these new banks. Speaker 1: And frankly, it's hard to do with gaming because as you know, there are not a ton of Mac games out there. And even the ones that they have, if there's a built-in benchmark on the windows version, they don't have the Mac version, or if you're using, uh, a third party frame rate counter to just keep an eye on the FDS, M one breaks a lot of those, uh, not easy to do. So I went and [00:04:30] ran a version of geek bench that uses metal, which is Apple's graphics API. And that actually was very handy. And there, I was able to see a big difference between one max and the M one pro. And on top of that, a big difference between those two and a regular M one. So there's a pretty clear line of differentiation there. That test spits out, you know, just a, just a big number and the higher, the number is the higher, the score, the, the better of the result. Speaker 1: So the MacBook pro 16 inch with the M one max that gotta [00:05:00] score about 65,000, uh, the M one pro and the 14 inch MacBook pro that got about 42,000. And if you go back to a MacBook pro 13 inch with the regular Ramm one, that was about 21,000. So you could see a big difference there. The other pretty basic off the shelf test that seemed good to run was 3d marks, wildlife extreme, which has now crossed form in that you can run it on window systems on Android, on iOS, but now you can run it on M one max, which is really interesting. Uh, the caveat there is [00:05:30] they used metal on the max, but if you're comparing it to a window system, it uses, uh, I think Vulcan there. So in that test, the M one max matched up almost exactly with really one of the most powerful, uh, laptops that we've tested this past year. Speaker 1: And that's a razor blade, 14 with a Invidia RTX 30, 80 card in it. And they ran that benchmark about the same right below that I had a slightly older gaming laptop with an RTX 2080 in it. And just below, that was the 14 inch MacBook pro [00:06:00] with the M one pro chip. And then I say about the test is you can go all the way down the list and see, you know, a regular MacBook game or MacBook pro with an M one, and you can even run it on your iPhone and you can see those, there's a huge performance difference between the, you know, bionic chip and an iPhone and the M one max. So you can go all the we up the chain there and see what's going on. So I was finally able to find some points of differentiation between the M one pro and the M one max, but I had to go a little bit outta my way to do it outside of my normal workload and things that I usually do on a computer like this. Speaker 1: So where [00:06:30] does that leave us? There is a difference between the M one pro and the M one max. And you can find that difference and experience it, but it's really only and select cases. And sometimes the actual benchmark score rendering time, something might be the same between the N one pro and the N one max, but that additional responsiveness within the app might make it worth upgrading from, let's say the pro to the max in your specific case, you know, it really depends on your key applications of whether they rely more on the CPU or the GPU to do whatever it is they're gonna do. However, where my advice remains for most people, including people [00:07:00] like myself, who just sort of dabble in creative projects. Again, I do a little premier video editing. I do some Photoshop, I do some 3d modeling. I'm fine with the regular M one chip in a MacBook air, or in, let's say the 24 inch iMac, like the one right behind me here. Speaker 1: Uh, for a lot of people, that's still the right to decision. If you're going to invest in one of these new MacBook pros, uh, with the higher end chips, remember that's gonna be expensive. $2,000 starts that could go up way past $6,000, depending on how you configure it. And if you have a job [00:07:30] that's gonna pay for it or a client that client work as a freelancer, that makes it, uh, you know, worthwhile to splurge on one of these, that's fantastic. This is the pro stuff that a lot of these people have been waiting for. Although some of those people are still waiting for something like a Mac pro desktop with one of these new chips in it, or the 27 inch iMac, which would be really cool to have with an M one pro or an M one max. But I still feel like that's the, that's the top end of the spectrum there. And for most everybody else, the mainstream cream slash semipro [00:08:00] people like myself, you know, as I said, in my 16 inch MacBook pro review, if you wanna get one of these new MacBook pros, primarily because you want the new cooler design, you want the better camera with the little cutout notch on the screen. You want the H DM I port and the SD card slot, or you just wanna have the newest, coolest, latest MacBook, total, just be aware that you're making what is essentially a vanity purchase. And that's okay.