Are M1 Pro and M1 Max chips as strong as Apple official website said? How big is the mini-LED screen? Let’s take a look.
Due to the excellent power control of M1 chip at that time, everyone seems to have a thin and powerful fantasy about the new Pro, but Apple is also telling everyone with facts that thinness and performance cannot be perfect.
The brand-new MacBook Pro 16 and the old MacBook Pro 16 are placed together, with a full thickness of an upper cover, about two one-dollar coins. At the same time, because the middle of the old fuselage is the thickest, there is a micro-arc design from the Apple LOGO to the surrounding, which seems to give people a lighter feeling.
The new hard copy G4, with complete graphic design, will have a stronger sense of weight visually.
Although the weight has only increased by 100g compared with the old model, it is really heavy. There is no waste of thickening space around the fuselage, and the fear of being dominated by four interfaces and adapters can finally end.
Full-size HDMI, SD card slots are back, and even MagSafe. It seems that Apple wants to tell users from the appearance to the interface that this time our function is greater than everything.
On the core processor, the new MacBook Pro has M1 Pro and M1 Max to choose from, from 14999 to 45999, and there are different CPU and GPU cores and different memory capacities to choose from.
So how much is the actual performance improved compared with M1? Can it replace the old 16-inch i9 processor? We also pull all these, and compete with the bloody version of M1 Pro and Max.
According to the tests of GeekBench 5 and CineBench, the CPU performance of the two new processors is the same, and the single-core performance is at the same level as that of M1.
M1 is a combination of 8 cores, 4 performance and 4 energy efficiency, while M1 Pro and Max are a combination of 10 cores, 8 performance and 2 energy efficiency. Therefore, the multi-core performance is improved by about 80% at most. Compared with the old 16-inch i9, the single-core performance is improved by about 68% and the multi-core performance is improved by about 94%.
M1 family has surpassed the old 16-inch i9 in CPU performance, and the arrival of Pro and Max has widened the gap.
However, because our old 16-inch model is still the i9 of the 9th generation, the result may be biased towards Intel, so we found a microsatellite with i9-11980HK processor. After the same running test, it is found that the performance of the 11th generation i9 is better than that of M1 chip in CPU single-core and multi-core, and it has been equivalent to M1 Pro and M1 Max under the long-term and high-load CineBench test.
Of course, running scores can’t determine everything, so we asked the later teacher to bring a C4D model for rendering and record the rendering time. This job is mainly to test CPU performance. From the results: M1 Max is the fastest, followed by M1Pro, MSI is the third, M1 is the fourth, and the old 16-inch i9 is the bottom.
Seeing this, do you think that M1 is still very strong, and the promotion of M1Pro and M1 Max doesn’t look great? But don’t forget that M-series chips are SoC, in which CPU, GPU and neural network engine are all integrated and share the running memory. This time, the upper limit of memory has been increased from 16GB in M1 to 64GB in M1 Max, which is fourfold, so we can’t just look at CPU.
In terms of GPU, through the OpenCL test of GeekBench5, it can be seen that M1, M1Pro and M1 Max have directly opened three gears due to the different number of cores, which is up to 200% compared with M1 chip.
The old 16-inch model equipped with AMDRadeon Pro 5500M performed better than M1 Pro, while the MSI equipped with RTX 3080 ran more than 110,000 points.
In the GFXBench Aztec Ruins test, which simulates the actual ability more, M series chips still have three gears, the frame rate of the old 16-inch 5500M is about 20% higher than that of M1, and the MSI 3080 is between M1 Pro and Max, with a difference of about 50% from top to bottom.
We selected an HDR material after editing and put it in FinalCut for rendering and comparison.
Whether it is H264 4K or HEVC 4K Dolby Vision, M1 Max is the fastest. Compared with the old 16-inch model, the new MacBook Pro has more advantages in both codes.
At the same time, we found that the newly added media processing engines of M1 Pro and Max play a very important role. In this actual scene, the rendering time of M1 and Max has doubled, and the gap between 18 seconds and 28 minutes is worth it for video workers.
This newly added engine has completely solved the problem that M1 chip is unfriendly to H.264 support.
Similarly, in order to compare it with MSI again, we found the regular material of the evaluation program of Huangjia, which we usually watch, and pulled it into Pr for rendering test, but we don’t need to render it yet. Obviously, M1 Pro and Max won’t get stuck in the timeline preview, and the old 16-inch model will have to wait for 2-3 seconds, while MSI will get stuck.
From the final result, the ability of MSI is also between M1 Max and M1 Pro in the actual video rendering work, which is also in line with the running expectation.
Generally speaking, the absolute performance, M1 Max is greater than the 11th generation i9+3080, M1 Pro is greater than the old 16-inch i9 is greater than M1. Of course, at present, M1 is sufficient for most people’s needs of Word, PPT, chatting and surfing the Internet.
The extra performance of M1 Max and M1 Pro is concentrated in graphics and codec ability, which is a very small range of productivity and only applies to specific people, so don’t panic for those who hold M1. These improvements are not aimed at you, and you are still a MacBook Pro.
So far, the performance improvement of M1 Pro and M1 Max is obvious, and it can be said that they can be put in their own ecology and thrown into the whole big market, and their performance is also the flagship level, but we want to tell you that from the practical experience level, M1 Pro and M1 Max are absolutely unique.
The first one I didn’t expect was the same as the MBP of M1. In the previous test scenario, it didn’t start 90% of the time, and even if it started, it was very quiet. In the indoor environment where the same C4D 4K material was rendered, the noise it brought was not worth mentioning compared with the old 16-inch and MSI.
