Apple 'Scary Fast' Mac event October 30th

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Aurelius

Supreme [H]ardness
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Messages
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Apple has announced a "Scary Fast" Mac event on October 30th. It's at 8PM Eastern and online only.

apple-october-scary-fast-event.jpg


The company unsurprisingly isn't saying more about what the event entails, but the credible leaks/rumors indicate it's likely to involve the first M3-based Macs. The iMac and 13-inch MacBook Pro will likely get standard M3 chips, while the 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pros are expected to get M3 Pro and M3 Max parts. All M3 variants should be based on a 3-nanometer process and deliver significant boosts to performance and efficiency.

I have to admit I'm pleasantly surprised, since there were rumors suggesting Apple might not have any new Macs this year. The question is whether or not M3 fares well against the latest x86 rivals. M2 is still decently quick, but there's no question that the game has moved on in the past year. The event strikes me as hastily arranged, that's for sure — my guess is that Apple made a late judgment call on M3 production capacity and determined it could ship certain models this year without creating havoc for the iPhone line. I know there's been worries Apple would have an abysmal fall quarter for Mac sales, but it might have just the opposite.

Me, I'm not expecting more than a spec bump. Hopefully, though, Apple uses this to improve memory and/or storage configs at the same time. The iMac in particular really needs an update.
 
Kind of coming out of nowhere.

All the leakers can't even agree what is coming. It's split even on whether or not M3 is going to come this year or next. It might just be updating the iMac to M2. And I would put any of the Pro/Max chips coming at 0%.

uOpt said:
Who knows, maybe they will unveil a fighter jet
Click to expand...
Would be crazy if they announced Apple car. But that would also be a 0% likelihood in my mind.
 
UnknownSouljer said:
Kind of coming out of nowhere.

All the leakers can't even agree what is coming. It's split even on whether or not M3 is going to come this year or next. It might just be updating the iMac to M2. And I would put any of the Pro/Max chips coming at 0%
Click to expand...

it's for the M3 chip alongside new Macs... Apple is expected to release a new MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, and potentially a new iMac with upgraded internals
 
polonyc2 said:
it's for the M3 chip alongside new Macs... Apple is expected to release a new MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, and potentially a new iMac with upgraded internals
Click to expand...
Even that would be a pretty big deal. I would be surprised to see M3, just because it feels like a weird time to push. 15" MBA "just" dropped. I suppose there just can't be a good timing either way.
I suppose we'll see. I just hope there is a point release for Sonoma at that time.
 
UnknownSouljer said:
Kind of coming out of nowhere.

All the leakers can't even agree what is coming. It's split even on whether or not M3 is going to come this year or next. It might just be updating the iMac to M2. And I would put any of the Pro/Max chips coming at 0%.


Would be crazy if they announced Apple car. But that would also be a 0% likelihood in my mind.
Click to expand...
Apple recently released a series of different product specs to numerous different departments and vendors to see what actually got into the news cycle and Apple has made a number of layoffs and contract cancellations according to what made it into the public.

So a good number of the leaks were created specifically so Apple could plug those leaks.
 
From what I understand they should really focus on better cooling for their existing models if they want to be "scary fast".

In testing I've seen the Studio and even the Pro thermal throttle like crazy.

But it's a Mac, so it has to be quiet and mild mannered no matter what, right?
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
From what I understand they should really focus on better cooling for their existing models if they want to be "scary fast".

In testing I've seen the Studio and even the Pro thermal throttle like crazy.

But it's a Mac, so it has to be quiet and mild mannered no matter what, right?
Click to expand...
It could be 5x faster than an Intel/nVidia 4090 machine and cost half as much and you'd never buy it. So I'm not sure why it matters.
 
Guess i may be trading up my 2019 mbp for one of these at work after i accidentally drive over it.
 
Lakados said:
Better have chrome plated spinning hubs.
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But it is apple, so it will be a nonstandard sized wheel so you have to use apple tires and have to buy the valve stem adapter.

But wait, there's more!

Your apple watch will tell you when you need to air up the tires!
 
