Love my 16 M3 Max. Upgraded to 128GB and 8TB. Wanted to be safe. So far daily E-Mails and RU-vid are running fairly smooth. Might push it and try Office Word this week. Glad I upgraded. Don’t want any lag. Wouldn’t use these machines for much more than the above tbh.
Probably sarcasm, but I upgraded to the 128gb and 2 tb version and yes, what you said is absolutely true. At times had a nightmare experience on the M1 8bg ram Air
I bought a base M3 Max 14’ coming from a 2016 intel MacBook Pro. I definitely feel the power and performance and won’t need to upgrade for at least 6-7 years.
This is the stupidest video I've ever seen. Why do you expect a big jump in performance after a year? Currently, major changes will be visible every 5, maybe 10 years. The current MBP models are for people who still work on Intel Macs.
@@nnnnnn3647Agreed, they are basically saying that the M1 laptops are not useful anymore, even the M1 Max, hard to take this seriously. Anyway, it will be interesting to see how the market changes once other Linux laptops show up with ARM processors and upgradable ram and ssds, and for less than half the Apple price... Let's see how that goes.
@@nnnnnn3647I mean considering the cost of the Max models I would expect a significant jump every year. But it’s Apple so you’re not going to get that in the real world. If you are running a business though it can definitely make sense to continually upgrade if it actually will make a difference in time since you’ll be able to write it off while also saving man hours. But that’s a small minority of buyers.
Just a few points of distinction: 1. The beginning of the video suggests there was a fundamental performance issue with the M3 Max, leading you to return your purchase. However, this conclusion was drawn after testing it with only one video editing program (Adobe Premiere). If you're making suggestions for video editors, it would make more sense to take the time and test other popular video editing programs as well (Davinci Resolve, Final Cut Pro). Doing so would improve the quality of this video by providing more relevant information. 2. It's one thing that I wouldn't call an almost 20% improvement in Single-Core speed "a tiny bit faster" - Intel needed 3 years to achieve that back in the 2010s - but I guess the 65% Multi-Core performance gain could also have been worthy of mentioning/highlighting, just to get a more accurate picture of these chips' capabilities. Regardless, I think the conclusion is right: one should always consider their specific use cases and current setup before making any purchases, especially pricey ones, like this one. Thanks for the video, it's been food for thought.
Hi! So between an M2 Max with 32GB RAM 12CPU and 38GPU 400GB bandwidth and the M3 Max 36GB RAM 14CPU and 30GPU 300 GB/sec bandwidth, for video editing with premiere. What's better?
The M3 in the end. But the question is more about the actual practical benefits compared to the costs. You might pay 20% more for an incremental perfomance increase. That's something you have to consider for yourself.@@Karina-rp4to
@@johnmoore1495He said his use case was video editing at 0:15: "for my use case which for this laptop is video editing", which is a generic use case in my opinion. That was the basis of my original comment.
I have a 16" M2 Max with 32 Gigs and on a timeline where it stutters, my 16" M3 Max with 64 gigs plays it back smooth. That's valuable for my workflow.
Agreed! I have an M1 Pro MacBook that has been my daily driver for awhile, but I do hate having to wait so long for renders, batch photo processing, etc. I _was_ going to upgrade to the M3 Max MacBook but decided to take advantage of the steep refurbished discounts and get a used M2 Ultra Mac Studio and keep my M1 Pro for mobility. I don't render videos or do large processing jobs on the go anyways, and for the same cost of an M3 Max MacBook, the Mac Studio was a no brainer for me.
I got the 128gb ram model, absolutely no problems/slowdowns whatsoever so far. haven't even used swap or restarted my Mac since I got it. Absolutely worth it for my peace of mind
Upgrading from M2 to M3 Max 128GB, just because I’m working on spatial with Vision Pro in 2 weeks. Also doing Resolve editing on it. I too am writing it off as a business expense.
Your content is insanely helpful and super well made. Thank you for this. You just saved me thousands of dollars during a hard time financially where I NEED a computer upgrade. I would love if you added some audio processing tests for the music producers and audio engineers out there! I’d be happy to help on what kinds of benchmarks/parameters to measure or reference some other creators who do similar!
