The Apple 16-inch M3 Max MacBook Pro is an absolute monster of a computer. It's a large, hefty, powerful machine with a big, brilliant screen, a huge battery, and some serious processing power.
The M3 Max has sufficient capacity for almost any professional application. Moreover, the processor enables the laptop to drive up to four additional screens, making it a great choice for a workstation for many.
Apple, undoubtedly, always tries to put its best foot forward. The Max is also available in a 16-core CPU/40-core GPU configuration.
Apple has spent the past four years not just developing new CPUs, but also listening to customers in a manner that it hadn't done for decades. That means eliminating the Touch Bar, which was meant to be useful but ultimately useless, and replacing the camera and keyboard.
Design
In terms of industrial design, not much has changed since the 2021 version. Apple considered a design aesthetic it loves, striking a balance between rounded corners and a flat, almost boxy body, somewhat different to the iPhone in this regard. Apple's recognisable reflective logo sits atop the device, while "MacBook Pro" is laser etched onto the base. Around it, you'll see a collection of tiny screws, an indication of the company's renewed interest in repairability in response to the growing movement for right-to-repair laws. In addition, there is a heating vent on each side.
The M3 Max models of the Apple 16-inch MacBook Pro are somewhat bulkier than the Air. The 14 and 16-inch models are taller than the 15-inch Air by 0.61 and 0.66 inches, respectively. The installation of a fan and airflow system by the Pros is mostly responsible for this. The fan won't spin up for most common jobs, but it's ready and waiting for those that need greater processing power, including 3D rendering. Also, the 14-inch Pro (3.4 pounds) is just slightly heavier than the 15-inch Air (3.3 pounds). The 16-inch Pro is noticeably heavier than the 4.7/4.8-pound M3 Pro and M3 Max.
A fresh hue is always welcome to Apple fans. One possible explanation is because the MacBook line's aluminium designs are all quite similar to one another. In the recent past, space grey and silver (basically dark and light grey) have been the only colours traded. However, the new Airs brightened things up by including starlight (a muted light-gold) and midnight (a much deeper grey). The addition of space black improves the design. When exposed to light, it emits a warm glow. However, the fingerprint aspect is the most significant.
Apple's official description of the new colour is, "The finish features a breakthrough chemistry that forms an anodization seal to greatly reduce fingerprints." Even if Apple hasn't yet achieved fingerprint-free perfection, the new coating does a great job of reducing them to a minimum.
Camera
Both of Apple's new Pros have the company's stunning Liquid Retina XDR display. Both the 14- and 16-inch models have a resolution of 3024 by 1964 pixels, giving them a pixel density of 254 pixels per inch (ppi). Meanwhile, the 15-inch Air packs a density of 224 ppi. The display on the 2021 and 2020 models of the 16-inch system are almost identical. With high dynamic range (HDR) material, its brightness can reach 1600 nits at its brightest. However, the maximum luminance has been increased from 500 to 600 nits for SDR (standard dynamic range) content.
The upgrade from 720p to 1080p for the company's cameras began in April 2021. This update was long overdue for a brand that has built its reputation on mobile photography. The M1's built-in digital signal processing helped the new technology perform better. The hardware of the camera hasn't changed, but newer processors have improved image quality. The current camera works really well, and the inclusion of portrait and studio lighting options makes it much better. The portrait mode's edges still need some work.
For many, Continuity Camera completely changes the game. With this setup, an iPhone may be used in place of a traditional webcam.
Meanwhile, the built-in audio and voice recording technologies are mostly intact from the 2021 M1 Pro. There are six speakers in total; the keyboard's side panels conceal two enormous speaker grilles. Both Dolby Atmos and Spatial Audio are compatible with the system. It's not the best speaker setup, but it does the job. The Pro additionally has a directional beamforming microphone array with three mics.
M3 Max/ GPU
Apple's silicon history has long included gaming as a major plot point. For a number of factors, GPU enhancements dominated the headlines. Apple's Dynamic Caching function is one example.
