Making the leap to new MBP- Pro or Max??

[kpfsound]

Hola- The refurbed MBP I bought in 2017 needs to be replaced for various reasons. I need the portability of the MBP. Anyone have strong feelings or advice on whether to spend more on the Max chip? I'm doing a lot of PT work and some granular sound design stuff and the old MBP was OK for most of it. Thanks for everyone's time. Cheers- Ken
PS- I just remembered I'm gonna have to get a new TBolt 4 dock to take advantage of TB4 speeds aren't I... and so it begins! ;-)

[Darryl Ramm]

My 2c is it likely does not matter much if you are just using Pro Tools.

Pro/Mac choice does not affect most of what are likely more important choices like how much SSD and memory (well up to 32GB) is in the MacBook Pro. And especially f you are transporting the MacBook around for audio use then I'd try to get all storage needs into the built in SSD.

Your current system has 16GB RAM, but for me that's a minimum spec, and if you want this to have a long life/support future software etc. I would be configuring 32GB or 64GB memory in a system.

And the other question for me would be screen size, if I had to operate this as a laptop with no external display then I'd much prefer a 16" screen version. So easy just justified a 16GB with maxed memory and maybe 4TB of disk... easy without a budget.

Thunderbolt 4 offers no increase in speed over Thunderbolt 3 and whatever Thunderbolt 3 dock you have will provide the same "speed" with your new M1 MacBook Pro. Likely the only difference you would notice is Thunderbolt 4 docks can provide hub functionality so can fan out to multiple Thunderbolt ports, but that's only useful if you need it, and nothing to do with "speed".

[kpfsound]

Hi Darryl- Thx for the reply and info. I was specifically asking about the Pro vs Max chip decision- speed is great of course but I'm not sure I need the 32MB of RAM for the PT work I do. Maybe?? I'm definitely going for the 16". I appreciate the TB3 vs TB4 comments. I guess I'm wondering if anyone out there is wishing they went with the Max vs Pro, or visa versa, and if so, why. I appreciate the knowledge and experience in this community. Thanks again!
Cheers
KenF

[Darryl Ramm]

You don't give budget or discuss tradeoffs. My point is for Pro Tools use the extra money upgrading the CPU to a Max would almost certainly be better spent on memory and internal SSD. Once you have those well maxed out/able to last the expected life then consider the Max, but even then it's of little use for Pro Tools audio users (besides those... who need a 64GB memory option).

In the big picture the $400 bump for the top end Max is not huge for all the additional GPU and video CODEC engines but pretty much not useful extra power unless you are in that intended video editing gaming etc. intended audience... that extra power is not going to help you (but again for my own use... I *would* get the Pro in the current product line up, but only because of the 64 GB option). If you are sure you don't need 64 GB memory then you might as well just get a 10 CPU core Pro... remember you lost two cores to efficiency cores, so going 10 core would be something I'd do.

But maybe more importantly I'd not be buying anything now, and instead waiting to see what the M2 based systems look like that are expected to be announced at Apple WWDC. Even if it turns out Apple silicon supply challenges mean M.2 is more a minor bump than many had expected/hoped for. I'd love to see faster performance cores, maybe more of them, more Thunderbolt 4 ports, larger max memory configs, lower SSD pricing, etc. Actually I mostly just want to see a Mac Pro with real internal box expansion, and some lovely PCIe 4 or PCIe 5 slots.

[K Roche]

Originally Posted by kpfsound

Hola- The refurbed MBP I bought in 2017 needs to be replaced for various reasons.

I suppose it depends on exactly how urgent "needs" actually is ? As in starting to have issues , or just "it is getting to be time"
If the latter, as Daryl suggested you might want to wait for Apples June event and see if Apple upgrades the M1 Pro and M1 Max chips to the M2 category. My guess is probably not , and more like not until November which would be year from introduction (but ya never know with Apple)

That said ( and understanding I also have my main system listed below) I chose the M1 Pro chip -MBP as my laptop choice .. Because it is more than enough chip for my Audio production. And even though I also make music video's, I only do so as my personal hobby and maybe once a month at most ..So I did not see the video advantage in the M1 Max as being worth the extra money (for my use situation)

[Phil O'Keefe]

The M1 Max is awesome, but for Pro Tools use, all else being equal, I think the M1 Pro with the same number of performance cores should perform about as well as the Max does. The Max’s extra GPU cores and video codecs don’t really make a difference in PT like they do in a video editing application. For PT, it’s mainly about those performance cores… and RAM.

If you know you’re not going to be doing a lot of video editing, and you’re not a gamer, and you’re going to use the computer mainly to run Pro Tools, I think you’d be just as happy with either processor/SoC.

If you are satisfied with a 32GB RAM limit (both now, and for the next five years+/- that you’ll be using the computer), my recommendation would be to get a 16” M1 Pro. I’d go with 32GB of RAM and at least a 1TB SSD; 2TB or more would be nice, but 1TB is the sweet spot IMO. If you need 64GB of RAM, you’ll need to go with the M1 Max.

[sheinke]

A question about the 'video codecs' upgrade in the M1 Max. Because of that, would the M1 Max be a better choice for someone doing video post in PT Ultimate? I'm wondering if an M1 Pro would suffice for that job, or whether the Max would have some inherent advantage when working against picture in PT.
Thanks!

[tonejunkee]

I'm waiting for the M3 Air 15" as Avid seems to be in the throes of a rebuild from the ground up. Hoping for Logic to buy them out at this point honestly.




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[Eric Lambert]

Originally Posted by tonejunkee

I'm waiting for the M3 Air 15"

You think they'll call it the M3? I was expecting the M2 moniker to stick for a bit longer. If they continue simply adding a number without also making marked gains they're going to take some slack. That 15" Air will likely be my next laptop, but I'm not expecting serious performance gains beyond where they are today.

[dominicperry]

Originally Posted by tonejunkee

I'm waiting for the M3 Air 15" as Avid seems to be in the throes of a rebuild from the ground up. Hoping for Logic to buy them out at this point honestly.




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Who are Logic?