The memory bandwidth of the M1 Max is twice that of the M2 Mini. 400 rather than 200 so any memory intensive activities would favour the M1 Max.
Apple Unveils M2 Pro & M2 Max Chips in Updated MacBook Pro & Mac mini
- Thread starter Emanuel
- Start date
The memory bandwidth of the M1 Max is twice that of the M2 Mini. 400 rather than 200 so any memory intensive activities would favour the M1 Max.
Thomas Smet
Veteran
Totally agreed. Just pointing out a small difference. I think all of us here would go the base Mac Studio route vs a decked out Mini.
The M2 Pro Mini makes a ton of sense if buying the standard configuration. It's $1,300 for the same machine as the $2,000 14" MBP. It's a pretty solid budget video machine. I use a base M1 Pro 14" MBP and it's a beast. I think a lot of video pros would be very happy with that M2 Pro Mini. Maybe not the power users but I know a lot that are holding off getting a Mac Studio right now because the M1 Pro and M1 Max MBPS are just so darn good already. The same will be true of the M2 Pro Mini. It's going to be one heck of a video system right now. Especially for those that don't need portability and don't need a XDR display. If I didn't already have a 14" MBP and didn't need XDR I would be all over this Mac mini. I loved the base M1 MBA. The size and weight and zero fan noise was likely the best laptop experience I have ever had. If Apple ever makes an affordable XDR display I will likely go back to a moderately powerful desktop and a base MBA for the portability.
Peter C.
Veteran
Like most said, this isn't a big step up and I'm fine with that, no one is pressuring you to upgrade. If you have the M1 or the Studio and you're happy then great. But if this is your first mini or you want a 2nd then it makes more sense. The sweet point is 512gb/16g. The Pro model prices too close the Studio.
CharlesPapert
Director of Photography
Had to sink some capital on Dec. 31st so the taxman wouldn't take it, realized that my trashcan was going to turn 10 this year (have never used a computer that long) so I decided on an M1 Max Studio (10 core/24 core/32GB/2TB). I think I'll be good with that one for a while--not sure about 10 years though!
Thomas Smet
Veteran
I always found it odd that Apple forces consumers that may not have the best eyes to use a small screen or pay for a pro model just to get the larger screen.
I realize its a mortal sin for Apple t ago against their sweet spot DPI but they really should consider larger les dense screens for older casual users.
I would;d also love to see the return of the 17" or likely now would be a 18" MBP with less bezels. I had one of the lat 17" MBPs and I loved it. Yeah it was a hunky beast but having the larger screen was comfortable to use once I sat down somewhere. I think the MBP components are considerably smaller and lighter today and a 18" MBP would make a lot more sense now than it did years ago. Havign a true larger 3840 wide screen would be a really nice machine. With the extra space it may even provide enough extra cooling for the M1 Ultra. It would clearly be a niche product but I don't see anything wrong with that.
Now with that said I opted for the 14" instead of the 16" because of size and weight so maybe Apple is right and a larger one just would not sell very well.
NorBro
Major Contributor
The smaller screen sizes are more useful for the general population because most, especially ones on the go, only need a screen a bit larger than a phone and not too large, but I wish the 17" option was at least a special order, even if you'd have to pay a premium for it.
Like don't make any to sell in stores or online, just charge people twice the amount for it for those who really, really want one.
You're Apple and you have a lot of control over the world so you can definitely build it and a few of us will buy it.
Like don't make any to sell in stores or online, just charge people twice the amount for it for those who really, really want one.
You're Apple and you have a lot of control over the world so you can definitely build it and a few of us will buy it.
rob norton
Veteran
Thomas Smet as an update from the thread a while ago (mostly featuring you and filmguy), I bought a 16" MBP (10-core CPU, 32-core GPU and 16-core Neural Engine, 64GB unified memory
4TB of SSD storage - I wish I got 8TB!)
It's been fantastic, especially for making small/fast edits from anywhere. One huge difference from the previous old PC is with massively improved export times, every link I pass on for review is at least 1080p, no more telling people that the full res version will be available as a final step (also helps that it's coincided with pretty fast internet improvements locally).
I'm editing graded 4k raw from the c200 with no playback issues - it's so nice editing footage that's close to the final look, plus being able to accurately judge transitions rather than using your imagination with choppy playback.
It looks like you can't even buy m1 MBPs anymore from apple, they're already onto the m2s. While I don't think this will be a 10 year computer, I imagine it'll be good enough for the next 3-5 years.
