in Common Problems

MacBook Pro Face-off: M3 Max vs M1 Max Benchmarks Breakdown!

1.5k Views 47 Comments



M3 MacBook Pro at Best Buy: (affiliate)

Apple last week launched its new MacBook Pro models with M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max chips. We already took a look at the M3 Pro MacBook Pro, but we also wanted to test out the top-of-the-line M3 Max chip to see how it measures up.

read more – https://www.macrumors.com/2023/11/13/m3-max-macbook-pro-hands-on/

Share this:

47 Comments

  1. Instead of the Max, the far more interesting comparison would be M1 Max vs M3 Pro – since they would maybe line up price-wise or the M1 might prove to be a far better option at a better price but still faster compared to an M3 Pro.

  3. Thank for the review! I'm thinking to switch from my MacBook Pro 16" M1 Max 2021 to MacBook Pro 14" M3 Max 2024. The reason is that I have Apple Studio Display at home and having 14" + 27" Studio Display is a great setup for home as a permanent workplace, and 14" looks great for ad-hoc mobile work in other rooms + during traveling. Any concerns about having very loaded MacBook Pro 14" Apple M3 Max chip with 16‑core CPU, 40‑core GPU, 16‑core Neural Engine (64Gb RAM + 4TB SSD)? Especially when comparing to the same 16" configuration. Thank you!

  4. As a pro video editor I worked on huge projects with timelines that a base M1 max 32gb handles perfectly. Of course there will always be something new around the corner, but seriously it's better to wait at least 3 gen before upgrading otherwise it's more a sidestep than a real jump.

  5. The M1 Air I got for my wife, before the Max was released was completing renders faster than my AMD Threadripper 2950X and Radeon 7 system. I was fine with having videos render in about the same time as the actual video, the M1 Air was coming in a few minutes less and that got me interested in the M1 Max. Went for the 24 core GPU version, 11-15 minute 4K videos were being completed in 1-3 minutes. After 2 years, more memory is the only thing I would really need as I tend to have other programs running and at times am maxing the 32GB out.

    I don’t need an M3 and the real reason I would get one is for more memory. Personally, I’m hoping for USB 5, SDExpress, larger standard internal SSD and improved media engines in my next machine. 8K looks nice, 8K RAW isn’t fun to edit now but, who knows what we could see in the future. M1 machine are still a fantastic buy, I think most of us was hoping for 30-40% improvements in each new iteration of Apples M series of chips. It’s nice to know the M1 is holding up well and not feeling old after 2 years.

  6. I got a 12351 in Cinebench on my M1 Max with the better CPU Core Chip. Not sure the upgrade is worth the 13% upgrade… What I really want is the better memory but still not worth the $4000 price tag… That's insane. My machine is the Studio 32GB with 2TB SSD and the 32 core GPU option. I am not sure why your scores were so low on the M1, seems a bit disingenuous but perhaps not. I don't have the 28 core to test. Still not worth it to upgrade although I am tempted from the perspective of a pure gadget hound but it's not needed in a workflow as the M1 is still killing it.

  7. I'm not buying into this bullshit hype. I got a 10/24/32GB 1TB M1 Max in late 2021 before Apple jacked the prices 20% (and inflation jacked them further still) and I am not going to bother trying to compare what is an already absolutely mind-blowing machine to something that is only marginally better.

    What cost me Y340,000 yen (with AC+ for two years) then is now Y580,000 for only marginally better specs and performance. To hell with THAT!!

    For me – and for most – the M1 Max in my config is going to last a decade with this level of performance. I couldn't be happier with my purchase.

  11. Which one is better the 16 inch m1 Maxx late 2021 with 10 core chip, 64 gigabyte unified ram, 4 TB SSD, 16 core neutral engine, and 32 core GPU versus 16-inch M3 Max late 2023 with 16 core CPU, 48 GB unified ram, 1tb SSD, 16 core neutral engine, and 40 core GPU … Somebody anybody please let me know which one is better!!!

  12. I’d get the m1 max 16 inch at a discount, currently in my country we have the m1 max 32gb ram, 1tb storage for just about 1600 dollars, thats a freaking insane

  13. Saving 5 minutes, if you're doing 12 renders, you're saving 1 hour of waiting!! For people that do this every day, it certainly frees up a lot of time to be more creative.

