Apple (Hacker News, MacRumors):
With M4, MacBook Pro is up to 1.8x faster than the 13-inch MacBook Pro with M1 for tasks like editing gigapixel photos, and even more demanding workloads like rendering complex scenes in Blender are up to 3.4x faster. With a Neural Engine that’s over 3x more powerful than in M1, it’s great for features in Apple Intelligence and other AI workloads. The M4 model also supports two high-resolution external displays in addition to the built-in display, and now features three Thunderbolt 4 ports so users can connect all their peripherals.
[…]
The new MacBook Pro with M4 Pro is up to 3x faster than models with M1 Pro, speeding up workflows like geo mapping, structural engineering, and data modeling.
[…]
With M4 Max, MacBook Pro delivers up to 3.5x the performance of M1 Max, ripping through heavy creative workloads like visual effects, 3D animation, and film scoring.
[…]
The new MacBook Pro introduces an all-new nano-texture display option that dramatically reduces glare and distractions from reflections.
[…]
MacBook Pro includes a new 12MP Center Stage camera that delivers enhanced video quality in challenging lighting conditions.
[…]
MacBook Pro with M4 Pro and M4 Max features Thunderbolt 5 ports that more than double transfer speeds up to 120 Gb/s, enabling faster external storage, expansion chassis, and powerful docking and hub solutions.
The nano-texture display and its non-crazy price are my favorite news here. There are still only 3 Thunderbolt ports, whereas the Intel MacBook Pros had 4. If more Thunderbolt 5 ports are not possible, I wish they would add some USB-C ports, like with the Mac mini. I’d also still like to see a smaller trackpad.
I’m still quite happy with my M1 Pro MacBook Pro, except for when a Lightroom import destroys it. However, this is a tempting upgrade; I’m mainly put off by the RAM and SSD prices. I would probably get it if I used the internal display more.
Jason Snell:
Unlike last year, where only more expensive configurations gained access to the Space Black shade, this year all MacBook Pro models come in just Silver and Space Black, even the base M4 model.
[…]
All three chip levels get a major webcam upgrade to the 12MP Center stage camera, which is the first Mac laptop webcam upgrade in quite a while. And Apple is claiming that all models can get up to 24 hours of battery life, which seems like a bit of a major milestone, even though (as always) battery life is not a simple thing to measure, and can vary widely based on how you use the computer in question.
Jonathan Deutsch:
The battery characteristics on the M4 vs M4 Pro vs M4 Max are interesting.
If you were hoping for a battery life upgrade like me from the M1 Pro, going for the M4 Max would not do very much.
Previously:
Update (2024-10-31): Joe Rossignol:
The new MacBook Pro models unveiled today feature display brightness enhancements in both bright outdoor lighting and low lighting.
Joe Rossignol:
Center Stage is available in video calling apps like FaceTime and Zoom. The feature was previously limited to newer iPad models and Macs connected to Apple's external Studio Display. The new MacBook Pro and iMac models are the first Macs to support Center Stage without needing to rely on a Studio Display.
I hope the video quality is better than on the Studio Display. The fact that the camera is 12MP doesn’t mean much if it’s only using part of the image.
Shadowfacts:
The RAM ceiling for the Pro chip has technically increased to 64GB, but unfortunately it’s almost moot because, on the laptop, “64GB or 128GB available with M4 Max with 40-core GPU.” It’s an artificial limitation, the Mac mini doesn’t have the same constraint.
I would probably go for 64 GB instead of 48 GB if I could get it with the M4 Pro, but I don’t need or want the M4 Max.
Adam Engst:
Apple’s storage prices are sky-high: you can buy an external 8 TB SSD for $500–$600, compared with Apple’s $2200, and it’s easy to find SSDs under $75 per terabyte.
