I’m a big fan and enjoy working on my iPad M1.
But I want to switch to a new MacBook and want to know what configuration would give te best performance.
I’m thinking about 3 MacBook Pro configurations:
M3 pro 11 CPU 14 GPU 36 GB memory
M3 Max 14 CPU 30 CPU 36 GB memory
And how would these compare to a M3 8CPU 10 GPU 8GB memory - and save some money.
What has the most influence on the performance? Is it the memory, the CPU and does the GPU affect the persormace? I do use visualization of my models. If you have other configuration surgestions I would like to hear.
Hello! It depends on what type of work you do. I have a M2 iPad Pro and I usually design machine parts and it works perfect without any issue. But If you have a heavy workload such as large buildings and complex geometries then I would recommend the M3 pro. As you do use photoshop the M3 pro is smoother and faster than the base model M3. So I would not recommend the base model M3 MacBook Pro.
Performance is affected by the complete package. Every system has bottlenecks (otherwise they would run at “infinite” performance, which would be nice ).
If you don’t have enough CPU performance, import times / workspace open of complex workspaces, or complex calculations could be slow.
If you don’t have enough memory, performance could drop as soon as you run out of it, which can happen with complex workspaces.
If you don’t have enough GPU performance, your frame rate will drop at some point.
It all depends on your use case, and the expected complexity of the models you are planning to work with. Personally, I wouldn’t go with anything lower than 16GB RAM, otherwise it’s up to you if the CPU and GPU performance is enough for your use case or not.
At this moment I design lamps but more complex products will be waiting in the future. Not entire buildings or machines that use thousands of parts.
So shapr3d doesmake use of all the cores?
I hear applications need to be adjusted to make use of the whole pagage. That some applications only use a single core.
I think I’ll let my budget deside between the pro and the max where the amount of memory wil be arround 32 GB.
Some processes use most of the available cores, it depends on the core count, most software doesn’t scale indefinitely up to more cores, while some processes only use a few.
I would say on relatively recent hardware, from 8+ performance cores there is no huge difference in performance in daily use right now.
Later, as new features and more complexity comes, it might be more beneficial, but for now, I would go with at least a “Pro” tier M CPU for desktop, and at least 16GB ram (maybe more, since it cannot be expended later).
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