The M3 MacBook Pro represents the most recent achievement of Apple silicon, the company's three-year-old endeavour to produce its own processing chips. Along with being the second MacBook Pro of 2023 (so long, M2 MacBook Pros), it also sports a more powerful chipset that enhances gaming performance. It's true that I mentioned gaming performance on a MacBook Pro.
The fact that Apple is using a standard, vanilla M3 chip inside the 14-inch MacBook Pro body is perhaps the most intriguing aspect of the M3 MacBook Pro lineup. This marks the end of the 13-inch MacBook Pro, a device that never lived up to the hype and had a badly ageing design. With the exception of the sophisticated Space Black, this autumn's model of the MacBook Pro looks almost exactly like earlier models, but it's still very intriguing. I've been trying out two of these MacBooks for the past week in order to help you decide which is best for you and whether you should upgrade.
Because even though these are the best MacBooks ever made, their price means you'll need to shop around before deciding to buy one.
What we found appealing about it:
M3 offers performance that you might not know how to use.
Frequently, the M3 MacBook Pros shout, "Never let 'em see you sweat." During the last week of testing, I used both of the M3 MacBook Pros for daily use, and neither of them even flinched when I opened any of the macOS and iOS apps that I use on a daily basis. However, the M3 Pro and Max are designed to withstand the extremely high demands of professionals in the fields of architecture, coding, medicine, and 4K film editing who need to render high-resolution 3D visuals.
I just opened everything I had to try to put some stress on these machines. Numerous tabs open in Chrome, Safari, and Arc, a new Chromium-based browser, in addition to numerous other apps. What is a tonne of? So, to list a few that worked flawlessly together: Discord, Pixelmator Pro, Messages, Reeder, 1Password, Apple Maps (yes, really), Photos, Notes, Apple News, Overcast, Spotify, Carrot Weather, and all of my productivity apps, including the Gmail client, Mimestream, Todoist, Draughts, Slack, Fantastical, Due, Ulysses, and Structured all come highly recommended. Yes, even Steam.
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Geekbench 6 |
3,066 |
11,650 |
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Geekbench 6 |
2,965 |
20,919 |
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CPU, Memory |
8-core CPU,16GB |
16-core CPU,48GB |
Our benchmarks demonstrated Apple silicon's power.
Regarding improvements from year to year, the Geekbench 5 benchmark scores of the M3 MacBook Pro were approximately 18% to 20% higher than those of the 13-inch M2 MacBook Pro.
The battery life of both the 14-inch and 16-inch models is robust.
Strong endurance times on our looping 4K video battery test, with the M3 MacBook Pros surpassing their M2 series counterparts by up to four hours, clocking in at roughly 10 hours, give or take.
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(M3 Max) |
(M2 Pro) |
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Battery Life |
9 hours, |
10 hours, |
7 hours, |
9 hours, |
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ChargesVia |
USB-C, |
USB-C, |
USB-C, |
USB-C, |
What altered? With the goal of increasing efficiency, Apple's (and the world's) first computer chip built on 3-nanometer technology is the M3.
Modern games can finally be enjoyed on the Mac, and more are on the way.
Throughout the past ten or so years, bringing up the topic of gaming on Macs has been a surefire way to start arguments. That's correct, the Mac was initially used to develop the highly regarded first-person shooter Halo. It's true that Apple Arcade offers a few noteworthy titles. However, for a variety of reasons, Macs and the largest video games were jumbled together like dipole and magnet.
It seems that the conversation is about to take a different turn. Within two months of its PC release, one of the biggest games of 2023, Baldur's Gate 3, made its way to the Mac. Furthermore, it appears amazing in 4K with Ultra graphics turned on on the 16-inch MacBook Pro with M3 Max hardware that I tested, particularly when the crimson-haired character Karlach emerges from a pod to attempt to decipher what the hell is going on. Though VSYNC was able to repair a small amount of tearing, I did notice a few oddities, including a stripe pattern that appeared on skin and clothing under certain lighting conditions. The latter problem eluded me, but overall performance seems to be OK, suggesting that this is just a small game bug. We hope to see this type of bug swiftly resolved on the Mac, as it is often fixed on PC games.