I tried both the 14-inch and 16-inch M3 Max. The former had horrible fan noise even when doing only modestly intensive tasks. The latter was also much louder and hotter-feeling than I expected. I'm instead using the 14-inch M3 Pro with 12-core CPU and 18-core GPU. While there is a significant performance hit versus the Max, it's a compromise I'm willing to make for a laptop that is much quieter and cooler to the touch.
You're not alone -- sending my M3 Max back, too. Just not worth it. Very much looking forward to hearing your thoughts on the new Dell XPS 14/16 laptops and always appreciate your honest takes on tech.
I have observed that the majority of reviewers seem to agree with your findings, including MKHB. This is a valuable video with an important point: don’t upgrade unless your use case will definitively benefit from the expense. Your own example is a valuable case in point
Right now I'm so torn, I recently had to make a switch. Had the MBP 2018 i7 maxed for the time. It held it's own. I then, went for an Alienware M16 i7 16ram rtx 4070 because I'm doing a lot of video editing, davinci resolve. But windows was so buggy. I went windows for budget reasons. But I was loosing so much time from formatting, fixing issues that I just went to Best Buy to return it and bought the M3 pro MBP 16" w/18ram cause it was what they had available. I got home to start editing right away, late for a project. At first I was in love. Far superior to the alienware, battery life is amazing. But rendering through my timeline has been lagging. Waiting for changes to take place. Not crazy bad, but annoying. I'm not a professional, but I do work in this as a marketer and produce youtube videos weekly. I'm having a hard time justifying the budget, but seeing the 150/mb bandwidth issue, I'm understanding my problems. I'm so torn cause I'm not sure I can justify the change, even for the M2 Max that would be at least another maybe $800 more (I got my m3Pro on sale for $2.129). The M3 Max is just so out of my range now. What to do? Any recommendations? Suck it up or return and try to find the M2 Max?
You finally convinced me to not doing the wrong choice of getting and M3 Max due the lack of memory band, just for coding. I'm fully going for the M3 Pro 12cores'. Than you!
This was always meant to convert gamers, 3d professionals, game developers and architects from Windows to Mac. Not video editors already using an M series Mac. The Scary Fast event made that pretty clear since the major focus was on the new GPU architecture, mesh shading and long awaited support for hardware accelerated raytracing. The amount of RU-vid creatives shocked the creative sphere sometimes lands outside of amature content creation using DaVinci Resolve is insufferable at this point. Not everything is for you always.
I bought one of these because I traded in my M1 iMac several years ago to help pay for a proper gaming rig. I needed a laptop as time went on so I settled on an M3 Pro. I don't regret it, but I probably would if I'd jumped from a generation that was immediately prior to it.
This was one of the best videos I've seen on this topic and I watch a lot of Mac reviewers. I too bought the M3 MacBook Pro Max w/ 48GB of RAM, coming from an M1 MacBook Pro. I was specifically concerned with not being able to capably handle the 8K video out of the Canon R5. I watched a video about the M2 Max applying various filters and effects on 4K video from the R5 and thought, "The M3 has to be better?" But the problem is, my main hiccup in video editing is in navigating around FCPX UI, grabbing video and placing it in the timeline, scrubbing, etc. With 8K video, I still occasionally saw the spinning beach ball undertaking these tasks with the M3! Highly disappointing.
Upgraded to the 16 inch M3 Max MBP (16/40, 128 GB ram, 4TB ssd) from the 2019 16 inch i9 2.4 Ghz MBP (64GB ram, 2TB ssd) and even though the intel one held it's own in Davinci Resolve, the M3 Max is noticeably better and for a professional who edits and color grades videos for a living that performance boost is important. Also, I am in love with the battery life of this laptop. I don't know about how optimized Premiere is, but Davinci Resolve works great. Photoshop and LR too. I tried to save an image and didn't even see the render bar. Blazing fast. One thing though, Google Chrome is super laggy on the M-series Macbook. Safari doesn't have these issues, but Chrome is my browser of choice, at least on the laptop so it can get a bit annoying. I hope Google optimizes it.