GotNoRice said:
But does it use Titanium?
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I have to admit, I would be tickled if Apple came back to titanium for its laptops. My first Mac was a titanium PowerBook G4. Thankfully, Apple has learned a lot about using titanium in two decades... it could be wonderfully light but sturdy. I'm realistically expecting the same aluminum chassis on the MacBook Pro, but one can dream.
 
UnknownSouljer said:
It could be 5x faster than an Intel/nVidia 4090 machine and cost half as much and you'd never buy it. So I'm not sure why it matters.
Click to expand...
If it ran the software I require and met all my other needs? Sure. But it doesn't, and if Apple had hardware of that class, it sure as hell wouldn't charge half as much as the PC equivalent. One thing Apple has never been is cheap, or even particularly stupid; hardware of that class would have large buyers fighting over it at any reasonable price.

As technical achievements, I do appreciate Apple's work on their M series, it does seem to be quite efficient. Sadly, since it's only available in their platform, the other ARM makers don't have a huge incentive to rush to equal them. Because let's face it, at least in the phone world, you're pretty much buying and Apple or Android based (mostly) on preference, not specs.

And in the PC world, specs do matter, but so does compatibility and TCO. Something has to have an absolutely absurd performance/value ratio for me to also shoulder the cost of rebuying software on a different platform.
 
LodeRunner said:
And in the PC world, specs do matter, but so does compatibility and TCO. Something has to have an absolutely absurd performance/value ratio for me to also shoulder the cost of rebuying software on a different platform.
Click to expand...

I don't have much commercial software that is not in a web browser, but most of what I do have is issued with license keys that I can take with me when switching between platforms.
 
uOpt said:
I don't have much commercial software that is not in a web browser, but most of what I do have is issued with license keys that I can take with me when switching between platforms.
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Which is great for people where that's the case and I tell people to buy whatever does the job for them at the price they're comfortable with.
 
LodeRunner said:
If it ran the software I require and met all my other needs? Sure. But it doesn't, and if Apple had hardware of that class, it sure as hell wouldn't charge half as much as the PC equivalent. One thing Apple has never been is cheap, or even particularly stupid; hardware of that class would have large buyers fighting over it at any reasonable price.

As technical achievements, I do appreciate Apple's work on their M series, it does seem to be quite efficient. Sadly, since it's only available in their platform, the other ARM makers don't have a huge incentive to rush to equal them. Because let's face it, at least in the phone world, you're pretty much buying and Apple or Android based (mostly) on preference, not specs.

And in the PC world, specs do matter, but so does compatibility and TCO. Something has to have an absolutely absurd performance/value ratio for me to also shoulder the cost of rebuying software on a different platform.
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You missed the point of the interaction. First off it was a hypothetical; the purpose of which is to talk about underlying positions. Arguing whether such a machine is tangible or not is irrelevant.

His position was unsurprisingly revealed in his response (which I obviously already knew well), which yeah, if such a machine existed, he still wouldn't buy it. I at least appreciate the honestly though. And you're more or less stating the same thing.

It's fashionable on this forum to shit on Apple or basically anything else people don't like. But it's always from the same subjects. Frankly it's boring and adds nothing to the conversation. And it's without fail coming from people that are not using whatever the given item is anyway, in this case, Apple.

Per forum policy people should be talking about the thread title. So far >50% of the posts are just people coming in and shit posting without even remotely peripherally talking about the thread topic.
 
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UnknownSouljer said:
You missed the point of the interaction. First off it was a hypothetical; the purpose of which is to talk about underlying positions. Arguing whether such a machine is tangible or not is irrelevant.

His position was unsurprisingly revealed in his response (which I obviously already knew well), which yeah, if such a machine existed, he still wouldn't buy it. I at least appreciate the honestly though. And you're more or less stating the same thing.

It's fashionable on this forum to shit on Apple or basically anything else people don't like. But it's always from the same subjects. Frankly it's boring and adds nothing to the conversation.

Per forum policy people should be talking about the thread title. So far >50% of the posts are just people coming in and shit posting without even remotely peripherally talking about the thread topic.
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Oh I know who you were talking to and have a feel for his general opinion of Apple.