One thing I would upgrade for is better unreal engine performance. I installed it on the m1 without holding my breath but it's been working surprisingly well. So what was a bonus has now turned into something that I'd like to use more without needing a dedicated unreal engine PC. Do you think the M3 onwards will get taken more seriously for UE?
Also, unless there's a must have screen or unforeseen other capability, I can't see ever buying anything other than laptops from here on.
4TB of SSD storage - I wish I got 8TB!)
It's been fantastic, especially for making small/fast edits from anywhere. One huge difference from the previous old PC is with massively improved export times, every link I pass on for review is at least 1080p, no more telling people that the full res version will be available as a final step (also helps that it's coincided with pretty fast internet improvements locally).
I'm editing graded 4k raw from the c200 with no playback issues - it's so nice editing footage that's close to the final look, plus being able to accurately judge transitions rather than using your imagination with choppy playback.
It looks like you can't even buy m1 MBPs anymore from apple, they're already onto the m2s. While I don't think this will be a 10 year computer, I imagine it'll be good enough for the next 3-5 years.
One thing I would upgrade for is better unreal engine performance. I installed it on the m1 without holding my breath but it's been working surprisingly well. So what was a bonus has now turned into something that I'd like to use more without needing a dedicated unreal engine PC. Do you think the M3 onwards will get taken more seriously for UE?
Also, unless there's a must have screen or unforeseen other capability, I can't see ever buying anything other than laptops from here on.
ahalpert
Major Contributor
Thomas Smet
Veteran
The GPUs will keep getting faster. Some GPU benchmarks were just posted today for the M2 Pro and Max and it's actually pretty impressive. The M2 Max is like only 9% slower than the M1 Ultra for GPU performance now. To be fair the Ultra didn't scale as well as many of us would have liked.
Metal is a really solid tool for 3D performance. The potential is there but developers need to wake up and use it. Resolve gets stunning Metal performance on the M1 and M2 chips. Most tasks are compatible or better than a Nvidia 3080 GPU which is impressive for the low amount of power Apple Silicon uses. A few tasks like brute force noise reduction in resolve are still faster on the Nvidia side.
Metal is very impressive as is Apple Silicon. The software just needs to catch up like Resolve did.
I'm a Blender user and follow the development of the Cycles Metal support. Apple lent a very talented developer to Blender to make Metal Cycles rendering happen and it's working very well so far. Still not up to Optic speeds from Nvidia but it's much better than it was before with just CPU rendering. They have a long way to go yet and the support was done to make the ability stable and production ready and not optimized yet for speed. Cycles development on Nvidia has been going on for many years by many talented developers in a market full of Nvidia users. It's going to take some time but the industry is adopting Metal gradually. Octane has a Metal renderer as well so the support is getting there.
Almost every app I use is native Apple Silicon and most are Metal supported now. FCP screams on my M1 Pro as does Motion. The Affinity apps do as well. Resolve is awesome and Blender is much better than it was before. It's at least usable now for production work. Its not going to win any benchmark awards but being able to create rendered assets for games, videos or whatever is now a reality for Mac users.
I don't really game on my Mac but I have tried a few and they work very well. Again a high end Nvidia may beat it but I don't really care. Most games just need enough power to run. Especially for those that do not need 4k gaming. I also have a PC I put together for Blender rendering and gaming and it has a 3060 inside. The issue with Metal gaming is not the chips but the poor developer support right now. Games designed from the ground up for it are amazing. Sadly thats not very many right now.
CharlesPapert
Director of Photography
I just remembered a funny and embarrassing moment. Back in 2003 I was dayplaying Steadicam on "The Drew Carey Show" in their final season. My only conversation with Drew happened was while we were setting up a shot, he was sitting on set watching a video on a first gen Powerbook 17" which had just been introduced. It was my first time seeing one, and I remember it looked massive. "So that's the new 17" was my brilliant opener. "How do you like it?" "It's great"...what else was he going to say. And then I blurted something like "set you back a bit, huh?" He basically shrugged. I got the hint and slunk away. Looking it up now, it was $3299 or around $5K in today's dollars, which was indeed pricey, but the guy was on the 9th season of a network series he created and starred in so...I don't think the cost of a laptop was much of a concern.
Run&Gun
Veteran
So, went to the Apple store today and they went to power up my laptop and it fired right up. Screen and everything. Put my password in and the guy starts trying to look at the diagnostics and Bam…. Guy looks at me and says, it’s not a screen hardware issue, it’s the computer crashing. He tried to boot it back up several more times and it would power-up and the keyboard would light up, but the screen never came back on(it had been sitting powered off for the last four days when it came on today). Said it’s either something in the software or memory/full drive issue. He said once I have my new laptop in, they should be able to transfer everything from my old laptop to the new one. But there’s nothing he can currently do, because he would need to wipe the laptop to try to get it working again.