I've switched to Firefox few years back and was easier than I thought because Firefox is basically a Chrome-clone that also imports all Passwords and stuff. What certainly is better in Firefox: ad block and playing YT in the background still works without membership.
I hope Google stays far far away from my MBP. Brave & Firefox are the only browsers I use, and DuckDuckGo for search comparisons. Google can take a flying leap off the Meta building for all I care.
Why are you using Premier on a macbook??? Fcp is optimised for mac machines. Honestly, try shooting in prores and edit in fcp to see what the macbook can really do. What your doing is buying a Farari and running it on diesel !!!
My 14” M1 Pro chip w/ 16GB was bottlenecking on certain tasks. This year had option of educational pricing. Goal was a new machine with more RAM. The M3 Pro 32GB looked great for me, but for just a little bit more could get the lower end Max. It munches larger files. So far, I’m impressed.
@@mikaelbiilmann6826yep literally the entire Mac product stack is artificially priced around you starting at the base model and upgrading yourself into a much more expensive model.
from all the apple reviews i watch trying to get a new one and abandon linux , this guy makes the most interesting and down to the point reviews on youtube. Thanks for keeping it real , :wave: from England
Thanks for this one. Did find an M2 Max for good discount. Was on the fence for M3 but as I do just video editing and writing for my website I ordered the M2 Max, also due to your take in this vid .
@@hishamosman4341 you can customize everything on a rolls before and after purchase there are no engineered lockouts ... One of the reasons I loved apple was they were premium because they allowed huge ram and SSD upgrades after purchase had tons of ports ir blaster battery light easy diy repair indicator digital and analogue out and in LCD status lights egpu Linux or Windows OS native That made them premium .. now they are kia and cost cut aside from the metal body.
I have been thinking of upgrading from a base level windows laptop to a MacBook. Watching your views on M2 and M3 is educating me about macs. I will most likely get an M3 Air when it comes out. Excited
This is not my use case as I’m a sw eng but I must congratulate you: You do the best reviews period, in depth while understandable to a wider audience so I can share them when people ask for recommendations. Thank you.
Great video. Choosing the right laptop really depends on ones personal needs, and on so many more factors than CPU performance. And sometimes that means that the previous generation is more fitting than the new one.
I don't think the M2 chip owners are the target customers of Apple, not even the M1 customers. This is why your video makes sense but that doesn't mean that the M3 is a bad chip. You are just not the target customer of the M3.
Agree! Think like an IT purchasing manager when you buy capital assets --> Only upgrade when your old tech is totally worn out and unusable, or if there's a generational improvement that makes it worth your while to get the new tech. FOMO is not a reason to buy a new capital asset.... Good enough is good enough! My main machine is a Mac mini i7 2018, bought refurb'd for $1000, upgraded to 64GB RAM, and then upgraded with a used eGPU I got from eBay for $200. Sure, plenty of faster machines but it suits our needs, and until our channel explodes in views and I can quit my day job, it does the job just fine for rendering.... We even have Macs from 2012-13 that are still doing light duty as camera and screen capture devices, saving to NAS. They still work, nothing wrong with 'em!
Glad to see you being honest. We need pressure on Apple so they actually improve their products for the user rather than just showing vague graphs and slapping a new label on something that hasn’t changed much.
You said, You have 2 degrees and 20 years of experience in tech world. "Thank you so much for sharing the truth and using your wisdom to help people like us. It really means a lot. Now I have a question. I've been using an iMac from 2014, and I want to upgrade my computer. I used to be an independent filmmaker 10 years ago before I left everything behind. Now, technology has advanced so much that it is very difficult to catch up. Finally, I realized that everything is digitized and social media has become a part of life. Now I'm upgrading my gear and editing computer. I have a budget, but saving money is a smart way to navigate in this critical world. Should I go for the refurbished 16-inch MacBook Pro with the M2 Max chip, which costs $2,800, or should I go for the new MX3 version?" please put some light on my ignorant mind.
Interesting Josh - I'm using an M1 Pro Max with 32GB RAM and I'm not experiencing the slow render times. Pretty sure we'd be using similar media - Sony FX9, FX6, FX3, A7S3, the odd bit of DJI, 4K SLOG3 both using PP. Some reasonably complicated sequences with grades, multiple supers and captions. Admittedly most of the time I'm rendering to 1080P but if anything that's more work for the encoder to do. Perhaps we should talk?