The second thing I didn’t expect was that M1 Pro and M1Max still kept the same power control as before, and there was little difference in performance between power supply and battery supply. The material was rendered at the same time, and the power consumption only dropped by 1%; Although the old 16-inch can also be fully powered by batteries, the power directly dropped by 21%; MSI was 3 minutes slow and the power dropped by 29%.
This kind of experience improvement can be said to be epoch-making for notebook products that locate mobile productivity. Apple used its own chips to bring the power consumption and performance experience of the mobile terminal that the original iPhone and iPad had to the notebook.
That is, if we can continue to maintain a thin body and let the mobile characteristics continue to enlarge on this basis, that may be the final appearance of mobile productivity, and we are very much looking forward to how Apple will iterate in the future.
hardware
Since its own chips, and the entire macOS ecosystem, the technology tree has given the ability to create videos and graphics, and Apple, which has always paid attention to the combination of software and hardware, has naturally given a more top-level screen in the new MacBook Pro. However, everyone is definitely more interested in this bangs. This bangs are so big that they have to have a face ID just for the camera. And the shape is more prominent than the bangs of the iPhone.
In other areas, the upgrade is still very authentic. The R angle above the screen is the same as that of the fuselage, and the black edge of the screen is equal in width, which improves the visual perception a lot.
On this screen, which is much larger than the mobile phone, bangs will not affect the use too much. When reading the content, the line of sight is basically invisible. In the full-screen state, bangs and the status bar can be hidden together. Just like the demonstration at the press conference, the content will be more immersed without seeing it at all.
The camera has also been replaced with a larger sensor because of the existence of the bangs area, and the video call effect has improved a lot.
However, the cursor that everyone cares about will indeed be lost here, hidden behind the bangs, and will also occupy the status bar space. The displayed icons are not as 16 inches as the old ones.
This time, the screen material is made of mini-LED, which directly brings the global brightness performance of 1000nit and the peak brightness of 1600nit. After the test of our actual brightness meter, when displaying photos with high dynamic range, the highlight exceeds 1600nit, which is obviously improved compared with the old model.
Moreover, according to the naked eye, the details of the old bright part have all been lost, and the sky has become all white. After using it for a weekend, you can obviously feel the improvement of screen brightness every day.
With the addition of ProMotion, all kinds of sliding gestures and application zooming are smoother than before, and the system experience is smoother, which is a much stronger improvement than screen contrast.
Apple also provides several fixed frame rates to choose from to meet the special needs of creators.
At the same time, in the display option, for users who don’t need it, you can also turn off the XDR display and reduce the peak brightness to 500nit, which can also bring stronger endurance performance in theory. It can be said that while giving top-level hardware, it also gives a wealth of customization options. As I said at the beginning, this machine is dedicated to the creator and the function is supreme. The keyboard area at the bottom of the screen is directly removed from the Touch Bar.
The overall feeling of the keyboard is between the keyboard of the new iMac and the old 16-inch keyboard. Compared with the new iMac, the keyboard stroke is slightly shorter, but the feedback is stronger. Moreover, the keyboard area is designed in black, which looks very cool. At the same time, the white key characters will indeed look clearer.
On both sides are the newly designed speaker system, which supports spatial audio like the new iMac.
Let’s compare it directly with the previous generation.
(Please move to the video for 10 minutes and 55 seconds)
The new MacBook Pro comes standard with a 140W charger. The adapter is not small, but it can be seen that Apple is trying its best to control it.
MagSafe braided wire comes standard, and it can be directly attached to the computer for charging. However, this time, MagSafe is too tight, especially for sucking, and it can’t be pulled down at all. It needs to be disconnected easily from another angle, but it loses its original function of preventing cables from dragging the machine.
At the same time, after practical test, MagSafe can support 140W input, but it can only be charged with C port from the same power supply. Due to the interface limitation, the maximum input can only be 96 W. Friends who want to experience 30 minutes of fast charging on the 16-inch still need to bring MagSafe connecting cable.
summary
After the real test, I found that I could see official website’s complicated customization options more clearly. Compared with the original selection of Core chips, M1 Pro and M1 Max are more like math problems, basically, doubling the number of cores means doubling the corresponding performance, and losing two cores means 20% less, so you can take our test as a benchmark and choose according to your actual work situation, so you don’t have to worry about the number of cores.
For two brand-new chips, the performance of M1 Pro has surpassed that of the old 16-inch i9. For what we call the productivity of creative people in a smaller range, it is sufficient in most cases, while the performance of M1 Max is really the best, belonging to a smaller group of master users.
If you recommend it rationally, if you want to buy a MacBook Pro that suits you, you must consider whether you are in that productivity range, and at the same time consider to what extent you are a user, so as to choose between M1 Pro and M1 Max.
If you are an ordinary user who doesn’t have high-coding materials even when editing films at ordinary times, it is enough to choose M1 properly.
The performance of the first product of Apple’s chip transfer plan in the second year can be said to prove that Apple is extremely serious and fully prepared to do this. It can even be seen that in order to ensure the success of platform migration, the new MacBook Pro is a bit different from Apple.
For the most stable platform experience, there is no further exploration in industrial design; Controversial designs such as Thunderbolt interface and Touch Bar have also chosen to return to users.
Putting the actual needs and functions before Apple’s insistence is only to win professional users who are still hesitant about platform migration as soon as possible. This may not be your final fantasy about MacBook Pro, but it is the most suitable choice for current Apple and professional users.