Upgrading from 2016 MB Pro to which?

[supanorton]

Current setup: 

MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2016, Two Thunderbolt 3 ports)

 

Processor: 2 GHz Dual-Core Intel Core i5

Memory: 8GB

OS: Montery 12.6.2

My Usage: 

I record in a small home studio by myself. Rock stuff (guitars and bass with amp sims, acoustic guitars, lead and backing vocals, midi keys from sample libraries on an external drive, and MODO DRUM from IK Multimedia). I use third party plugins from IK, Waves, and PA, some of which can be very taxing, causing system overloads unless I freeze tracks. MODO DRUM, AmpliTube 5, and IK's tape plugins are the most taxing along with some of the Abbey Road plugins from Waves.

My projects are typically between 15 and 25 tracks of audio (with plugins), 2-5 midi tracks, and MODO DRUM (which I almost always need to freeze and unfreeze for edits and changes over the course of a project.

I have an OWC thunderbolt hub and an external 2TB drive that handle all of my connectivity issues. I plug in the MBP, and I'm off and running with no performance issues. 

I'm considering adding a monitor that I'd need an HDMI to thunderbolt converter for, but I don't think that extra dongle will be problem.

I think that covers the current workflow. 

My budget allows for two machines, and I'm not sure which is the best for what I'm doing:

1. 14 Inch Apple M2 Pro with 10‑core CPU, 16‑core GPU, 16‑core Neural Engine

16GB unified memory

1TB SSD storage

 

Three Thunderbolt 4 ports, HDMI port, SDXC card slot, headphone jack, MagSafe 3 port.

2. 13 Inch Apple M2 chip with 8‑core CPU, 10‑core GPU, 16‑core Neural Engine

24GB unified memory

1TB SSD storage

13-inch Retina display with True Tone

Two Thunderbolt / USB 4 ports

My question:

1. Given my situation, which machine would you choose and why? The 14's more powerful chip and less memory or the 13's less powerful chip and more memory?

The extra connectivity in the 14 is very nice, but not a deciding factor.

Thanks for whatever help you might be able to give me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[triplets]

Does it have to be laptop?

If not, did you consider the M1/M2 Mac mini?

Edited February 5, 2023 by triplets

[supanorton]

 

Thanks for your reply!

I need a laptop for portability. I thought about the mini, but it just doesn’t make sense. I have to replace the current laptop as the USB ports are loose. 
 

Do you think the MacBooks I'm looking at aren’t powerful enough?

I don’t want to, but maybe I should hold out and save a little more to get the 14 inch MBP with 10 core CPU, 16 core GPU and 32 GB memory? 
 

I wish I had a better understanding of what I need with regard to cores and memory. 

 

[triplets]

7 hours ago, supanorton said:

I wish I had a better understanding of what I need with regard to cores and memory. 

I didn't check, but are there some Geekbench scores already for the models you're considering?

They give you a rough idea of the power of the machine.

[fisherking]

the 14", hands down; better specs, more ports, bigger screen...

[supanorton]

9 minutes ago, fisherking said:

the 14", hands down; better specs, more ports, bigger screen...

Thank you. Do you have any insight on the memory vs. cores? I can get 24GBs with the 13 and 16GBs with the 14. 

Trying to figure out if the extra cores on the 14 (10 CPU / 16 GPU) outweigh the 13 (8 CPU / 10 GPU. 

My budget gives me more memory on the 13, more cores on the 14.

[supanorton]

7 hours ago, triplets said:

I didn't check, but are there some Geekbench scores already for the models you're considering?

They give you a rough idea of the power of the machine.

Interesting stuff, but I have no idea what any of it means. LOL. The M1s and M2s they have are head and shoulders above what I'm using, but I just don't know what any of that means in terms of what I need the machine to do. I don't see myself doing anything more than I do. 15-25 tracks, mostly audio with 3rd party plugins and a PCU hungry drum modeler. I'll have to do some more reading. Thanks, triplets. Appreciate the help. 

[fisherking]

2 hours ago, supanorton said:

Thank you. Do you have any insight on the memory vs. cores? I can get 24GBs with the 13 and 16GBs with the 14. 

Trying to figure out if the extra cores on the 14 (10 CPU / 16 GPU) outweigh the 13 (8 CPU / 10 GPU. 

My budget gives me more memory on the 13, more cores on the 14.

you're not doing orchestral scores, your needs are reasonable. the 14" is more powerful, just a better machine. 16gb ram should be more than enough (i have 16gb on my mini). for me, it's no contest; the 14" macbook pro is a killer...

[supanorton]

1 hour ago, fisherking said:

you're not doing orchestral scores, your needs are reasonable. the 14" is more powerful, just a better machine. 16gb ram should be more than enough (i have 16gb on my mini). for me, it's no contest; the 14" macbook pro is a killer...