Premiere has horrible codec support for hardware encoding/decoding. It’s a total joke on Apple Silicon. Use Resolve, problems go away. But only on the newer systems. The M1 eh… it’s got lots of issues.
Although it wasn't a good feeling , Im glad I returned my M3 max after watching this and sticking to M2 Max for video editing so this is relatable. Thank you. It will be interesting to see what apple will bring out in the future that may be worth upgrading on, let's see.
Great no bullshit takes, pragmatic and objective approach, breaking out from the herd, mentioning the marketing and psychology tricks used by the biggest money hoarder in the world (Apple). You even provide the summary at the beginning! Keep it up, this kind of moral integrity reminds me of Louis Rossman.
For what it's worth, I've been doing benchmarking on the M3 MacBook Pro ($2000 M3 Pro version) against an Asus ProArt StudioBook 16 in Premiere Pro (also $2000), and the Asus is doubling the performance of the Mac. Renders are literally taking half as long.
@@jameshuegli3534It definitely is; it's far slower with it disabled. But the RTX 4060 is faster than the GPU in the M3 Pro, so the performance margin is expected. I have a standard test video project that I use (ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-5FYLV76jXPQ.html). I've rendered it hundreds of times now. It's a good sampling of what a "typical" RU-vid project might be: 35 minute 4K timeline, 4K ProRes source footage, multiple layers through much of it, occasional scaled clips, multiple transitions, several animated lower thirds, a LUT applied across the whole timeline. It takes about 43 minutes to render on the M3 Pro, but just 21 minutes on the Asus StudioBook 16 with 13980HX and RTX 4060. On my desktop PCs: 3950X with RTX 2080 does it in 11 minutes; 8 minutes on my 13900K with 4070, or 35 minutes on i5 8600 or 3600X with RTX 2060. My M1 Mac Mini takes just under 3 hours, and the M2 MacBook Air takes about 2 hours. Don't even ask how long the Intel-based Macs take ;)
Is that because the dGPU in the windows laptop is more than twice as fast? I'm fairly sure the cpu in m3 pro is better than any windows laptop available atm considering I tested its single core to be neck and neck with the top desktop chip available, i9 14900k and that's desktop watercooled hundreds of watts.
@@definingslawek4731While the M1 was faster than most Intel processors for single core when it came out, Intel has made huge strides in improving their chips, while the M2 and M3 are basically minor iterations. Most Intel processors i5 and higher these days are notably faster than Apple Silicon. But the big difference here is due to the GPU. The GPU in the M series just isn't very fast. Even a mobile RTX 4060 outperforms it substantially.
Great point Josh! Buy for the use case and not for FOMO and showoff. But then, if it was software development primary and video editing secondary, this wouldn't be a problem? Also did you replace it with any other laptop?
I upgraded from 2019 MBP i9 AMD 5500m 64gb to the M3 Max 16c 64gb and I notice a huge huge difference, but I feel there hasn't been a massive leap even from M1 to M3 than there was going from Intel tp Apple Silicon
I got the 15in MacBook M2 Air. And it will be my last MacBook. They are so high priced that they do not have a reason to charge so much for their products. Computer parts have dropped like a rock and they are still charging an arm and a leg for those laptops.
Considering M3 Pro 14” - because I’m considering doing some ios development and dont own a mac… but man part of me wonders if a m3 air in a few months will be just fine??… many downsides to the airs though.
If the tasks you want are not processor intensive (i,e. Fans won't kick in) and you don't want high performance or luxury screen/ports, the Air may be fine.
Depends on how far you will persue that path. From my experience, for mobile development in general, you need more RAM than processing power. So M1 Pro or M2 Pro would be enough, but you might want to consider 32GB of memory. But if the budget is tight, then an Air is still really good for ios development. One downside is the fan, but the Pros don't even kick off the fan even when the temp is 80C. Another downside is the maximum external display, if you have more than one then you must have a Mx Pro.