[…]
Personally, I’m most intrigued by the 14-inch MacBook Pro with the base-level M4 chip because it can drive a pair of external displays. I rely on two 27-inch displays, but until now, that would have required either an expensive MX Pro-level machine or closing the lid on an M3 MacBook Pro or M3 MacBook Air.
Mitchel Broussard:
Best Buy is already providing early pre-order discounts exclusively to My Best Buy Plus and Total members at up to $150 off.
Adam Chandler:
So $50-$150 off a brand new computer and members get AppleCare ($279-$399 value) included.
I’m still so curious how BestBuy can just advertise these prices as an Apple Premium Reseller.
Adam Chandler:
Here’s an article from 2012 (LOL) talking about Apple’s advertised price rules retailers have to follow.
Clearly something changed.
Previously:
Update (2024-11-08): Tim Hardwick:
The first wave of reviews of Apple’s new M4-powered MacBook Pro models were published this morning. We’ve collected some of the latest impressions from YouTube channels and select media outlets below.
Jason Snell:
I’m happy to report that, as of now, the $1599 base-model 14-inch MacBook Pro really feels like a full member of the family.
[…]
Laptops are designed to be portable. That means they can be used in uncontrollable conditions, and this display is more resilient in those situations. Of course, you may also be able to turn your chair to a different angle and solve the problem that way. It’s up to you to decide if you’d rather trade a little contrast for some dramatic glare reduction.
[…]
With the M4, the MacBook Pro’s FaceTime camera has been upgraded from a 1080p model to a new 12MP Center Stage camera. I can hear the groans now, but here’s the thing: This isn’t the same sensor as in some previous Center Stage cameras. It seems better, though for whatever reason, it doesn’t look as good as the one in the M4 iMac.
Jaron Schneider:
The MacBook Pro has been very prone to glare over the years and would have to rely solely on pure brightness to overcome it. Now it has another tool in its arsenal although the implementation is slightly different than nano-texture has been on previous Apple devices like the Pro Display XDR and iPad Pro. While those two devices have a layer of glass which is then etched with the nano-texture, the MacBook Pro doesn’t use that same glass cover. The nano-texture is, therefore, instead embedded on the inside of the display. The effect is the same, or similar enough, and Apple includes its special polishing cloth too, but it’s not strictly “necessary” to use to clean the MacBook Pro display (although it is recommended).
In practice, the nano-texture display has, to me, no downsides. Indoors, I didn’t notice anything different about the display versus the M3 Max MacBook Pro from last year. Outside, in direct sunlight, is a different story.
[…]
The M4 Max performs pretty much how we expected [with Lightroom]: it’s faster than the M3 Max, M4 Pro, and M1 Ultra, but slower than both a high-end PC and the M2 Ultra. It’s not much slower than those two desktop machines, however. It’s an excellent showing and is the fastest laptop we’ve ever tested.
Previously:
Update (2024-11-15): Juli Clover:
The M4 MacBook Pro models feature quantum dot display technology, according to display analyst Ross Young. Apple used a quantum dot film instead of a red KSF phosphor film, a change that provides more vibrant, accurate color results.
Update (2024-11-18): See also: Hacker News.
Apple Hardware Announcement Apple M4 Apple M4 Max Apple M4 Pro Hardware Mac MacBook Pro macOS 15 Sequoia
Apple (Hacker News, MacRumors):
All three chips are built using industry-leading, second-generation 3-nanometer technology, which improves performance and power efficiency. The CPUs across the M4 family feature the world’s fastest CPU core, delivering the industry’s best single-threaded performance, and dramatically faster multithreaded performance. The GPUs build on the breakthrough graphics architecture introduced in the previous generation, with faster cores and a 2x faster ray-tracing engine. M4 Pro and M4 Max enable Thunderbolt 5 for the Mac for the first time, and unified memory bandwidth is greatly increased — up to 75 percent. Combined with a Neural Engine that’s up to 2x faster than the previous generation and enhanced machine learning (ML) accelerators in the CPUs, the M4 family of chips brings incredible performance for pro and AI workloads.
