The M3 Pro MacBook Pro was a downgrade
This is the M3 Pro MacBook Pro, and I’ve spent weeks with it next to my less-than-a-year-old M2 Max. It’s a great computer, and the comparison convinced me to do something I’ve never done: possibly skip an upgrade.
Why I chose the M3 Pro
- I don’t really need the Max. My M2 Max has a 12-core CPU (8 performance cores) and 30 GPU cores; the M3 Pro has a 12-core CPU (6 performance cores) and 18 GPU cores. With past MacBook Pros, I leaned toward Max chips for slightly faster video exports. Nothing else in my day job or personal apps would use the Max’s power, but I could justify it, and I always want the latest and greatest. In about 10 months, the M2 Max has never failed me, and it never stutters when I throw multiple 4K streams at it. About 85% of what I do is light, average computing.
- Price. I paid about $3,500 for the M2 Max earlier this year. The M3 Pro with the 12-core CPU, 36 GB and 2 TB is $3,200, and I’d recover a good chunk by selling the old one. The 14-core M3 Max is $400 more at $3,600.
- Heat. My M2 Max gets warmer than I’d like. I use the laptop open, so I feel heat radiating from the keyboard, not unsafe, but noticeable. Max machines have usually run a couple of degrees warmer than Pros.
Space Black
The most obvious difference is color. I wanted the new Space Black because it looks pretty awesome; I’d used Silver for years. The fingerprint resistance is actually pretty good, and I haven’t been grossed out like I was with the Midnight MacBook Air. Whatever Apple does to the aluminum really hides almost everything. (The keyboard is another story.) I like it, but it doesn’t match my Studio Display, which is annoying, so I’d probably get Silver again.
There are no other physical differences: same dimensions, same three Thunderbolt ports, SD card reader, HDMI, audio jack and MagSafe. The screen has possibly a software change allowing up to 600 nits of SDR brightness versus 500 on the M2 Max. I never need that in my office, but it helps in a bright room or outside, and I had a hard time seeing the difference.
Everyday performance
For web browsing, office apps, video, documents, messages, email and notes: literally no difference. Geekbench 6:
| M3 Pro | M2 Max | |
|---|---|---|
| Single-core | 3,032 | 2,677 |
| Multi-core | 15,257 | 14,145 |
That’s about 13% faster single-core and about 8% faster multi-core, which matches my expectations.
Where Final Cut Pro showed it
I ran into issues in Final Cut Pro on the M3 Pro that I don’t see on the M2 Max. Not the problem the base M3 has of being unable to export my videos at all (I still have no solution, and I sent example projects to Apple when they reached out). This is some stuttering in the timeline and slower exports. My projects aren’t that advanced: a couple of 4K clips in a multicam, some B-roll, and maybe titles, shot on Sony cameras in S-Log3 with a conversion LUT and brightness adjustments. It hasn’t made Final Cut unusable and doesn’t always happen.
Possible reasons: the M2 Max has 8 performance cores and 4 efficiency; the M3 Pro 6 and 6. But timeline playback uses very little CPU. The M2 Max has 30 GPU cores and two media engines; the M3 Pro has 18 GPU cores and one. During playback both use most of the GPU, and the M3’s new ray-tracing features don’t help here, so the M2 Max’s extra cores do.
Exports: the M2 Max, with dual encoders, was nearly twice as fast: about 8 minutes versus 14 for H.264, and 3 versus 6 for H.265. Geekbench Metal: 124,046 versus 78,377; GFXBench Aztec Ruins 4K: 134 versus 97 fps.
Battery
I’m not too worried about battery on a machine that sits at my desk 90% of the time, but this blew my freaking mind. After charging both to 100% and running all these tests plus more benchmarks over a few hours, the M2 Max ended with 11% left (100% battery health), and the M3 Pro with 44%. Fewer GPU cores, efficiency cores in place of performance cores, and the 3 nm process turn the M3 Pro into a true portable workstation. If you prize battery over performance, that’s a pretty great ratio.
Heat
I was right: it runs cooler. Keyboard temperatures:
| M2 Max | M3 Pro | |
|---|---|---|
| Light use | 88°F / 31°C | 84°F / 29°C |
| Heavier use | 99°F / 37°C | 90°F / 32°C |
| Cinebench running | 108°F / 42°C | 101°F / 38°C |
Noticeable when using them, though never dangerous. I just notice the Max running warm while typing an email or editing a photo, and the M3 Pro is a welcome reprieve. I almost never hear the fans, except during benchmarks, or maybe exporting a large video in Final Cut, or definitely Premiere Pro.
My decision
I wanted something new, as powerful as what I had, and a little cooler. The M3 Pro is new and cooler, but it left me wanting more in video editing, which bugged me more than I thought. Three options:
- Keep the M3 Pro.
- Exchange it for an M3 Max to get that performance back.
- Something I don’t think I’ve ever done: keep the M2 Max and skip the newest version.
As nice as an M3 Max upgrade sounds, I’m leaning toward going back to the M2 Max. The M3 Pro is an awesome machine with a great performance-to-battery ratio. But any perceived slowness beats saving a few bucks, given my desire to go faster.
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