New Mac advice - M3? M2? Studio? MacBook Pro...?

[innerbooty]

Hi there,
Would love some tips on this. The last new Mac I bought was a G4 / 933 in 2001. It's been used cheesegraters since then, and I think it's time to get a new one again. I'm currently running an 8-Core 5,1 2009 Cheesegrater with HDX and UAD Octo card, and it's actually astounding how much I can do on it. But I want to run more VIs, and higher sample rates, and I can't connect to my iPhone anymore. I was waiting for new M3's, so I think it's time.

I guess the main question is - should I get an M3, or wait for the M2s to go down a bit and get one of those? Or maybe the M2 Studios won't be going down anytime soon? Anything will be an exponential leap from where I am now. I plan to get a Sonnett chassis to run HDX and UAD Octo. I'm doing mostly audiobooks for kids, so lots of FX and MX, VI's, Kontakt, etc. For my own music, I want to start running at 96K without hitting mix or VI limitations. I can't even think about 96K now.

Portability would be nice, but not essential. I almost pulled the trigger on the M2 Studio, maxed out, which I still might do. But then I wanted to wait to see what the M3 deal is. Or am I better off getting an M3 MacBook Pro? I only run one monitor. The M2 Studio Ultra would come in around the same as a 16" M3 Max. I'm willing to spend the money to hopefully be set for a long time. Which of those would be the best choice for Price/Performance ratio, specifically with regard to Pro Tools and music production?

Thanks for the tips!!

[its2loud]

This might help.

https://www.production-expert.com/pr...w-m3-apple-mac

It’s really too soon to tell what kind of real performance jump we’ll see between M2/M3 machines for audio.

[JFreak]

I would first think of how many thunderbolts you need. It may rule something out. Second, even a base model M1 is a beast compared to cheesegraters, so don't worry about CPU model at all. Third, only you know how much memory and storage you will need now and after five years. On these new macs nothing is upgradeable, you need to future-proof now.

[innerbooty]

Thanks for that article link!! That is exactly the kind of info I was looking for! This is probably going to send me looking for an M2 Studio Ultra, with at least a 2TB internal drive, and at least 48GB RAM (as per JFreak's future-proof comments...)

Or maybe I don't need the M2 Ultra? Maybe a maxed out M2 Max would be way more than enough??

Originally Posted by its2loud

This might help.

https://www.production-expert.com/pr...w-m3-apple-mac

It’s really too soon to tell what kind of real performance jump we’ll see between M2/M3 machines for audio.

[JFreak]

If you come from cheesegrater and CPU hasn't been a problem, ANY of the new ARM processors will be blazing fast for you. So don't spend on Ultra, unless that is the only way to get the amount of memory and storage you need (which it is not, by your specs).

[its2loud]

For what it's worth, I'm running a Mac Studio M2 Max 64GB RAM and this is want the PT System Usage shows for a very basic session.

[dominicperry]

A few things to consider.

M1 - 5nm chip, runs quite cool
M2 - 5mn chip, clocked faster, more transistors, gets hotter
M3 - 3nm chip, clocked faster than M1, more transistors, but will possibly/probably run cool, like an M1. This remains to be seen/proved.

M1 - you can use Monterey, Ventura, Sonoma
M2 - starts with Ventura, Sonoma
M3 - will need Sonoma.

M1 Max - max memory 64GB
M2 Max - max memory 96GB
M3 Max - max memory 128GB

I don't follow the Ultra line (they aren't available in laptops), but I think they step up (in memory) like the Max line, just higher. No M3 Ultra announced yet.

Dominic

[BScout]

Pro Tools only uses performance cores.
The new M3 has less performance cores than the comparable M2 processor.

The new M3 processors may be (significantly) worse for Pro Tools than the older M2 processors. I'd wait and see when test results start showing up.

[Darryl Ramm]

I would also avoid Sonoma for now, I know some folks have been using it with better results but for me on a clean Sonoma install it is fairly buggy and crashes. I have not had time to debug more… I hope to some time.

[innerbooty]

This is all super helpful! Now thinking M2 Studio Max w/ a 2TB internal drive. Sounds like a don't need, or even want to go the M3 route. Overkill for audio, plus stuck using Sonoma. I hear Ventura is fairly stable?

Would I want to use the internal drive for the sessions of Pro Tools projects I am currently working on, and use external drives primarily for storage, or can I work from external drives? Also, would VI libraries live on the internal drive? And would it make sense to partition the drive so I can test out new versions of PT and OS X without disrupting my working drive space? I would go for the 4TB Internal, but they are so freaking expensive.

Also curious if there are any issues I should be aware of with regard to a Sonnett chassis running HDX and UAD Octo.

Thanks again, this is all super helpful!