Thomas Smet
Veteran
Not sure how I feel about this one yet. It sucks but to be honest I doubt 98% of users would even notice. At least the majority of those that would buy the base model. It is an odd move after claiming how fast the storage was on the M1. Like they hoped nobody would notice and just still assumed it was fast. Larger storage is almost always faster. If apple would have started it this way on the M1 it wouldn't be an issue at all. They made the mistake of going too fast for the M1 and now they will look bad because of this move. Pretty dumb PR situation they didn't have to put themselves through.
I still say it will have very little to no impact on many people but yeah its a dumb move.
It especially hurts for a desktop where it's actually silly and pointless to have more internal storage when the computer isn't portable and it's not an issue to plug in an external SSD. On a MBP I now prefer to get larger. My current M1 Pro 14" only has 512 GB which is fine but my next upgrade I'm going to 2 TB or even 4 TB. Having my entire local photos library and projects with me at all times without a drive dangling from a laptop matters to me now 100x more than the extra cost. Since I only have one laptop and no longer have a desktop that works better for me as well. Given how fast the MBP's are now I'm not sure I will buy a desktop ever again. If I had a laptop and desktop again however I would keep using external drives for all my content. The lower storage speeds of these base models does suck for those that plan on doing that.
I'm sure this is a cost savings thing or maybe even using slightly slower storage that will last longer being thrashed by swap file usage a lot more. smaller storage will use more write cycles across the entire storage a lot faster so maybe its more robust now but slower? Who the heck knows.
Peter C.
Veteran
It doesn't effect me either I wouldn't get the 256gb in the first place. It probably makes sense from Apple perspective they lower the price by $100 and sell more units to consumers who aren't going to notice the speed difference web browsing. I just like these tech tear downs to see what's going on in the inside.
Thomas Smet
Veteran
While the M2 Pro and Max had rather marginal 20% increase in many apps the same is not true of Blender Cycles GPU Metal rendering. MaxTech just saw a 2x render speed increase of their M2 Pro they tested.
Blender Benchmark also has some benchmarks scores and the M1 Pro vs M2 Pro has a score of 429 vs 763. The M1 Max vs M2 Mac has scores of 824 vs 1510. Thats a pretty large increase mostly thanks to Apple fixing the GPU scaling of the M1 and the better memory handling between the GPU cores. The M2 Ultra when/if we do get one should be even more impressive.
Nvidia still does more for less in Blender Cycles when it comes to Optix rendering which uses the realtime raytracing. Apple Silicon still does not have hardware raytracing but the engineer from Apple working with the Blender team is adding support for it when they do.
Right now the M2 Max is on par with the 3060 with just Cuda rendering and behind it for Optix rendering. The Ultra could likely be on par with the 3080 for Cuda rendering and behind it for Optix rendering.
Metal is still behind but it catching up. The point isn't always what platform will render faster in Blender. Some people prefer to have a Mac for everything else they do. Apple Silicon is finally to a respectable point where it can be used for serious 3D rendering work. It may not be as cost effective but if one already has one or wants one for other purposes then they can very much now use Blender.
My PC I build for gaming and 3D Blender rending only has a 3060 so the fact that a Max can match it means I may not need a PC just for this in the future.
M3 should be even better when Apple uses to a 3nm process making the chips faster and even more energy efficient. We could very well be only slightly behind a PC used for 3D rendering. Keep in mind many 3D users are still on older systems with GTX1000 series cards that can only use Cuda. The 1080 which at one point was the standard for Blender only gets a score of 613 meaning the M2 Pro is now much faster. Even the 2080 which is stil la very common GPU owned by many has a score of 2,400 thanks to Optix. The M2 Max is not far behind and the M2 Ultra will for sure surpass it. Since the 2080 was a high end GPU it makes sense to compare it to the M2 Ultra once we get one.
Metal support still has room to grow as well. Initial support was made slower to make it stable and production usable. The Apple engineer still has some optimizations left to get at least another 50% increase. Maybe M3 will even have hardware raytracing in which case we might see a very competitive position for Apple.
Now of course the new 4090 is a beast but it on its own is also 1/2 the cost of a M1 Ultra Mac Studio. Gaming may never catch up on Mac due to developers being lazy and greedy but what started off with Apple silicon was always the slowest it was ever going to be. It has so much potential for growth and energy efficiency and will keep getting better.
