M3 Pro vs M4 Pro - Ergonomics battle
I'm considering buying the 14-inch M3 Pro (11 cores) instead of the M4 Pro (12 cores). Apparently, the M4 Pro heats up more easily, consumes more power, and the fans kick in much more readily.
https://www.notebookcheck.net/Apple-MacBook-Pro-14-2024-review-The-M4-Pro-and-matte-display-are-massive-upgrades.914597.0.html
There’s a 5–6 degree Celsius difference in chassis temperature under heavy load—that’s a huge difference! And from what we’ve read, you could play games on the M3 Pro (like The Witcher 3) with the fans remaining pretty much silent. As far as I know, that’s not possible on the M4 Pro.
However, not many YouTubers pay much attention to those highlights. They mention that it’s louder or slightly hotter than the M3 Pro but say it’s normal for a laptop’s fans to turn on when it's pushed harder. They’re more excited about the performance boost without emphasizing that the M4 Pro also has significantly higher power demands.
https://youtu.be/LRRpyTlsZ-s?feature=shared&t=307
Here you can see how M3 Pro behaves during Cinebench test and how M4 Pro... For me, that's a huge difference!
So, I’m wondering if losing that ergonomic balance for a 20-40% performance increase is really worth it.
Considering the M3 Pro managed to maintain better thermals, and from my own experience with the M1 and M1 Max, where the fans almost never turn on (though, to be fair, I don’t push the processor too hard), I’m worried the M4 Pro might disappoint me. User experience ergonomics are much more important to me than a 30% performance increase.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ac3idjslNlI
That's also an interesting video about how much has changed, and making ANY comparison to the MacBook Pro 16 with Intel just feels unsettling :/ (Even if it ultimately turns out better)
My main dilemma is whether I’m overthinking this and worrying too much about temperatures and fan noise or if there’s genuinely something to be concerned about (especially since I had bad experiences with the 2019 16-inch MacBook Pro with Intel). The argument that "if you’re just watching YouTube or using Google Docs, the M4 Pro’s fans won’t turn on" doesn’t convince me, because if that’s all I planned to do, I’d buy an Air instead 😂
(though, to be fair, some reviews claim that even when editing videos or under light workloads, the M4 Pro is still fairly quiet).
What do you think? I don’t want to feel like I messed up by buying the older generation based on some delusions of mine or by exaggerating a real concern.
(Actually, for me it looks like the old good times when people were concerned whether to buy i5 2500K or i5 3560K xD, but the performance increase wasn't that big, though)
As a user of the MBP 2019 16 inch I would like to say a couple of things. The fans are not kicking that high naturally: the guy actually uses a stress test which puts the fans at medium, and then he additionally uses a program that forces them to run at full tilt. If anything, people have complaints that the device runs very hot because the fans are not running hard enough under very heavy load.
By comparison, I could hear my MBP going just by turning the thing on. The problem space is largely in your head because you bought a generational lemon just like I did.
I too have this lemon, and use it daily.
Reading posts complaining about the M series makes me feel like a mole person living underground and watching the above ground people complain about food when we don’t even have any food down here.
We’re hungry sir.
You speak the truth.
OP should understand that these 2 things are just not the same. After that machine, any AS laptop will feel like unfathomably advanced alien technology.
Source: 2019 15 inch i9 survivor
You’re overthinking it.
IMHO, you're overthinking it. I'm running an M4 Pro 24gb 1TB. The fans haven't kicked on once and I have been using Final Cut Pro. My 2019 MBP i9 ran the fans almost continuously.
If youre undecided about M4 and M3, you don't need the M4. Period.
Get a M3
This has been Apples plan since they started planning the M chips:
innovate mobile processing (Intel failed at this)
over time refine and squeeze performance out of their proprietary chipset while also remaining competitive as a mobile chipset (battery + speed)
Looking at core counts and performance gains over the M generation, I think apple has found a great balance. Intel never came close to this level of optimization.
My hop from Intel to M series was the i9 to M1 Max. Battery performance alone had me hooked. Seeing more heat over the M series generations while maintaining battery performance is all a part of pushing the limits.
I got the M4 pro 16, 48gb and run heavy audio sessions in logic. A ton of processing on many channels and I don’t think I’ve ever heard the fans kick in?
So, i'm currently using binned m3 pro. Never see fna kicked in during may daily usage, even when running a whole windows 11 arm vm for development (i mainly use visual studio to develop .net core) and during build.
I'm not even aure i heard dan noise during gaming (either native or crossover), but maybe because the game audio is louder.
Anyway, those results you linked are bench and stress testing meant to max the device. On real usage, they won't be nearing that number, atleast not continuously.
M4 pronaure is tempting from performance point of view, but my m3 pro already gave me more than enough performance. Not looking for an upgrade in near future. But sure, if i'm planning on buying a new one (did not have my m3 pro) and it's within my budget, might as well go for the latest model. Unleaa you want to safe some money.
I just played Baldur's Gate 3 at 4K Ultra, in class, on my M4 Pro.
It was dead silent.
The only time I've heard the fans is using LLMs, which is an extremely intense use case - and my desktop computer is 4x louder doing the same thing.
Temperature is not a good judge. Older processors couldn't even go above 70C and yet all modern ones target 100C. The M4 Pro might just have higher limits than the M3 Pro, not necessarily a bad thing.