I hope I get a response before this day gets started. I bought the 14inch MacBookPro M3Max with the following specs! 14 Core CPU, 30 Core GPU, 36GB of unified memory. I believe = max 300GB/‘s memory bandwidth. My question is this.,. I will ONLY use this laptop for editing 1080p and some 4k files (drone footage) maybe some 4k DSLR footage as well with a lot of 3rd party plug in’s for Final Cut Pro X like Titles, Generators, Effects and transitioning etc… should I return this product and upgrade to 64 GB of unified memory with 16 core CPU and 40core GPU? Which by the way would = Max 400GB/s memory bandwidth! OH and does 14” vs 16” make a difference with the same exact specs? Thank you in advance.
If you want a 4x improvnent in video editing performance, use an Ultra chip with 4 media engines and also use Final Cut pro, with my M2 Ultra Mac Studio 64GB Ram, a 60min 4K video can be exported in 6-8mins for single pass or 12-14mins for two passes. oh, and I never see a single dropped frame during editing. If speed and smoothness are the most important thing, this is the way to go !
I hate the aluminum Thinkpad with nice rubber material is much more comfortable for hands Apple lost their PRO since the silly black corners and new gestures
I live in the Netherlands and while the cheapest m1 macbook pro 14 costs 1700 euros refurbished, the brand new 14 inch m3 macbook pro costs 2400 euros in general but i have seen deals for 2250..... WHAAAAT?????????????????
Hi Josh, will you review the new zenbook 14 2024 OLED? I believe zenbooks were one of the laptops you recommended last year. Wondering if that's still the case for this one?
A question: Why edit on a laptop? You are in a studio, not on the road. Make an editing workstation for less money, that you configure however you want. And upgrade, when your needs change. Laptops are for consuming, for browsing the net and watching movies. Tablets are even better for consuming media and text. For serious creative work, get a powerful computer with a giant ergonomic screen or three, ergonomic keyboard that "tocks" :) and power to dim the lights when it revs. :)
Because our focus is on reviewing laptops. The best way we can do that is to use them ourselves. If we spend 90% of the time on a desktop and 10% of our time just testing a laptop... it won't make the laptop review real and insightful
ray tracing is a huge + on the M3 you failed here not to mention they are faster how ever wating for the M3 Ultra would have been better, or even better then thart waite for the Studio M3s any real user knows laptops are not good for video editing they run way to hot which solws them down and causes premature break downs as well. I wont even video edit on the PC laptop and its not just because PCs suck bad on the output quaiulity compared to mac but they run even hotter then mac laptops ..
I work with bioinformatics data and machine learning models, I desperately need more memory on my M1 Pro with 32GB. I’m waiting for the M4 Max chip, and I’ll either go with 64GB or 128GB of unified memory. Most of the time memory swap is in effect, so 32GB is just not enough.
You say "Rendering a video" but don't provide which codec you were using, what settings for the codec etc. There is a huge variety of different performance in codecs. For example, the Apple codecs can be hardware accelerated and be literally orders of magnitude faster than software codecs, which will burn your laptop to a crisp. I do still use software codecs sometimes as the provide slightly better quality but I accept that I'm going to turn my laptop into a toaster oven to do so, it's almost as bad as mining bitcoin.
I saw a different video where the presenter alledges that the media engine in the m3 series is roughly twice as fast as the media engine in the m2 series as in his tests, the m3 pro was exporting faster than m2 max despite m2 max having dual media engines. I can't remember who made that video but I'll have a look. It's very surprising to me that his results are not congruent with yours.
Watching this from my M3 Max 16", with 64GBs of RAM and 2TBs of storage :D. Although my last laptop lasted me 7 years and probably would have lasted longer had the graphics card not failed in it, so I am expecting this one to do at least 10 years before I need to upgrade by which time the M12 will have probably come out. Loving my new MacBook Pro and sold my Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Extreme for €1000 to afford this new one, so a good investment for me overall. :)
Good analysis and post. I commented earlier this year that I have been using the new M3 Pro MBP (36 GB ram/1 TB SSD) for the past several months and it is a superb all around laptop. Personally, if I were a professional video content RU-vid creator, I would be using a desktop machined to edit my videos and in this case, I would have chosen the M2 Ultra Mac Studio or wait to upgrade to the M3 Ultra Mac Studio. A desktop system eliminates the "heat" problem mentioned in this review - amoung other things.
