In my opinion, M3 having ray tracing is the biggest upgrade.

Honestly for the iPad Air there's not much difference between the M1, M2, and M3. The only obvious differences between the M1 and M2/M3 is that the latter comes in a larger size (13") and is only compatible with the Pencil Pro/new Magic Keyboard.

Get the M3 if you want something that'll be supported for the longest, and get the M1 if you want to save (it'll still be supported long, just not as long as the M3).

What horsepower do you need exactly?

in one-line. is this good or bad?

So 20ish percent guess I’m sticking to m1 still 🐱

Seems like the only meaningful jump is from the gpu side, and it’s really hard to justify buying for gpu power when Apple isn’t doing enough to get games on mac

Not all heros wear capes! Cheers!

I just made a table of comparison M1 through M3 chip of CPU performance using online data to show the difference.

Source of data:

https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/apple-macbook-pro-14-inch-2023-m3-pro

https://www.check-mac.com/en/benchmark-cinebench\_r23-10

It depends on the task. The M4 is was also not released as a new benchmark in speed. It’s a new platform that all other Apple products will be based on going forward. If you buy an M4 product it’s probably going to have the most shelf life of any Apple product in history at this point.

When I was looking at buying one, it was just after the M4s were launched. I was on Best Buys site and I looked at a base M4 and a mid-spec M3 Pro. I ultimately ended up buying the base M4 because I decided that for what I do on my computer the base M4 was more than enough for me. I honestly would’ve been fine with an M3 Air but I wanted the better display of the MBP.

Interesting take! A bit curious about “clamshell mode” though, I have a MacBook Air M3 from work and I can run it with 2 external monitors + laptop open via a docking station. Not sure which model the docking station is since it’s on my desk at work, I just know I had to download some Displaylink(?) software for it to work properly.

This is great.

Question: Why did you feel to upgrade from your M1 Max? I have one and can’t imagine needing to upgrade for a good while.

Yes m3 with 36gb ram is best ❤️

Get the M2. On iPadOS you probably won’t even be able to tell the difference between even M1 and M3.

You won't.

99% of the users will not notice the difference in performance between M1, M2 and M3.

Pytorch supports MPS device. I am not sure if it was implemented using NPU or GPU but it is fast. Just buy what you can afford, my M1 works just fine

For libraries like tensorflow and pytorch, NPUs are nightmare to setup. Basically, use a dedicated GPU, ideally Nvidia because CUDA of course.

I am not sure if NPUs are even used in Pytorch with mps, but numerous number of tests show that the performance in gaming and other gpu related tasks is nearly linear. Twice the gpu cores - twice the speed. If you really need inference locally, then I would not even think about base M chips.

My cheapy M1 could easily handle this.

I mean I say just get the m4. With the student discount, which they don’t check, it’s so cheap and you’ll have to for 10+ years. Just get the latest one, even for the sake of it being support probably the longest.

M4, use your edu discount to get it to 899.

If you're keeping it for a long time, definitely save up and get the latest if possible. 

Get the least expensive deal you can find. For your needs, they perform the same. If I gave you an M4, then a week later an M2, you wouldn’t know I switched them.

I found this post because I was wondering if they were the same keyboard internals as well. I recently bought a 14 inch M3 Pro and noticed more noise from the keyboard when I touch the keys, or rest my fingers on the keys, than on my 14 inch M2 Pro laptop from work. When I touch the key caps on the M2 Pro they feel..."fully connected" is how I would describe it, with almost no noise when I rest my fingers on the keys. When I touch the M3 Pro keys the key caps sort of "wiggle" more and there is a more audible tap sound from it while typing...making it seem more "clicky." to me. The actual travel feels about the same to me.

I'm sure if I didn't have both I wouldn't have noticed any difference and since OP is seeing the exact opposite, it probably just boils down to parts and assembly tolerances.

I didn't have any of them so long but when I bought the M1 Pro it was nearly 2 years old and had a shiny keyboard. I think the more you wipe/clean it regularly the longer it will take to become shiny.

Preferring an external keyboard at stationary use is definitely a good idea.

i have had my m3 pro now for 45 days and daily use. it gets at least 3-4 hours daily, some days is longer, close to 7 hours. my spacebar has two shiny spots now on it. all the other keys seem to be pretty good

It’s all the same chasis , just different internals

I used the M1, M2, M3 Pro models recently and for me the quality feels the same.

The major downside of the keyboards is that it gets shiny after a while. It's ridiculous that Apple produces such quality machines but can't prevent that aspect of their keyboards.

I used an old Lenovo Thinkpad P50 before switching to the holy ecosystem and that keyboard feels amazing compared to the M1-3 Pro keyboards.

I've had some that startet getting shiny after a month of light use, and I keep my hands very clean since I know about the shiny key issue.

I think all the 14 and 16 inch models all have the same keyboard no matter the chip

M3 supports hardware-based raytracing, so as soon as this gets supported in games it might give a significant advantage over M1 and M2.

Imho you'd be better of getting a higher spec previous generation version than a base newer version (ik it's a handful). ex. M1 Pro over the M2 etc. Also id take a look at getting those extra gpu cores for more intense games.

I'd personally take a look at what games you usually play and if you wouldn't be able to run it on an M chip MacBook, would you be better off....?

1. Getting an intel MacBook (don't hate me for this). At least if there's a game you love you'd be able to have more chance of running it via bootcamp (just make sure you'll actually be able to run it)

2. Finding a similar alternative that would be playable on the M chip MacBooks. For windows games I'm using crossover as of now and it runs amazing. They have a 14 day trial as well. There are also free alternatives but I'm not too familiar with them so I would ask r/macgaming for more info.

Any M series air with 16/512 should do. Framerates in Mac native games will be best on M3, as it's the newest chip, but generally still playable on M2 and even M1. M3pro and M3max chips are substantially more powerful, but with the limited number of Mac native games, it's really not very cost effective to spend $500 to $1000+ extra on getting a Macbook Pro just to run games better. You'd be better off getting a Macbook Air and spending the extra money on a console or handheld, like Rog Ally or Steamdeck.

Think you will get more actual insights over on r/macgaming

I use porting kit to play windows games. You can get some decent fps for a lot of games. Older gen games from pc are fun. Some newer game’s might not play nice. For gaming newest chip is usually better but getting a deal on a pro chip from previous gen is a good idea