Thank you so much, fisherking!

[triplets]

10 hours ago, supanorton said:

I don't see myself doing anything more than I do. 15-25 tracks, mostly audio with 3rd party plugins and a PCU hungry drum modeler.

Hard to predict how CPU hungry plugins react with M1/M2 chips, but the usual wisdom is, the more software instruments you use, the more ram you might need.

 

10 hours ago, supanorton said:

The M1s and M2s they have are head and shoulders above what I'm using, but I just don't know what any of that means in terms of what I need the machine to do.

Exactly, that's what the Geekbench scores, tell you:

https://everymac.com/ultimate-mac-comparison-chart/?compare=all-macs&highlight=0&prod1=MacBookPro096&prod2=MacBookPro147&prod3=MacBookPro148

What's interesting, is that the SC score (single-core) between the two M2s is almost the same, which has some weight on plugin-handling: Logic does heavy plugins on one core mostly, doesn't spread it evenly like we would expect, YMMV.

But the MC score (multi-core) difference is bigger, almost 9000 against almost 12000, more than 30%. This difference would be obvious in CPU-intensive tasks.

I would go for the bigger screen myself, and more ports!

[supanorton]

11 hours ago, triplets said:

Hard to predict how CPU hungry plugins react with M1/M2 chips, but the usual wisdom is, the more software instruments you use, the more ram you might need.

 

Exactly, that's what the Geekbench scores, tell you:

https://everymac.com/ultimate-mac-comparison-chart/?compare=all-macs&highlight=0&prod1=MacBookPro096&prod2=MacBookPro147&prod3=MacBookPro148

What's interesting, is that the SC score (single-core) between the two M2s is almost the same, which has some weight on plugin-handling: Logic does heavy plugins on one core mostly, doesn't spread it evenly like we would expect, YMMV.

But the MC score (multi-core) difference is bigger, almost 9000 against almost 12000, more than 30%. This difference would be obvious in CPU-intensive tasks.

I would go for the bigger screen myself, and more ports!

I'm going to hold out for a few months and get the 14 with 32 GBs memory. I'd like to get a bunch of years out of it, and the extra memory should help with that. Never know what new plugins are around the corner. Hopefully my current MBP will get me to the finish line.

I appreciate your help. Thank you, triplets. 

[supanorton]

Just checking in with my first impressions of my new 14 inch MacBook Pro with the M2 Pro chip, 1 TB storage, and 32 gigs of memory. I had a hard time wrapping my head around such an expensive purchase and could have gone out and bought another guitar, but this is an awesome machine for my needs. I haven't had to freeze any tracks using the high CPU and memory taxing plugins from IK Multimedia, Waves, and Plugin Alliance. Working on a couple of mixes right now (20-25 tracks mostly audio, MODO DRUM, Hammond B-3, IK's tape machines, Waves Abbey Road stuff, and a bunch of other plugins), and the CPU is only at about 25-30%. the machine is an absolute beast. Thanks for the help, guys! 

Edited May 17, 2023 by supanorton

[fisherking]

19 hours ago, supanorton said:

Just checking in with my first impressions of my new 14 inch MacBook Pro with the M2 Pro chip, 1 TB storage, and 32 gigs of memory. I had a hard time wrapping my head around such an expensive purchase and could have gone out and bought another guitar, but this is an awesome machine for my needs. I haven't had to freeze any tracks using the high CPU and memory taxing plugins from IK Multimedia, Waves, and Plugin Alliance. Working on a couple of mixes right now (20-25 tracks mostly audio, MODO DRUM, Hammond B-3, IK's tape machines, Waves Abbey Road stuff, and a bunch of other plugins), and the CPU is only at about 25-30%. the machine is an absolute beast. Thanks for the help, guys! 

are you running monterey or ventura? note that plugin alliance plugins are not yet compatible with ventura... lots of people talking about this.

either way, glad you're getting the most of an excellent mac!

[supanorton]

Ventura. Regarding PA plugins, I've used blackbox saturator hg2 ms, shadow hills mastering compressor class A (red one) without any sound issues: a few times the plugins wouldn't load on startup or open when clicked correctly, but that hasn't happened in a few days. I also tried the bx mastering desk true peak, which sounded great, but my bounces/mixdowns waveform comes out compressed or something. Weird. I'll try another mix down later, but the other PA plugins I tried are working here.

[analogika]

Yeah, I’ve seen similar erratic-but-not-catastrophic behaviour with a few PA plugins. 
 

I have the same machine with the 12-core CPU (2 additional performance cores) and 32 GB / 2 TB. 
 

While I do occasionally miss the Touch Bar, and I would opt for a fourth USB-C  over MagSafe on the road, the machine has been nothing short of awesome. 

Edited May 18, 2023 by analogika