My upgrading path to Apple Silicon – Part 2

Planning the next machine

As we saw in the last article, the new machine needs to perform at least double as the outgoing machine, and its internals also need to be double. Finally, it has to be another lasting machine, as I do not plan to replace it again for the next 6+ years. Let’s configure this machine together, and I will also try to motivate my choices.

MacBook Air?

My initial thoughts were to buy the new 15” MacBook Air with M2. It’s such a beautiful machine, very similar in design to what I have, just 1/12 of an inch smaller in screen. Silent, crazy powerful on paper, with gorgeous battery life, and so light! But, dear Apple, sometimes it really looks like you are building new products only for your shareholders, and not for your users. How could you, in 2023, design a new machine with 8 GB of memory and 256 GB of base SSD? That could have been, maybe, the starting point in 2016, seven years ago! Now, both memory and storage prices have plummeted to the ground, so this attitude from Apple makes choosing a new machine harder and, in the end, more expensive.

Even assuming that I could max out the MacBook Air with 24 GB of memory and at least 1 TB of SSD, the price would go up from the base €1649 to €2569. This, coupled with a non-professionally oriented System-on-a-Chip (SoC), would mean having probably to replace this machine very soon. Besides, only 2 Thunderbolt ports, only one external display supported, all together contributed to me veering away towards a more equipped machine.

All this said, I am sure that should one day need another Mac to dedicate to non-working related activities, I would definitely pick this one, and not go beyond the base model—assuming Apple will improve the base specifications a bit.

MacBook Pro

Apple’s announcement of the M3 lineup at their “Scary Fast” event caught many surprised, since the pro-notebook line for the previous generation had been unveiled only in January of this year (2023). I was honestly expecting these new machines no sooner than March 2024, possibly even WWDC 2024, but it is clear now that Apple didn’t plan this event two days earlier. Let’s now walk together while I configure my new Mac, trying to motivate every choice.

Starting from the MacBook Pro buying page, I first switched to the 16” model, since I require as big a screen as possible. I am offered four variations, two based on the M3 Pro Apple Silicon, and two based on the M3 Max variant. Apple is a master of giving you every base machine at a point where it is almost good for what you need, then luring you into their very expensive upgrading path. Looking at the CPU only, the base M3 Pro would be good enough on paper, making me jump from four real cores to 12, a 3x upgrade. The unified memory, though, is offered at 18 GB which, being shared, would result in less memory than I have today (16 GB RAM + 4 GB on the GPU). Regardless of what Apple may say about their memory being equivalent to double as much as on a Windows system, please do not fall for that. Sure, they have a technology called compression that is capable of reducing the memory footprint of activities, but, in technology, less is not more: less is less. The Unified Memory technology is simply faster and more efficient than traditional RAM, meaning that you may free used memory sooner than before. Tasks that keep memory busy without freeing it—e.g., sound libraries—, still use more quantity, regardless of speed! Heavy multitasking also does!

Let’s move, then, to the second model, with M3 Pro (12c-CPU, 18c-GPU, 36 GB of memory, and 512 GB of SSD). This could be a suitable candidate, but that storage is the same as the one I have, and the main source of issues in the Mac I’m writing this from. To get some room, I would spec this up to 1 TB, but then I though: I’m already offloading tons of files that I would like to have handy on the Mac. In addition, I am evicting almost everything in iCloud Drive, and this causes issues with backups, since evicted files are not backed-up by Time Machine. I therefore opted for a 2 TB drive (current price €4249, from the base starting price of €3099).

Remaining issue 1: what chip?

This would be an excellent machine, but two issues remain: the GPU power, and AppleCare+. This generation of Apple Silicon is the first one to set the Pro and Max variants of chips apart. For the first time, the Max not only has more GPU-cores than the Pro; it also has more CPU-cores! The full M3 Pro has 6 Performance cores and 6 Efficiency cores for the GPU and 18 cores for the GPU. The base M3 Max has 10 P-cores and 4 E-cores for the CPU and 30 cores for the GPU. The top M3 Max has 12 P-cores and 4 E-cores for the CPU and 40 cores for the GPU. Here’s a table summarising all that, alongside memory bandwidth:

Apple Silicon	CPU	GPU	Memory bandwidth
M3 Pro	6P+6E	18	150
M3 Max (base)	10P+4E	30	300
M3 Max (top)	12P+4E	40	400

While today’s apps have not yet caught up with the memory bandwidth that the Pro chip can support, if we want to keep the machine in operation for 5–6 years before upgrading it, this needs to be a parameter as well.