Ah, I'm determined that we here all use laptops. I don't want us to just review laptops for a couple of days as we make a video. I want us to actually use them ourselves for all our tasks. It gives us deeper insights. Hope that makes sense
@@JustJoshTech I pretty much surmised that. Grin. I was just commenting on what "I" would do. I had no qualms with your decision to return the MacBook Pro.
It's funny to hear you say a render can actually take 20 minutes. I've been editing since the early days of digital and used to endure multi day renders, regular crashing and lip sync issues.
Thank you for great content and for the videos quality, God bless you and your dearest mother aswell and let her keep very proud and happy about her son the BenchGuru ^^.
Love the videos! Your room/mic/mastering could use 2-4db less in the 320hz range. It was obvious enough I noticed on cheap headphones, and it became more obvious once I threw on my main Sennheiser headphones.
We are desperately hiring an audio engineer because we are really at our limit in this department. If you or someone you know can help please email us!!
From what I hear these were the very first 3 nanometer chips produced, apple was desperate to get them out first, apparently not super optimized yet so it’s better to wait for the M4.
As always it’s a case of whether you need a new laptop now. If you do, these chips are great. So were last year’s and so will next year’s. If you don’t need a new laptop may as well hold off. If you feel your current one is slowing you down in your ability to make money or annoying you, time to upgrade. The only time I say hold off is if you have a machine that at least works and it is obvious that Apple is a few weeks away from a new drop as then you will save money if you go with the current model or you will get a better model for the same price.
I’m coming from the 13” M1 MBP with 16/1tb. I’m looking to get one of the 16” M3 models from Best Buy since I have a gift card from them. I’m hoping to start learning how to code. I’m also planning on running windows 11 with parallels so I can do some gaming. I love Macs and I really don’t want a windows laptop. Some of the games I played made my M1 get a little warm and sometimes I can barely hear the fan so the airs are out. The 16” M3 pro chips only have 512 on the storage and the only way to get 1tb is to get the max chip which is about $3300 at Best Buy on sale. I’m thinking if it would be better to get the 16” M3 pro chip with 36gb ram and 512gb ssd so I wouldn’t have to worry about memory swap. I’m 63 now so I might have to look at future upgrading it. Any suggestions or advice? Keeping the M1 MBP is out of the question because it’s traded in to Best Buy for the gift card. Sorry for the long text.
You said you returned this model because the M3 Max with 36gb was better. Best Buy now has the 16” M3 Max MacBooks for the same price. Both are on sale for $3000. $500 off on 36 ram and $1000 off on 48 ram. Which do you suggest for learning to code and gaming? I’m without a MacBook at this time but I have the 13” M4 iPad Pro.
Interested in M3 max but 4500 to get the spec I want is ridiculous. The storage and ram upgrade prices are a joke and its all locked in so you cant upgrade or repair
Really hope someone is willing to help: I can buy a Macbook Pro M1 MAX 32GBRAM-512GB 16 INCH with an extra apple mac mouse, for only 1700 bucks. The only thing is that the condition of the battery is at 92%. I personally don’t mind bringing a charger around since i now have to do that anyway BUT the web does say that once a laptops battery is around 90% it’s on half it’s life cycle (the laptops life cycle I mean) Is it worth it?
MAC laptop lost me as a customer when they abandoned intel chip. All the RU-vid reviewers are down with this because they weirdly assume that the main purpose of laptop is video editing and content creation. But I run VM’s many of which are intel CPU based and now the MAC is useless to me.
I can't believe anyone by now wouldn't know that Apple doesn't expect anyone to upgrade from one generation to the next generation. That's not how it works. Sure the M3's may have some features for specific work flows, but in general Apple expects you to skip 2-3 or even maybe 4 generations. You pay more for something that is designed to last for years to come.
I never have memory pressure on my MacBook M1 (10C/16GB/1TB). But on my Mac Mini M1 (8C/8GB/512GB) when it does show pressure it is brown. Not red or Yellow.
