When Apple launched the M3 MacBook Professional at its “Scary Quick” occasion, I ordered one—particularly a 14-inch M3 Professional with 36GB of RAM to interchange my entry-level 14-inch M1 Professional with 16GB of RAM. Apple gave me greater than $900 through a trade-in—greater than half of what I paid for it—so it was one thing of a no brainer to improve.
My focus with the improve was reminiscence. After I purchased the M1 Professional mannequin in early 2022, I believed 16GB of reminiscence would suffice. It hasn’t. When I’ve greater than a handful of tabs open with Photoshop and Zoom, issues are likely to decelerate a bit. So although the bottom mannequin technically comes with extra RAM than the M1 (18GB vs 16GB), I opted to max out the reminiscence for an additional $400, bringing the entire to $2,599.
However the primary Geekbench 6 outcomes for the 12-core M3 Professional processor mode me assume twice. Whereas the M3 Professional CPU has extra cores than my M1 Professional (12 vs 8), my two-year-old mannequin has the identical variety of efficiency cores (six) as the brand new mannequin. That’s truly two lower than the 12-core M2 Professional, which had eight efficiency cores.
The M3 Max MacBook Professional gives a a lot greater increase over its predecessor.
Foundry
Consequently, the M3 Professional doesn’t appear to be a lot sooner than the M2 Professional, with unverified scores of 3156 (single-core) and 15486 (multi-core) in comparison with a mean of 2644 and 14229, respectively, for the M2 Professional. Granted, each of these numbers are considerably larger than my M1 Professional, however they pale compared to our personal benchmarks for the M3 Max chip.
And it’s additionally price noting that Apple seemingly hasn’t despatched any M3 Professional fashions to early reviewers, opting as a substitute to focus solely on the M3 Max. However based mostly on the unconfirmed Geekbench scores, right here’s how the numbers break down:
- M1 Professional: 2362 (single); 10,310 (multi)
- M2 Professional: 2644 (single); 14229 (multi)
- M3 Professional: 3156 (single); 15486 (multi)
- M3 Max: 3219 (single); 21545 (multi)
And while you have a look at the Compute benchmark, which assessments the GPU, the distinction is much more stark, with the M3 Professional getting fairly simply beat by the M2 Max.
Whereas the M3 Professional is unquestionably higher than the M1 Professional I’m changing, the increase isn’t practically as giant in comparison with the massive leap provided by the M3 Max—and it’s solely barely sooner than the M2 Professional. (Usually I’d merely search for a deal on the M2 Professional as a substitute of springing for an M3 mannequin, however I actually need one in that House Black coloration.) So I made a decision to return the M3 Professional earlier than I even opened the field and order an M3 Max.
And I doubt I’m alone. It appears to be one thing of a purposeful transfer by Apple, pushing folks to the following tier with a extra attractive velocity increase. The M3 Professional is an effective improve however the M3 Max is a good one. And when you’re in search of the most effective bang on your buck—particularly when you’re upgrading from one other Apple silicon machine—the M3 Max is clearly the way in which to go. Sadly my M3 Max order remains to be backordered so I’m going to be ready slightly longer to check out my new machine.
Because the M3 Max mannequin begins at 36GB of RAM, the precise improve value was $600 (or $400 while you issue within the additional storage value), which is a worthy funding and a machine I’m prone to hold for a number of years. Possibly I don’t want the ability of an M3 Max. However I’d actually moderately have it than need it.