I launched Resident Evil Village, which is available for purchase through Apple's App Store as opposed to Baldur's Gate 3, which is available through Steam, to examine how other well-known games function on the Mac. Running flawlessly at the same resolution on the 16-inch MacBook Pro was Resident Evil Village, which was released on consoles years before Baldur's Gate 3 was released on the Mac.
However, trying to play with the same Ultra HD settings on the M3-based 14-inch MacBook Pro resulted in poor performance during Karlach's waking moments. Play smoothed out at the lower resolution once I switched to 1080p. Though it's not a brand-new game for the M3, Baldur's Gate 3 is a crucial part of Apple's continuous effort to remove all restrictions from Mac gaming.
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Geekbench 6 |
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Shadow of the |
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GPU |
M3 with 10-core |
M3 Max with 40-core GPU |
The M3 Max MacBook Pro outperformed the M3 MacBook Pro, as evidenced by benchmarks that showed nearly 300% more performance in Shadow of the Tomb Raider and over 200% more in Geekbench 6 OpenCL. Oh, and to top it all off, this version of Shadow of the Tomb Raider is enhanced by Apple's Rosetta 2 emulation technology.
With the Death Stranding Director's Cut, the Resident Evil 4 remake, and the upcoming Assassin's Creed Mirage, Mac gaming at a AAA level is only getting started. Nonetheless, the question remains, "Will people game on the Mac?" Because my LG C2 OLED TV is larger and better than any display I can connect to my MacBook Pro, I already own and prefer the major consoles. For Baldur's Gate 3, I went with the Mac since the game is best played with a mouse and keyboard. This raises the question of whether there are other Mac users who, like me, have made the decision that their primary passion is console gaming. That said, devoted Mac users with an interest in gaming are no longer limited to using Apple Arcade to play big-screen mobile games; instead, they can now sample more contemporary blockbusters. Although only time will tell, I hope that big video games will continue to release on the Mac at the same time as other platforms.
The same fantastic design, ports, and display—now in gorgeous Space Black.
I can state with confidence that Apple's latest darker colour scheme has me swooning. I own a Space Grey MacBook Pro and tested a Space Black MacBook Pro. Space Black is an almost invisible colour option for M3 Pro and M3 Max MacBook Pros, providing an alternative to Silver.
You will most likely still leave smudges on a Space Black laptop, even though Apple designed this new finish with innovative anodization techniques meant to minimise fingerprints. For I did, after all. However, it doesn't seem to attract fingerprints as much as the MacBook Air in Midnight Blue does.
Regarding the remainder of the M3 MacBook Pro? The laptop I adored and purchased in 2021 didn't require an update from Apple. Despite not being OLED, its Liquid Retina XDR display is still incredibly beautiful. Observing the various tones of green and blue in the trees and water surrounding Tom Cruise and Hayley Atwell as they escaped for their lives atop a collapsing train during the pivotal sequence of stunts in "Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One" served as a reminder of this fact. Cruise's terrified expression as he tried to hold on inside a collapsing car was expertly captured in this incredibly crisp 3024 x 1964 panel.
The clicky, comfortable keyboard on the 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pros—which I will never take for granted after the butterfly keyboard incident—has been a godsend for those of us who use Macs and want a great laptop.
I appreciate that all MacBook Pros will now have physical function keys since the Touch Bar is being discontinued. Additionally, Apple has discontinued the 13-inch MacBook Pro model, which had only two USB-C ports and a headphone jack. Instead, all of the current MacBook Pro models come with an SD memory reader and HDMI out. Somebody upgrading from the MacBook Air may do so primarily because of those ports. With their assistance, you won't have to check to see if you brought a USB-C hub with you every time you leave the house.
Above all, you get the same superior six-speaker sound system found on the 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pros of the past. That means that when I listened to the songs "I Need a New Boyfriend" by Charly Bliss, a power pop band, and "The Chairman's Intent," a rapper, Action Bronson, the MacBook Pros sounded amazing. Additionally, you receive the same 1080p webcam, which makes you appear fantastic in well-lit spaces and a little grainy in dimly lit ones.