[…]
M4 Pro features an up to 14-core CPU consisting of up to 10 performance cores and four efficiency cores. It’s up to 1.9x faster than the CPU of M1 Pro, and up to 2.1x faster than the latest AI PC chip. The GPU features up to 20 cores for graphics performance that is 2x that of M4, and up to 2.4x faster than the latest AI PC chip. […] M4 Pro supports up to 64GB of fast unified memory and 273GB/s of memory bandwidth, which is a massive 75 percent increase over M3 Pro and 2x the bandwidth of any AI PC chip.
[…]
M4 Max is the ultimate choice for data scientists, 3D artists, and composers who push pro workflows to the limit. It has an up to 16-core CPU, with up to 12 performance cores and four efficiency cores. It’s up to 2.2x faster than the CPU in M1 Max and up to 2.5x faster than the latest AI PC chip. The GPU has up to 40 cores for performance that is up to 1.9x faster than M1 Max and up to an astounding 4x faster than the latest AI PC chip. […] M4 Max supports up to 128GB of fast unified memory and up to 546GB/s of memory bandwidth, which is 4x the bandwidth of the latest AI PC chip.
The RAM ceiling for the Pro chip has increased from 36 GB to 64 GB, but for the Max it’s unchanged at 128 GB.
Here’s a summary of the cores situation:
| Regular | Pro | Max |
|---|
| M1 | 4p/4e | 8p/2e | 8p/2e |
|---|
| M2 | 4p/4e | 8p/4e | 8p/4e |
|---|
| M3 | 4p/4e | 6p/6e | 12p/4e |
|---|
| M4 | 4p/6e | 10p/4e | 12p/4e |
|---|
So this seems like a bit of a return to form, where the Pro is closer to the Max, and the Max is mostly attractive for GPU performance and RAM capacity, rather than the CPU. (And you need a $900 BTO option to get those extra 2 cores on the M4 Max.)
Previously:
Update (2024-10-31): Andrew Cunningham:
Because Apple staggered its product and chip announcements, we’ve gathered some basic specs from all versions of the M4, M4 Pro, and M4 Max to help compare them to the outgoing M2 and M3 chip families, including the slightly cut-down versions that Apple sells in the cheaper new Macs. We’ve also rounded up some of Apple’s performance claims, so people with older Macs can see exactly what they’re getting if they upgrade (Apple still likes to use the M1 as a baseline, acknowledging that the year-over-year gains are sometimes minor and that many people are still getting by just fine with some version of the M1 chip).
Hartley Charlton:
So how do the three latest-generation Apple silicon chips compare and which should you choose?
Update (2024-11-04): AppleLeaker (via Hacker News):
Apple’s M4 Max is the first production CPU to pass 4000 Single-Core score in Geekbench 6.
The M4 Max is faster than the M2 Ultra in almost every way (90% as powerful as M2 Ultra in GPU). Simply incredible.
Joe Rossignol (Hacker News):
Impressively, the results that are available so far show that the highest-end M4 Pro chip is faster than the highest-end M2 Ultra chip in terms of peak multi-core CPU performance.
I’m not sure how the benchmark is constructed, but that’s surprising given that the M2 Ultra has 10 more cores.
Joe Rossignol:
Based on the Metal scores that are available so far, the M4 Pro and M4 Max are up to around 40% and 25% faster for graphics than the M3 Pro and M3 Max chips, respectively.
Joe Rossignol:
The first Geekbench 6 benchmark results for the high-end M4 Max chip with a 16-core CPU surfaced today, and they show that the chip is up to 25% faster than the high-end M2 Ultra chip with a 24-core CPU in terms of peak multi-core CPU performance.
[…]
As we mentioned in our previous reporting, you can now purchase a Mac mini with a 14-core M4 Pro for $1,599 in the U.S. and get similar to faster peak performance than a Mac Studio with the 24-core M2 Ultra, a configuration that starts at $3,999.