For me, aside from personal preference and the fact I work in Windows Sysadmin, so I keep my hand in on server and client stuff at home, if a M3 had the grunt to replace/exceed my current PC at half the price and all my stuff ran on it? I'd seriously consider it if it had price parity. But Apple very rarely is the cheaper option. Also, I like building my own and being able to swap parts whenever I want. For someone who cares less about serviceability, and is OK ditching some software or taking a virtualization hit for it, a Mac can be a good choice, if the platform is better at their primary tasks.

At work, we're taking Macs away from everyone except for our art/marketing team, and one or two over in software dev and QA. We can get away with this now that our primary software products look and act the same on Mac and Win platforms; up until recently, all the sales team had Macs and were running Windows in Parallels for demos and such, so they could cover both types of customers.

Apple makes good stuff and has a premium construction, look, and feel, which I respect and understand that they've placed themselves as a luxury brand and charge accordingly. Like I said, Apple as a company isn't stupid. I have no animus against Apple, but their desktop products don't serve my needs at the moment. I rather like my iPhone 13 Pro, been a solid piece of kit.
 
When it comes to price and value, I am asking an honest question because I haven't kept up with PC laptops since being completely satisfied with my loaded 14in MBP. When I bought my laptop a couple years ago, it was entirely unique spec wise.

I am curious if any PC manufacturer has come out with a comparable laptop since in the following ways:

13-14 inches
Equivalent or faster CPU and GPU performance to the top M1 Max
64GB+ RAM
8TB+ SSD with equivalent speed
Comparable or better display
Equivalent or better battery life
Equal or better weight
Multiple thunderbolt 4 ports

Surely in the last few years a PC manufacturer was able to match this, right? I am looking for the whole package, not interested in "Dell makes a XPS 13 with equivalent CPU performance but 32GB ram" or "Razer makes a 14in laptop with 64GB RAM and 8TB SSD but 2hr of battery life."
 
paradoxical said:
When it comes to price and value, I am asking an honest question because I haven't kept up with PC laptops since being completely satisfied with my loaded 14in MBP. When I bought my laptop a couple years ago, it was entirely unique spec wise.

I am curious if any PC manufacturer has come out with a comparable laptop since in the following ways:

13-14 inches
Equivalent or faster CPU and GPU performance to the top M1 Max
64GB+ RAM
8TB+ SSD with equivalent speed
Comparable or better display
Equivalent or better battery life
Equal or better weight
Multiple thunderbolt 4 ports

Surely in the last few years a PC manufacturer was able to match this, right? I am looking for the whole package, not interested in "Dell makes a XPS 13 with equivalent CPU performance but 32GB ram" or "Razer makes a 14in laptop with 64GB RAM and 8TB SSD but 2hr of battery life."
Click to expand...
In the PC space TB usually limits you to Intel builds. Tthe Precision laptops we're getting have two TB ports, or usually one. But they also have network, audio, USB-A and C, and DP and/or HDMI as well, so I honestly consider that a wash. AMD laptops may have TB ports at this point, but I haven't paid too close attention to the build options at Dell. I hand the department heads a general spec list to pic from, then my purchasing guy goes to Dell Premier and gets whatever the current model that matches the spec is.

Choosing from Dell Precision options as that's what I order for work, in the 15 and 16" chassis ranges:

RAM: Intel limit, 64 GB or 128GB, assuming the laptop has two slots and depending on the exact chip. The i9-13900HK supports 64 GB. The prior 12th gen CPUs had the same limit. 11th gen (19-11980HK) could do 128 GB. Typical Intel changing the product segmentation though. Mobile Xeon's can have 128 GB in current gen. This is slot count and generation dependent because I can easily find DDR4 SODIMMS in 64 GB, but single module 64GB DDR5 SODIMMS appear to be thin on the ground.

CPU: The above mentioned i9-13900HK pretty well stomps the M1 Max and the M2, at least in synthetic numbers. I have no hands on with either.

