Apple M3 vs the masses

[bunnspecial]

Very familiar with OCLP. I wouldn't suggest it to many others though.

Yes, in addition to what I said-

It's great if you know what you're doing with it.

It CAN be an exercise in frustration or. a fast way to a barely functional computer(or one that doesn't work at all) if you don't know what you're doing, and by "know" I mean have some understanding of what's going on, not just being able to follow directions.

 

[DuckRyder]

But we weren't talking about a change in architecture. We were talking about ending support for the OS. And even after the old MBP wouldn't update to the newest OS, it was still getting security patches. Anyhow with a new M3 it'll be a long time before the OP has to worry about any of that.

 

[KrisZ]

Nothing. But I want it powerful enough it completes the task 0.002 seconds before I click, not after. And at almost 67 I'm thinking that's powerful enough to last for my forever no matter what I might eventually want to do with it.

I say go for it.

However, there is one big drawback with macbooks and iMacs, they are pretty much irreparable. Or if they are, the cost is usually pretty close to buying a new unit. Something to consider IMO.

 

[IndyIan]

Get a CPU and GPU temp/load logging app and see if its thermal throttling itself? Also a fresh install of everything may help. My old ASUS gaming laptop was doing the same thing and it was overheating, so I opened it up and found the heat exchanger had popped the nuts off the mother board and was floating above the chips and the thermal paste was solid, so I put some nuts on the bottom of the board, and bolted the heat exchanger down again with some new thermal paste and its been working fine for a couple years now. Plays War Thunder on low detail at 120fps like a champ! lol

 

[SC Maintenance]

My wife had a mac I think I bought her 10 years ago. Its still around here somewhere and I bet still works. It was a giant PIB because if she had any issues with it - I had to do a bunch of research to help her.

I realize people without a lot of PC knowledge may be lured to a Mac, and they are generally a more stable platform, but once you get to a place where you aren't sure what to do there are far fewer people available to help you.

 

[tmorris1]

My SOP is 3 different browsers running 7 tabs each always open. Then depending on the day throw in Word or Excel and an app or three for weather/whatever. I'm sure 16GB would be plenty but figured it's only $200 more one time to go with the 24GB.

I can't believe that your current machine can't handle that? Have you cleaned the fan and heat sink area. Probably why the fan is running more or making more noise.

 

[Hall]

It's great if you know what you're doing with it.

Explain to the average user they have to leave the USB drive plugged in anytime they reboot or that they have to hold the option key and then select the right boot device or ideally, configure it in OCLP's settings to boot directly. No thanks....

 

[bunnspecial]

Explain to the average user they have to leave the USB drive plugged in anytime they reboot or that they have to hold the option key and then select the right boot device or ideally, configure it in OCLP's settings to boot directly. No thanks....

Hence my point about knowing what you're doing with it(or rather being a user who knows what they're getting in to) vs your average joe who just wants to turn their computer on and have it work.

There's a patcher I use on a couple of my Macs to enable eGPU function on TB1/2 computers. It's pretty straight forward but you can also seemingly end up with a computer that endlessly boot loops if you don't make the right selections at the right time when booting.

With OCLP and some of the other support patches out there, there's also things like WiFi or Bluetooth not working in certain models, or other catches and issues that make them not exactly plug and play either.

So, in other words, I'm agreeing with you. It's a great solution for a computer geek to keep computers going, but not the catch all solution some would make it seem

(and Linux is a whole other can of worms, no matter how much releases like Ubuntu try to streamline, or if people want to run certain common/popular software. LibreOffice/OpenOffice is good for a lot of purpose, but not a perfect MS Office replacement. Despite what some may want to claim, Gimp and Darktable are not remotely close to being viable Photoshop and Lightroom replacements, particularly for someone with a decade or better of use in those programs).

 

[LDB]

If you want the keyboard with the numeric pad instead of the plain keyboard it adds 13 days to the delivery time. What's with that insanity?

 

[OVERKILL]

Explain to the average user they have to leave the USB drive plugged in anytime they reboot or that they have to hold the option key and then select the right boot device or ideally, configure it in OCLP's settings to boot directly. No thanks....

You don't need to leave a USB drive plugged in, I installed OCLP to the EFI partition on my primary SSD, which is easily upgraded whenever there is a new release. I dual boot Windows 10 on it, which is on another SSD.

 

[wpod]

I have Apple stock so Apple is what you need to, purchase.

 

[sloinker]

I prefer my older desktop PC with Intel i5 processor to my Mac Desktop with M1 chipset. They both have equivalent memory and ssd drives. The PC is faster and easier for everything in my repertoire than the Mac. The wireless speed from my eero fiber router for my Lenovo exceeds 1gbps up and down while the Mac is 700Meg down and 400 Meg up consistently. Not familiar with the M3 chipset but for my money there is no comparison. PC/windows is the way to go.

 

[Brybo86]

There are ways around that (open core patcher).

Yes running OLCP Sonoma on a
2015 iMac 27in, i7, 512 GB internal SSD, 4 gb 395X gpu, 5k retina screen
Paid $260 for it.

Such a bargain...I feel like I stole it from the seller.

 

[UncleDave]

One of my big things is deciding if I should convert from PC to Mac. I think the M3 is going to exceed anything PC but don't know enough to be certain.

This depends entirely on what you are running.

In something generically optimized like say the adobe suite, the PC will still thump the mac dollar for dollar spent.

Using something highly optimized like the apple application final cut pro, the mac will run away from the pc like it's chained to a house when comparing performance on similar tasks.

I think you'll find a modern mac laptop will be seriously faster than what you are used to, and only fall down under very high end video work, and only then when using non apple products.

 

[Rand]

My SOP is 3 different browsers running 7 tabs each always open. Then depending on the day throw in Word or Excel and an app or three for weather/whatever. I'm sure 16GB would be plenty but figured it's only $200 more one time to go with the 24GB.

"only"
I can buy 64GB ram for under $200 ddr-5 6000.

Which is of course one of the reasons they went to soldered in.