Mac hardware
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Do you really need an M3 Max?
Q I’m considering trading in my MacBook Pro 16-inch M1 Max for its M3 equivalent. Do I need an M3 Max, or would a Pro suffice?
by MARK GALVIN
A Depending on model and option, you’d pay £400-£700 more for an M3 Max. With its extra cores it’s also likely to use significantly more power, resulting in shorter endurance between recharging.
As you’re already using an Apple silicon Mac, one good way to check whether your new Mac would make good use of those additional cores is to monitor their use with Activity Monitor’s CPU History window while doing your normal work on that Mac. Most user tasks are run preferentially on the Performance (P) cores; an M1 Max has eight, in two clusters of four.