At this point, the choice will fall between the two Max chips. While the new chassis from 2021 allows for excellent dissipation, previous generations (M1 Max and M2 Max, both available in base and top configurations) showed clear thermal throttling with the top chips, making the base M3 Max the sweetest spot. This means that, while having 25% less GPU cores, the performance would not be 25% less. 300 Gbps of bandwidth will be more than enough even years ahead. If I really have to find an issue is that the base M3 Max can support either 36 or 96 GB of memory, while if you want 48, 64, or 128 GB you need the top of the line. I have no idea why they did this: the M2 Max had the same support for memory apart from the top configuration, which made sense. No reviews of the 96 GB model came out so far, so I cannot say exactly why this is. It would be easy to just say it is a money-grabbing mechanism, but it most likely is something else tied to the structure of the chips themselves.

Starting from 16 GB in my 2016 MacBook Pro, 36 GB will be enough, even if a few colleagues suggested me to sacrifice the extra TB of storage in favour of the 48 GB of memory. With M2 Max, I could have kept the 1 TB SSD and upgraded to 64 GB of memory for the same price, give or take. This year, it is no longer possible to do that. Either 36 or 96 GB for the base Max and either 48, 64 or 128 GB for the top Max.

The difference in price between the base M3 Max with 2 TB and 36 GB of memory and the top M3 Max with 1 TB and 48 GB of memory is a bit less than €200. I’m a bit torn between the two options, with the base M3 Max still getting the advantage. I’ve not pressed the buy button yet, so feel free to add your suggestions in the comments below.

Remaining issue 2: AppleCare+

With such expensive—and delicate—machines, one needs to get some sort of protection. If you don’t buy AppleCare+ within 60 days of your Mac’s purchase, you will get, in the EU, two years of warranty (one from Apple and one from the reseller, which will coincide if you bought on the Apple Store). If you plan to upgrade your Mac after that, just don’t bother and hope no accidental damage occurs. Yes, because the new AppleCare+ covers accidental damages as well, and an unlimited number of them! Sure, it comes with a base excess every time, but it is still much better than having to pay for repairs on your own. With my current Mac, I had to replace the battery and display, at no extra cost than the AppleCare+ one (around €300 at the time). Without that, I would have paid more than €2000.

If, like me, you are planning to keep your Mac for more than 2 years, then AppleCare+ is a very compelling option, since, for Macs, it lasts 3 years and is renewable for up to a total of 6 years of coverage! That’s huge! And you know what else is huge? Its price! For a 16-inch MacBook Pro with M3 Pro/Max chip, it costs EUR 429 for three years (or more if you pay the yearly version). This is another aspect that brought me to choose the Max chip: if I had bought the base EUR 3099 model, AppleCare+ would have cost me still the same EUR 429, that is 13.8% of the value of the machine! With the base M3 Max with 2 TB, instead, costing EUR 4809, AppleCare+ would have the same advantages, while costing 8.9% of the value of the machine. For me, this is a crucial aspect, and something that made my final purchase choice easier.

Bottom line

I will now wait a few more days to watch the first reviews of the base M3 Max and compare them with the top of the line M3 Max. Apple sent review units with top M3 Max(es), 8 TB SSD, and 128 GB of memory, so that is not really helpful, since hardly any people will buy that machine. Those reviewers who wanted to get the base M3 Max had to buy it themselves, and are possibly still waiting for the delivery.

Due to planned travels, I will also need to program the delivery carefully, and will most probably go fetch it at the Apple Store directly—couriers in my zone just ring the entry phone and leave the packages unattended in the atrium of the building, something I cannot risk with this kind of delivery!

As soon as I receive the new machine, I will write extended articles about every aspect of configuring it for it to become my next daily driver. If you have any questions, or would like me to test specific things for you, please consider using the contact form on the website or leave a comment down here, and I will reply as soon as possible.

Thank you for reading so far, and I can’t wait to finally jump onto the Apple Silicon cruiser!

Until the next one, stay safe!