For the first time in my life, I’m in the market for a personal MBP. I had to get my ancient MBP for work replaced last week and they sent me one of the new 14" M2 Pro models and I absolutely love it. As I spent more time with it, I decided I think I want a piece of the new MBP line.
During the course of my initial belaboring of the options (primarily: 14 vs 16, M2 Pro vs Max) and the fact that I’m a manchild who doesn’t want to wait 3 weeks for a more customized build, I’ve kind of landed on the default configurations for the M2 Max in both 14 and 16 inch - this would allow me to simply pay for the thing online with my Apple card, get my monthly installments, and just leave the house and go push through the throngs of people at the Apple store to pick it up near instantly. I popped by an Apple store y esterday just to get some face-to-face time with a 16 inch to decide if I could stomach the size.
I have an old ThinkPad X1 Big Dong Xtreme Edition or whatever ridiculous marketing name it had and that thing is 17" and a bit too… I dont know. It feels like a lunch tray in the lap and it could heat a 2k sq. ft. house when it really gets going. If I had used it extensively (I didn’t) the heat probably would have sterilized me and cooked my legs with enough time.
But that doesn’t mean I’m 200% AGAINST a 16" MBP, just that a 14" would be somewhat preferable. The concerns I’m seeing about overheating and throttling of an M2 Max in the 14" form factor are somewhat concerning, but as I dig deeper, there seem to be two camps here. One who says they will NEVER buy a laptop where there is ANY compromise involved (which is frankly kind of silly) and they go on to really bash the 14" heating/throttling issue, and another - seemingly more sensible - camp that states that overheating and throttling is something that the vast majority of even professional users likely won’t experience often - if at all. They say that the benchmarks being run are putting excessive, incredible load on these chips that will rarely - if ever - be seen in anything but the most absolutely demanding use cases… which I understand is how benchmarks often work.
For the record, my intended uses for the laptop will be primarily writing code (mostly Python, maybe some Golang) and music production, primarily in FL Studio (post v20, where they added support for Apple Silicon - VSTs I like to use might be another issue here entirely in that regard, but I’m emotionally prepared for that fight).
So what’s the deal? Should I say “fuck it” and spring for the 16" with the Max chip? Or does the 14" sound fine for my uses/are the complaints totally overblown?
EDIT: I think I’m calling it here. The 14" Max model I’m looking at is $3099. If I was to take the Pro build and bump it to 32GB RAM, the price difference becomes only $200 - a difference I can stomach for the convenience of getting it as soon as I drag my lazy ass out of the chair and drive to the Apple store for same-day pickup. Everyone’s feedback is HIGHLY appreciated.
None of your workloads will require anything from the GPU so I doubt you’ll experience much, if any, throttling. That said, that means you are also paying more for the GPU in the M2 Max that you won’t be using vs the M2 Pro.
I might do some light gaming on it, but that’s really what my Steam Deck is for. I’d personally consider the added GPU power a road into maybe learning 3d modeling/rendering or animation or something down the road for fun, so really just hobbyist level stuff.
So the heat/throttling is really coming from/caused by heat generated by the GPU and not the CPU cores, then?
Although at that point, you could also leave it for down the road, and consider the extra GPU when you need it. You’ll just be wasting money on a contingency you’re unlikely to make use of.
The heat is probably from having to cool both. It’s probably able to handle either the CPU or GPU cores running full-tilt, but struggles if both of them are generating heat.
This might be a hot take but I have used both a 16” M1 Max and a 14” with a M2 Pro with very similar use cases to you and I would just get a 14 with a M2 Pro if it was me. You won’t need the Max and you will get better battery life with the Pro, I didn’t even notice the missing cores because apple silicon just feels so much faster overall. I didn’t notice any heat throttling on the 14” either, the fans barely ran at all.
For my money, the 14” MBP with an M2 Pro might be my favorite computer Apple has ever created that I have used (have used almost every generation of MBP since the titanium one). Just my 2c but hope it helps!