Blender Benchmark also has some benchmarks scores and the M1 Pro vs M2 Pro has a score of 429 vs 763. The M1 Max vs M2 Mac has scores of 824 vs 1510. Thats a pretty large increase mostly thanks to Apple fixing the GPU scaling of the M1 and the better memory handling between the GPU cores. The M2 Ultra when/if we do get one should be even more impressive.
Nvidia still does more for less in Blender Cycles when it comes to Optix rendering which uses the realtime raytracing. Apple Silicon still does not have hardware raytracing but the engineer from Apple working with the Blender team is adding support for it when they do.
Right now the M2 Max is on par with the 3060 with just Cuda rendering and behind it for Optix rendering. The Ultra could likely be on par with the 3080 for Cuda rendering and behind it for Optix rendering.
Metal is still behind but it catching up. The point isn't always what platform will render faster in Blender. Some people prefer to have a Mac for everything else they do. Apple Silicon is finally to a respectable point where it can be used for serious 3D rendering work. It may not be as cost effective but if one already has one or wants one for other purposes then they can very much now use Blender.
My PC I build for gaming and 3D Blender rending only has a 3060 so the fact that a Max can match it means I may not need a PC just for this in the future.
M3 should be even better when Apple uses to a 3nm process making the chips faster and even more energy efficient. We could very well be only slightly behind a PC used for 3D rendering. Keep in mind many 3D users are still on older systems with GTX1000 series cards that can only use Cuda. The 1080 which at one point was the standard for Blender only gets a score of 613 meaning the M2 Pro is now much faster. Even the 2080 which is stil la very common GPU owned by many has a score of 2,400 thanks to Optix. The M2 Max is not far behind and the M2 Ultra will for sure surpass it. Since the 2080 was a high end GPU it makes sense to compare it to the M2 Ultra once we get one.
Metal support still has room to grow as well. Initial support was made slower to make it stable and production usable. The Apple engineer still has some optimizations left to get at least another 50% increase. Maybe M3 will even have hardware raytracing in which case we might see a very competitive position for Apple.
Now of course the new 4090 is a beast but it on its own is also 1/2 the cost of a M1 Ultra Mac Studio. Gaming may never catch up on Mac due to developers being lazy and greedy but what started off with Apple silicon was always the slowest it was ever going to be. It has so much potential for growth and energy efficiency and will keep getting better.
Amulet Man
Well-known member
Hi Thomas, I feel like we are in the same camp here so instead of doing my own research I am going to ask you lol.
I have a 2.4ghz i9 Radeon 5500 64GB RAM MacBook Pro that I use for work. I also have a 4ghz i9 or i7 with an RX480 with 32 GB RAM that I use sometimes instead.
I work primarily in creative suite, which I think is Apple Silicon-native, and increasingly in Nuke and Blender.
I've been told that putting a 3060 in my PC will, for $330 or so, massively improve Blender performance for both Cycles and Eevee. So I wanted to do that instead of getting an M2.
But if the M2 Max is close.... I could just sell my PC and my MacBook Pro and upgrade I suppose!
How much will I gain from an M2 Max compared with my current 16" 2019 MacBook Pro?
How much would I gain from a 3060 compare with that. Thanks.
Of course, if it will be until the M3 that hardware Raytracing is introduced (maybe this is the delay for the Mac Pro?) I could wait another generation and buy the 3060 to hold me over. (Work on my laptop and render on my PC).
Thank you in advance. I should do my own research but am just getting into Blender.
Thomas Smet
Veteran
The 3060 is still faster as far as I know and costs considerably less. If you already have a PC and don't mind using it for Blender thats still the best and most cost effective way to go. I think. Its a bit early to know for sure how well Metal will get for rendering but its hard to beat a $330 GPU upgrade in your situation.
Thomas Smet
Veteran
MaxTech just compared the 16" M2 Max to the 16" M1 Max. Most apps see a marginal or not much increase in speed. Blender however rendered is 21 seconds vs 40 seconds for the M1 Max. Thats almost2x faster for Blender thanks to the better GPU scaling and memory sharing of the M2. Assuming MaxTech is using the same unaltered BMW test file it renders on my base M1 Pro in 1:27. The M2 Max is 4.14x faster for Blender.
Now thats an upgrade and putting Blender into a realistic production tool on a Mac category.
Now thats an upgrade and putting Blender into a realistic production tool on a Mac category.