Why You Shouldn't Buy The Base M3 MacBook For Music Production | Buy This Instead

During the years, Apple computers have been the go-to option for many professionals, especially in the music scene. Thanks to Mac-only software programs like Logic Pro, many music producers prefer to stick with MacOS. Besides, Apple silicon processors have raised the bar for how much power laptops can deliver by quite a lot.

Apple recently unveiled the M3 lineup of their Mac computers, which is the third generation of their silicon chips. The MacBook Pro, one of the most popular laptops for creators, now starts at $1,600. It features the M3 chip that, according to Apple’s claims, is about 20% faster in processing Amp Designer plugins in Logic compared to the M2 chip.

That should make it a no-brainer if you want the best Mac performance for the money, right? Well, the story can be quite different. Considering previous-gen Apple silicon MacBooks, the M3 might not be the right choice for you. Let’s see why.

Understanding Apple Silicon Chips Better

To explain why the M3 might not be the best option for you as a music producer, we should take a closer look at Apple’s new CPU chips. One of the primary factors that makes these chips impressively efficient is having two distinctive sets of cores; high-efficiency and high-performance.

High-efficiency cores, as the name suggests, take care of lighter tasks, such as web browsing and computing simpler programs. On the other hand, high-performance cores take more energy and focus on more complex tasks like 3D rendering, coding, and audio production.

The base model M3 chip, like the base model M2, comes with four performance cores and four efficiency cores. Although the quantity is the same, the quality of these cores makes the M3 chip 30 to 60 percent faster than the M2, depending on what task you throw at it.

Another thing that plays a major role in how much a computer can process different tasks at the same time is RAM. Short for random access memory, more RAM allows for running more programs simultaneously. The base M3 comes with 8GBs of RAM, which is the same as the base model M2 chip.

With all that said, it still seems like the M3 triumphs over the previous generation. However, the narrative shifts when you compare the base M3 with M2 Pro and M1 Pro chips.

M2 Pro and M1 Pro Laptops Offer More Bang For The Buck

Although the CPU cores are not as fast, M2 Pro and M1 Pro chips can outperform the base model M3 since they pack more high-performance cores.

The M2 comes with six performance and four efficiency cores, and the M1 Pro gives you eight performance and two efficiency cores.

Some DAWs like Logic Pro, Ableton, and Pro Tools can only take advantage of performance cores to the fullest extent. By monitoring CPU usage in real-time, many users saw that these DAWs cannot use efficiency cores thoroughly.

Other than that, RAM is another advantage of M2 Pro and M1 Pro chips over the base M3 model. Both those older-model processors pack 16GB of RAM, double the amount of the base M3 model.

You can find these computers, both new and refurbished, on Amazon for around the same price tag. The MacBook Pro 14-inch with the M2 Pro chip goes for around $1,650.

That price gets as low as $1,300 for the MacBook Pro 14-inch with the M1 Pro processor.

Besides the processing differences, all MacBook Pros from the M1 Pro chip onwards are essentially the same in terms of design and features. So, you shouldn’t worry about compromising in other departments by going for the M2 or M1 lineups.

Final Thoughts On Getting A Mac Computer

The leap between the M2 and the M3 chips was mainly targeted at graphics performance. The Apple Silicon M3 processor offers some features that are not available in the previous models. Things like Dynamic Caching, hardware-accelerated ray tracing, and mesh shading are features that the M3 brought to the world of Mac for the first time. However, such features play no role for you if you’re a music producer.

This is why you can spend the same money, or even less, to get a MacBook with M2 Pro or M1 Pro processors and have better performance with DAWs like Logic Pro.