Storage: Has 2 NVMe slots, you can order 4 TB in each from Dell for a stupid amount of money, or buy your own aftermarket where you could get 2x 8TB

Display options: don't know, nor am I going to research on the vagaries of Apple's XDR vs the variety of available 4k IPS panels

Battery: won't be as good; higher performance comes with a power penalty. Also Apple has a massive advantage controlling the entire hardware and software stack. We're also stuck waiting for Intel to stuck faffing about and get under 10nm; a die shrink would help the TDP. At the same configured TDP, a i9-12900HK is ~10% more efficient perf/watt than the M1 Max, but the platform as a whole is less so. There are some Precision models that can get around 9 hrs of battery life, but the review with that number didn't have the full spec up front or what tests they did.

TB: Most of Precision models I'm ordering for work have 2x TB4, 1x USB-C with Display Alt mode, and a complement of the other usual ports.

Dell's configurator has also gone to shit of late; I used to be able to pick a model and then customize just about everything; now it's a flooded with pre-spec'd models and a lot of the screen, CPU, and GPU options I had last year are apparently MIA; but I know when we hand a spec to our Premier account rep we get what we ask for, so whatever.

I'll not deny that Apple has a nice spec lineup, despite the price. Just for me it's not the right tool for the job. That it is for is great and I have nothing against that.
 
paradoxical said:
When it comes to price and value, I am asking an honest question because I haven't kept up with PC laptops since being completely satisfied with my loaded 14in MBP. When I bought my laptop a couple years ago, it was entirely unique spec wise.

I am curious if any PC manufacturer has come out with a comparable laptop since in the following ways:

13-14 inches yes
Equivalent or faster CPU and GPU performance to the top M1 Max yes when plugged in
64GB+ RAM yes
8TB+ SSD with equivalent speed no
Comparable or better display yes
Equivalent or better battery life no
Equal or better weight no
Multiple thunderbolt 4 ports yes

Surely in the last few years a PC manufacturer was able to match this, right? I am looking for the whole package, not interested in "Dell makes a XPS 13 with equivalent CPU performance but 32GB ram" or "Razer makes a 14in laptop with 64GB RAM and 8TB SSD but 2hr of battery life."
Click to expand...

That has been my experience. There are 8TB nvme drives, I customized a Dell XPS 9720 with 2TB for boot and 8TB data. 64GB RAM (DDR4 3200). It has a gorgeous (3840x2400 "UHD+") 17" screen but the MiniLED on the 16" Mac is superior in both contrast and true HDR+ brightness. The fans get really loud and performance of the GPU/CPU tanks seriously when it's on battery which is something the Mac has no change.

XPS build quality is up there but not at MBP level. The trackpad haptics is second to none on the MBP.

My biggest gripe with Macbooks is the ABS keys. They show signs of use (getting shiny) in as little as a few weeks.

Lenovo Think Pad Carbon X1s can be ordered with 64GB RAM and have removable SSDs. i7 1370P CPU. DDR5-7000(!) on the Yoga 2in1 version! Very capable 13" road warrior and can be ordered with excellent OLED display. Of course no discrete GPU on those. Dell's 14" Precision line has discrete GPU but no OLED option. The Lenovo can also be ordered with a 5G cellular radio. If (Apple) had the option of having multi-band mobile service with esim it would be killer for business users!
 
LodeRunner said:
Dell's configurator has also gone to shit of late; I used to be able to pick a model and then customize just about everything; now it's a flooded with pre-spec'd models and a lot of the screen, CPU, and GPU options I had last year are apparently MIA; but I know when we hand a spec to our Premier account rep we get what we ask for, so whatever.
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I talked to my rep about that, they ask that you get your rep in there so they can build and quote the configuration and upload it into your portal.
The part my rep and I are struggling with is replacement parts, lcd screens, keyboards, chargers, etc.
 
cpufrost said:
That has been my experience. There are 8TB nvme drives, I customized a Dell XPS 9720 with 2TB for boot and 8TB data. 64GB RAM (DDR4 3200). It has a gorgeous (3840x2400 "UHD+") 17" screen but the MiniLED on the 16" Mac is superior in both contrast and true HDR+ brightness. The fans get really loud and performance of the GPU/CPU tanks seriously when it's on battery which is something the Mac has no change.