Howard Oakley:
As these are complicated by sub-variants and binned versions, I have brought the details together in a table.
[…]
I’ve been looking to replace my original Mac Studio M1 Max. As it looks likely that an M4 version of the Studio won’t be announced until well into next year, I’m taking the opportunity to shrink its already modest size to that of a new Mac mini. What better choice than an M4 Pro with 10 P and 4 E cores and a 20-core GPU, and the optional 10 Gb Ethernet?
Update (2024-11-11): Howard Oakley (Hacker News):
All CPU cores are arranged in clusters of up to 6. All cores within any given cluster share L2 cache, and are run at the same frequency (clock speed). The Base M4 has a single cluster of 4 P cores, while the Pro and Max have two clusters of 5 and 6 cores respectively.
[…]
Threads are normally allocated by macOS to an available P core when their designated Quality of Service (QoS) is higher than 9 (Background), for example when using Dispatch, formerly branded Grand Central Dispatch (GCD). Running threads may also be moved periodically between P cores in the same cluster, and between clusters. Previous M-series chips appear to move threads less frequently, and may leave them to run to completion after several seconds on the same core, but threads appear to be considerably more mobile when running on M4 P cores.
Andreas Hegenberg:
The only benchmark that matters to me: Clean build of BetterTouchTool on M1 Max: 182s, on M4 Max: 99s (in general building seems significantly slower on Xcode 16 than on older Xcode versions)
Previously:
Update (2024-11-13): Sherief, FYI:
Apple has the best CPU scheduler and the only one that takes efficiency (perf/watt) and thermal headroom into account that I know of. Incredible work really.
Howard Oakley:
All virtualised threads are treated by the host as if they are running at high Quality of Service (QoS), so are preferentially allocated to P cores, even though their original thread may be running at the lowest QoS. This has the side-effect of running virtual background processes considerably quicker than real background threads on the host.
Andreas Osthoff:
The M3 generation already offered extremely good single-core performance, leaving the competition from AMD, Intel and Qualcomm in the dust. Only Intel’s new desktop processor, the Core Ultra 9 285K, was on a comparable level to the M3 SoCs. Apple has stepped up its game even more with its new M4 processors, further widening the gap massively. The P-cores’ maximum clock rate, which is about 500 Mhz higher, results in a performance boost of over 20% compared to the M3 models.
[…]
Depending on the test, its lead over the old M3 Pro with 12 cores was between 47-57% and, as a result, the new M4 Pro is on par with the old full M3 Max. This is a considerable increase in performance and, especially within the 14-inch field, the new M4 Pro faces no competition—neither from AMD, Qualcomm nor Intel. The only exception in this case is the Ryzen AI 9 HX370 inside the Asus TUF A14, which can permanently consume 80 watts and performed slightly better in the CB-R23 test.
Update (2024-11-18): Howard Oakley (Hacker News):
E cores running low QoS threads at close to minimum frequency take about four times as long, 38.5 seconds, but use less than 45 mW power per thread. Total energy used to complete one thread is therefore over 23 J when run on P cores, and less than 1.7 J when run on E cores. E cores therefore use only 7% of the energy that P cores do performing the same task.
Update (2024-11-22): Howard Oakley:
In this series I concentrate on much narrower concepts of performance in CPU cores, to provide deeper insight into topics such as core types and energy efficiency. This article examines the in-core performance of P and E cores, and how they differ.
[…]
P core frequencies have increased substantially since the M1. If we set that as 100%, M3 P cores run at around 112-126% of that frequency, and those in the M4 at 140%.
Update (2024-11-25): Howard Oakley:
This article tries to estimate the cost in terms of power and energy of running identical tests on M4 P and E cores, and thereby provide insight into some of the most distinctive features of Apple silicon, and their benefits.