With this take, you (and others, from my research) are really making me lean towards putting on my big boy pants and maybe just ordering a 14" with an M2 Pro and 32GB RAM (the 32GB makes it a non-default build and jumps the wait time to about 3 weeks). I really wish there was a 14" Pro chip variant with 32GB as a default.
More RAM will always give you more longevity than more CPU. It is my policy to never buy the default configuration of any Mac, because they always have too little RAM.
I dont disagree with this fully, but the default 14" Max build has 32GB and that’s what i’d consider a sweet spot for having a DAW open with a bunch of synthesizers in there and a browser with a bunch of tabs open. The era of 16GB being more than enough is over.
You are absolutely right on that, both of those had 32GB of memory and I would call that my minimum these days as well, should have mentioned that too. I had to give the 14” back when I left a job and I still miss it haha. It’s worth the wait for the memory, it’s really annoying that they require a special build for that but I suppose they want people to spring for the Max.
Also, I have an M2 MBA with 16GB of memory currently as a personal/family machine because I didn’t want to wait for a custom build with 24 and I really should have, 16 just isn’t enough anymore for me anymore but it was useful to prove that to myself again (I guess, haha).
I sit here in my ivory tower, casting judgment on 16GB weaklings… while typing all of this from my old gaming desktop which has just 16GB. hahaha (all my gaming happens on a Steam Deck now which also only has 16… but all it does it run steam and video games, so it suffices)
HAH I just upgraded my gaming machine not too long ago, CitiesSkylines finally pushed it over the edge.
I’ve never personally used the machine you’re referring to, but unless you’re doing long video renders it likely won’t matter. Programming takes very little resources, even when using a debugger, compared to the torture tests reviewers use. Any heavy load comes in bursts of compiling/interpreting which also don’t hit the machine anywhere close to as hard. Music production might be a bit more strenuous, but still well within the area of not having issues.
I’d say stick with the 14" if that’s what you prefer. It’s not designed to render videos 24/7, but even if you did that it’s still pretty damn fast even when throttling.
I think music production is really more about the processor itself and the available memory (I don’t bounce SHIT to audio because there’s always room for last minute tweaks to the 20 synthesizer patches I have open at one time lol) - so from what I’m seeing, you might be right. Now its a matter of deciding to splurge a bit and going with the Max which I can go pick up any time or being a patient person and ordering a Pro with 32GB.
The Max would be major overkill, and might actually be worse for you because of the worse battery life to drive the higher power draw chip. My personal laptop is a 16" M1 Pro MBP and I’ve never had it hitch on me. My work laptop is a similar spec 14" and I regularly run a dozen of programs at once (Outlook, Slack, Chime, dozens of Firefox tabs, Music, and 3 to 4 IntelliJ instances) without issue. Occasionally it does get a little warm when I’m doing 30+ minute builds, but that is akin to many torture tests reviewers use.
Overblown. Thermally they are the best laptops. The only way to get better thermally is to move to a non-laptop.
I develop software for a living (primarily python and js) and I’ve only heard the fan spin up once on my 14" 10 core m1 MacBook Pro. I had to put my ear right up to the vent to even notice it.
Unless you’re doing long-running multicore compilations or something, you won’t even come close to throttling.
These machines are nuts.
If I was solely interested in using it to write code, I might just say screw it and buy an Air or the 10-core M2. My goals here are pretty much: writing code, music production, lots of browser tabs, and a laptop that will last me a MINIMUM of 5 years. The last point is why I’m looking to the higher end vs. the lower/sensible/reasonable end. Oh, and the possibility of doing graphical stuff for fun, but it won’t be rendering hour long 8k videos.
Short version is yes.
If you look at the videos to show the “problem”, they’re doing long sustained super heavy workloads and the throttling is pretty minor. If you’re really worried about it, for static long workloads you can get a cooling pad on Amazon (or wherever) that’s basically a big mesh with a big fan that props the laptop up slightly and adds airflow under the bottom (especially helpful with metal laptops like MacBooks because their whole body functions as a heatsink to disperse heat). But I’m guessing you won’t see the need to use it.
I’m arriving at basically the same conclusion. Thanks for the feedback!