XPS build quality is up there but not at MBP level. The trackpad haptics is second to none on the MBP.

My biggest gripe with Macbooks is the ABS keys. They show signs of use (getting shiny) in as little as a few weeks.

Lenovo Think Pad Carbon X1s can be ordered with 64GB RAM and have removable SSDs. i7 1370P CPU. DDR5-7000(!) on the Yoga 2in1 version! Very capable 13" road warrior and can be ordered with excellent OLED display. Of course no discrete GPU on those. Dell's 14" Precision line has discrete GPU but no OLED option. The Lenovo can also be ordered with a 5G cellular radio. If (Apple) had the option of having multi-band mobile service with esim it would be killer for business users!
Click to expand...

I had to return a Thinkpad with an OLED recently because the "flicker" was unbearable to me.

I own multiple OLED devices, I've used plenty. I have never had an issue before this. It was like looking at an old 60hz CRT, except even worse as the brightness went down.

I've never been so disappointed. That laptop raped my eyes like no other, though. Never had a screen hurt to use after like 20 minutes. I tried for a week, but it was impossible.
 
Lakados said:
Some restrictions apply
https://support.apple.com/en-ca/HT209044

But you can do it.
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That's for iPhone, and yes I've been using multi lines on e-sim since I got my XS in 2018!

What I meant is if they had this available for Macbook Pro, even Macbook Air!
socK said:
I had to return a Thinkpad with an OLED recently because the "flicker" was unbearable to me.

I own multiple OLED devices, I've used plenty. I have never had an issue before this. It was like looking at an old 60hz CRT, except even worse as the brightness went down.

I've never been so disappointed. That laptop raped my eyes like no other, though. Never had a screen hurt to use after like 20 minutes. I tried for a week, but it was impossible.
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That's interesting, sounds like bad PWM in some kind of weird zero offbeat mode.

I have a Yoga 9i UHD+ OLED here, it's 60Hz and looks perfect. My eyes are definitely sensitive to PWM dimming and I would have noticed this for sure. My biggest issue (besides bad battery life) with that laptop is 16GB ram soldered. Wish they offered in 32GB. Its build quality and overall portable "feel" and not to mention speaker sound quality are right next to a 13" Macbook air. The OLED is just icing on the cake. Cannot wait to see what Meteor Lake brings to the table as the iGPU is supposedly getting a well needed upgrade.
 
LodeRunner said:
In the PC space TB usually limits you to Intel builds. Tthe Precision laptops we're getting have two TB ports, or usually one. But they also have network, audio, USB-A and C, and DP and/or HDMI as well, so I honestly consider that a wash. AMD laptops may have TB ports at this point, but I haven't paid too close attention to the build options at Dell. I hand the department heads a general spec list to pic from, then my purchasing guy goes to Dell Premier and gets whatever the current model that matches the spec is.

Choosing from Dell Precision options as that's what I order for work, in the 15 and 16" chassis ranges:

RAM: Intel limit, 64 GB or 128GB, assuming the laptop has two slots and depending on the exact chip. The i9-13900HK supports 64 GB. The prior 12th gen CPUs had the same limit. 11th gen (19-11980HK) could do 128 GB. Typical Intel changing the product segmentation though. Mobile Xeon's can have 128 GB in current gen. This is slot count and generation dependent because I can easily find DDR4 SODIMMS in 64 GB, but single module 64GB DDR5 SODIMMS appear to be thin on the ground.

CPU: The above mentioned i9-13900HK pretty well stomps the M1 Max and the M2, at least in synthetic numbers. I have no hands on with either.

Storage: Has 2 NVMe slots, you can order 4 TB in each from Dell for a stupid amount of money, or buy your own aftermarket where you could get 2x 8TB

Display options: don't know, nor am I going to research on the vagaries of Apple's XDR vs the variety of available 4k IPS panels

Battery: won't be as good; higher performance comes with a power penalty. Also Apple has a massive advantage controlling the entire hardware and software stack. We're also stuck waiting for Intel to stuck faffing about and get under 10nm; a die shrink would help the TDP. At the same configured TDP, a i9-12900HK is ~10% more efficient perf/watt than the M1 Max, but the platform as a whole is less so. There are some Precision models that can get around 9 hrs of battery life, but the review with that number didn't have the full spec up front or what tests they did.