Update (2024-11-27): Howard Oakley:
From early work by Dougall Johnson on the M1, it has been known that some of the functions in Apple’s vast Accelerate maths libraries can run code on the AMX. Thanks to the guidance of Maynard Handley, a year ago I concluded that one of those is the vDSP_mmul function in the vDSP sub-library. This article reports tests of that function in a Mac mini M4 Pro running Sequoia 15.1.1, leads on to an explanation of previous results using floating point and NEON tests, and considers the effects of Power Modes.
Update (2024-12-03): Howard Oakley:
When running on Apple silicon Macs, macOS modulates ‘cluster HW active frequency’ of P cores, limiting frequency to below maximum when cluster total active residency exceeds 100%.
Although small in M1 variants, this is most prominent in M4 variants, where a total active residency of 300% may reduce cluster frequency to 87% of maximum.
Frequency limitation is most probably part of a pre-emptive strategy in thermal management.
Update (2024-12-06): Howard Oakley:
For the purposes of this article, I’ll consider a single thread that macOS is ready to load onto a CPU core for execution. For that to happen, five decisions are to be made:
- which type of core, P or E,
- which cluster to run it in,
- which core within that cluster,
- what frequency to run that cluster at,
- the mobility of that thread between cores in the same cluster, and between clusters (when available).
Apple Hardware Announcement Apple M4 Max Apple M4 Pro Mac Processors
Jason Snell:
I got up and running in no time because I keep a USB drive permanently attached to my Mac Studio, and make sure it’s a complete clone of my drive. When I reinstalled macOS Sequoia, I was able to use Migration Assistant to restore from my cloned backup drive, and it returned me to more or less the same state I had been in when the computer died.
[…]
Yes, I also do a Time Machine backup—because it’s nice to have redundancy and it can be helpful in grabbing a file that’s changed in the past. It used to be that Time Machine was a must-have because your cloned disk wasn’t really a backup, since it only contained the most recent view of your disk, and if a file was deleted a few days earlier, it would not be retrievable.
But with the advent of Apple’s APFS filesystem, tools like Carbon Copy Cloner use the APFS snapshot feature to fill up all the excess space on your backup drive—remember, I bought a 2TB drive for a 1TB disk—with previous versions of your disk. So there are some extra layers of protection, though I’m still running Time Machine and Backblaze too. You can never have enough data protection.
It’s nice that Migration Assistant makes it so easy to restore. The downside is that it can be slow, even if the clone is on an SSD. Back in the day you could just boot directly from the clone and be up and running almost immediately. It helps to keep the bulk of your data files on separate drives or partition so that restoring the home folder doesn’t take as long.
Howard Oakley:
Over the last few weeks I’ve had several questions from those trying to use TM in more demanding circumstances. This article explains how you can design volume layout and backup exclusions for the most efficient backups in such cases.
Previously:
Update (2024-11-01): Howard Oakley:
By archiving, I mean putting precious files somewhere they can be retrieved in at least ten years time. They may include financial, business, employment and personal records, as well as all finished work that you want to record for posterity. For most, they’ll also include a careful selection of still images, movies, and the more important documents you might create, such as books, theses and papers. They’re what you and the law want you to keep in perpetuity, and to be able to retrieve even after you’re gone.
To see how this can be achieved, I consider: the storage medium to be used, file formats that will be retrievable, how to index them for access, physical storage conditions, and the checks of their integrity that are needed.
[…]
If you’re serious about maintaining your archives, some form of integrity checking, such as that provided by my free utilities Dintch, Fintch and cintch, is essential. Check a sample on each disk once a year, to ensure that none has started to deteriorate. If you do detect errors, that’s the time to burn a replacement before the original is lost to decay.
I use USB sticks and hard drives for my archives and DropDMG and EagleFiler for integrity checking.
Apple File System (APFS) Backup Carbon Copy Cloner DropDMG EagleFiler Mac macOS 15 Sequoia Migration Assistant SuperDuper Time Machine