Dynamic Caching ensures that just the precise amount of memory required is utilised for each operation. This innovation represents the foundation of the new GPU architecture and a first in the industry. It drastically improves typical GPU utilisation, which in turn boosts performance for the most resource-intensive professional programs and games.
Simply expressed, the concept is providing an appropriate quantity of local memory for the given operation. It's been under development at Apple for quite some time. Those who spent some serious time behind a gaming controller will be more comfortable with the other two improvements. The first is called ray tracing, and it's meant to make games seem more realistic by simulating light and reflections more faithfully.
Like mesh shading, this one is now hardware-accelerated. The triangle computer shader streamlines the processing of intricate geometrical pictures. That opens the door to improved visuals and more attention to detail in the environment.
Up to 2.5 times quicker rendering compared to the M1 family of processors is now possible. The CPU performance cores and efficiency cores are 30% and 50% faster than their M1 counterparts, respectively, while the Neural Engine is 60% faster than its M1 counterpart.
It's important to note that Apple's chip numbering method isn't as intuitive as it may appear at first glance. Even if the M3 is an improvement over the M2, you can still anticipate that the M2 Ultra will provide superior performance. Each successively bigger version of its basic chip—the Pros, Maxes, and Ultras—includes an additional central processing unit (CPU), graphics processing unit (GPU), and neural engine cores. The Ultra, for instance, is really just a couple of Maxes sewn together. There are further elements at play, such as the superior heat dissipation of the Mac Studio and Mac Pro, the superior hardware of the MacBook Pros, and the faster performance throttle of the fan-less MacBook Airs.
Even the most basic M3 has advantages over the M2 Ultra in a few key respects. Examples include the aforementioned software-accelerated ray tracing and mesh shading.
The 16-inch Pro achieved a write speed of 6367 and a read speed of 5057 on the SSD benchmarking tool Blackmagic Disc Speed, while the Mac Studio achieved a write speed of 6648 and a read speed of 5716. Using Geekbench 6, the machine achieved a single-core score of 3149 and a multi-core score of 21269. And that's a significant improvement over the M3 iMac's 3024/11,810! Mac Studio gave the M2 Ultra a single-core performance of 2819 and a multi-core performance of 21507. The M3 Max achieves a single-core score of 2323 and a multi-core score of 23190 in Geekbench 5, which has been used on M-series computers from the very beginning. Compared to the 2191/10619 of the M3 iMac and the 1952/15249 of the M2 Max 14-inch Pro, this is a significant improvement in performance.
Considering that the M2 Ultra has a maximum of 24 CPU cores, 76 GPU cores, and 32 neural engine cores, the M3 Max's performance is remarkable within its own family of processors. As opposed to the slim MacBook Pro, the Mac Studio's large body and ventilation system are better able to disperse heat. The Cinebench benchmark was executed in high-power mode, which favours performance above battery life. Naturally, low-power mode does the opposite, while automated (the default) tries to find a happy medium between the two.
In Conclusion
The battery, however, is perhaps the most impressive feature of this device. The video rundown was by far the longest section of the test with the volume and brightness set to its factory defaults, an Apple TV was configured to repeat a single movie indefinitely (Bill & Ted Face the Music, for the record). It began at 4:45 PM on Tuesday and continued until 7:30 PM on Wednesday. 26 hours and 45 minutes is the total playtime.
If you're looking to enhance your professional game but still require some getting around, the 16-inch is the way to go. Until the M3 Ultra is released, the most powerful desktop computers are the Mac Studio and Mac Pro equipped with the M2 Ultra.
The 16-inch MacBook Pro with M3 Max is, obviously, the most powerful Apple laptop ever made. The M2 Ultra in the Mac Studio is still superior, but in terms of raw performance, this is the desktop replacement for laptops. It's hefty, costly, and packed with power.