TB: Most of Precision models I'm ordering for work have 2x TB4, 1x USB-C with Display Alt mode, and a complement of the other usual ports.

Dell's configurator has also gone to shit of late; I used to be able to pick a model and then customize just about everything; now it's a flooded with pre-spec'd models and a lot of the screen, CPU, and GPU options I had last year are apparently MIA; but I know when we hand a spec to our Premier account rep we get what we ask for, so whatever.

I'll not deny that Apple has a nice spec lineup, despite the price. Just for me it's not the right tool for the job. That it is for is great and I have nothing against that.
Click to expand...

So in other words, from what you and cpufrost said, two years later there are still no comparable 13-14in laptops on the market. Both of you immediately jumped to significantly larger 15-17in machines. That's pretty crazy to me considering I used the specs from two years ago - if you look at the current MBP 14 you can even order it with 96GB RAM and the CPU is even faster.

To me, this is why the value discussion was always funny around the current Macbook lineup. I paid $6k for my machine more than two years ago and it is still a totally unique package on the market. Apparently you still can't buy a PC laptop at any price that offers what it does. I am extremely confident that in another three years this will still be a machine that is in perfect shape physically would be considered "overkill" performance-wise for 99% of people's use cases. Frankly, most people could probably get a decade out of it just fine if they pop down to the local Apple store to replace the battery depending on wear and tear.

Obviously there are valid reasons Apple won't work for everyone, but from a value standpoint it's been phenomenal for me. It's been rock-fucking-solid with crazy battery life and insane power for my use cases, and has been an invaluable tool for me to run my entire business and personal life from. Price is one thing, but value is another - something people often fail to understand. The $6K Macbook is the most under-priced piece of technology I've ever bought from a value standpoint.
 
paradoxical said:
So in other words, from what you and cpufrost said, two years later there are still no comparable 13-14in laptops on the market. Both of you immediately jumped to significantly larger 15-17in machines. That's pretty crazy to me considering I used the specs from two years ago - if you look at the current MBP 14 you can even order it with 96GB RAM and the CPU is even faster.
Click to expand...

You aren't going to get the exact same dimensions with the macbook because most aren't going with the same screen aspect ratio as apple. the 15" XPS lineup differs from the 14" macbook by 0.1", 0.2" and 1.2" and that sounds pretty comparable to me given you can find those kinds of discrepancies between different non apple manufacturers for the same size category. The real difference is weight, mainly because of cooling needs. As for ports, even apple cut back on the thunderbolt ports to offer more variety of built in ports. And I don't think they are wrong for doing that.

There's always trade offs. Like the apple trackpad is just the best track pad implementation out there and there's no arguing with that. You use it a lot and it is front and center. You WILL notice it. On the other hand, osx multi monitor support is a hot steaming pile aggravated by trying to turn basic functionality into a tiered option. If you are doing hoteling or hybrid work, you are going to notice that... a lot. Things will vary. I think a LOT of people will have a hard time finding the value proposition in $6k laptop.
 
I don't know who would spend $6k on a MacBook Pro. The reality is that the M2 Max with 32GB of ram and the base 1TB is enough for like 99% of people unless you're that specific person in very specific industries where you basically need the 96GB of RAM for the GPU. If you need more storage upgrading the internal NVME doesn't make much sense anyways. You'll just have a thunderbolt drive, network storage, etc.

When you look at the price of basically the base M2 Max build it's actually pretty competitive compared to the PC market choices, and of course is far more portable and useable on battery.

Of course, if you do actually have the money to blow the max RAM/storage spec MacBook Pro offers a far more impressive package that is actually portable & useable on battery compared to anything on the PC laptop side. No PC laptop is going to have 96GB of RAM for the GPU, and be able to work at full-tilt for a reasonable period of time on only battery.
 
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