  15. As a professional Blender/Maya user, this is absolutely huge. I rendered out a scene and I only noticed a small performance bump between the average times from my M1 Max vs the M3 Max, and then I noticed that I was rendering 8k images and not the 4k that I usually render and I was blown away. I’ll never need to render 8k, but wow.

  16. Hi Dan, this may have already been said, but 3D rendering isn’t something you do once a day, it may be something you do every hour, or every half hour. So if you save 5 minutes per render, that’s huge! And if you’re rendering a long animation, it’s not one frame, it might be 500 frames or more. So if you cut your render time in half, you’re killing it, and you really have to upgrade. I can’t wait for the M3 Ultras!

  17. Would love to know how it performs in actual editing in FCP. My M1 Max has slight delays when scrubbing footage that drives me crazy.

  18. I feel like ppl tend to jump to new hardware prematurely. This is evidences ESP w/ the iPhone. I'm looking rn due to some issue w/ my 1st gen M1. What I think is also interesting right now w/ Apple's new product strategy: your ram is capped depending on the chip you buy. M3 Pro chip is capped to 36GB of ram. For more you need to go to M3 Max. The lowest tier M3 Max gets you a choice of 36 or 96GB of ram (almost $1k more). I'm looking around the refurb store right now…

  21. Hey, when you do the Blender render tests, you should change to GPU rendering instead of CPU. No one is rendering 3d with CPU anymore and also the M3 chips have hardware raytracing which makes them even faster. I'm talking of at least X5 times faster than your CPU tests.

  22. I feel like the upgrade this year is mainly only worth it if you are going up a chip class. If you are on M1 Pro or M2 Pro and going to M3 Max for example.

  26. You are comparing two diferent computers. Not Apple to Apple 😂. Perhaps the only close to valid test is the single-core test.

    What I believe gives Mac this smoothness is the OS: Mac OS. I have i9 7980xe 18 cores + Nvidea 4090, and it crushes any Mac performance, especially in gaming. My daily work is the M1 max fully loaded also. Mac enjoys this Hardware and software synergy. Windows is a direct cause of Intel's suffering, and no Windows PC will match any Mac's smoothness, robustness, or reliability and general work performance.

  31. My MacBook Pro 16 with M1 Pro used 7 min and 9 sec to render the Classroom scene in Blender 3.6.5. Why is this M1 Max slower (> 8 min)? And in a Techradar review the M3 Max did this scene in 87s, half the time of MacRumors render time. How come? Different render settings? I guess Raytracing (experimental feature in v4 beta) wasn't turned on testing the M3 Max here?

  32. In real world, people also used this type of machine for development and for music production too. It would be interesting to have your thought about that considering that we already saw all the benchmarks presented here on others YouTube channels.

  37. Saving rendering time is crucial when you world on site with big team that are expecting fast renders and when you work in high intensity iterative workflow. Don’t look at the investment price but how much you can gain over the whole product cycle within your company , How many contracts can you deal with and how complex ideas you can turn it into real projects. If you spend an extra 2000$ over 3 years it’s about 800 days , and 2,5$/Day extra. if you spend 10000$ on a machine it’s 12,5$/Day … how much do you charge for your work? This is the question you have to ask yourself

  38. Marques Brownlee's takeaway from his review was there was no need to upgrade if you already have an Mx MacBook and are not wanting to go BASE -> PRO, or PRO -> MAX… and I agree, my M1 Max is still extremely impressive and does everything I need it to do as quickly as I need it to do it, so I have no plans to waste money buying a new MacBook for another year or two.

  44. I don’t really get that argument. It’s not like we sit and wait for files to export, I usually walk off and do something while I wait. I bought a M3 Max after the glowing reviews from YouTube and I don’t feel any difference in my workflow at all. I actually find it a downgrade as my other accessories are Space Gray which isn’t available now and there was a glitch on my monitor when restarting. Obviously most of us should wait for the M5 or later but it is annoying how excited the reviewers get over such minor upgrades.

  46. That's a very unprofessional review, you should not compare absolute numbers of benchmakrs, you should highlight the relative performance difference between the tests, like "40% faster" instead of something like "150 points higher".