Apple MacBook Pro 14 2023 M3 Max Review - The fastest CPU in a 14-inch laptop

[RobertJasiek]

All of the modern NNs require a lot of VRAM today.

Wrong, as just explained to you. Apparently, it is the modern language or image NNs that require a lot of VRAM today. But not every other modern NN.

Should run on Apple Silicon, would be interesting to compare.

The most recent Apple M I have direct KataGo information on is the M1:

home.snafu.de/jasiek/AI_Computer.html#mozTocId752162

home.snafu.de/jasiek/AI_Computer.html#mozTocId402496

guys agreed Intel is sh*t.

Intel is good for Wifi / office use: long battery life, low noise, fast single core are possible.

[RobertJasiek]

A, one question. Since you use these language models a lot, what do you use them for? How good are they? Is it fun to use them? Where should they be better?

[A]

Wrong, as just explained to you. Apparently, it is the modern language or image NNs that require a lot of VRAM today. But not every other modern NN.

Actually all of them. If yours doesn't require a lot of VRAM than it's not a big model aaaand it's either for a very easy task or not modern enough. Every generative AI needs a lot of RAM, e.g. in image generation VRAM demands grow exponentially with generated image size.
And game AIs... They are with us for quite a while already, I think AlphaGo for go and Leela Zero for chess were a thing many years ago. Can't call them modern.

Intel is good for Wifi / office use: long battery life, low noise, fast single core are possible.

Yeah, that's MacBook Air league.

The most recent Apple M I have direct KataGo information on is the M1

As an Apple fanatic I sincerely enjoy when i see M1 iPad and 4070 in the same comparison. ))) I'd expect M Max to be around 4070 OpenCL if they have Metal support and lower if it's only OpenCL, cause Apple dropped OpenCL support and it's implemented via emulation layer on Metal.

Since you use these language models a lot, what do you use them for? How good are they? Is it fun to use them? Where should they be better?

They are very good and there is a lot of them, trained for different purposes, from writing to attempts at solving math. I'm using only two types - coding LLMs and writing aka general chat LLMs.  Math LLMs are awful at math. ) And yeah, it is as much fun as uncensored chatGPT, e.g. you can make a horny crossover of Lord of the Rings and The Office just for laughs.

33-34B ones are smart'ish, can be used daily and give good results, just need to find a model of your liking. 70B are considered very smart. Sadly 70B is the sweet spot today, because open-source community isn't a multi-billion corp and 120B+ models are right now undertrained, not even talking about 180B. Also there's a balance between model size and context (how far back model can 'remember' what are you two are talking about). Context also uses a bunch of VRAM and some people prefer e.g. 34B model and 40K tokens context over 70B models with small context etc. Decisions are made solely on VRAM available.

You can go to r/localllama reddit, there's a TON of info.

[RobertJasiek]

KataGo uses a 95 MB net. But the advantage of Go is that the move coordinates only require a few bits. Some 50 billion moves or so fill 64 GB RAM but only 1 GB VRAM.

The Go task is way above top human's lifetime study, so not at all easy.

AlphaGo was 2015/2016. KataGo started ca. 2018. "Modern" for my taste.

"Every generative AI needs a lot of RAM, e.g. in image generation VRAM demands grow exponentially with generated image size." Interesting!

"I'd expect M Max to be around 4070 OpenCL if they have Metal support" A bit too optimistic, but it would be interesting to see Metal support indeed.

Thx for language model comments!

[Plum]

@A is it possible that with a different script (Using different websites, different web apps etc.), the relative results between two laptops could be different?

I would think so, as I can also often see that e.g. video streaming battery test behaves relatively different to WiFi test.

[A]

@A is it possible that with a different script (Using different websites, different web apps etc.), the relative results between two laptops could be different?

Yes, different websites consume different amount of energy on load and when displayed. And you actually can't predict which one without actually measuring power draw, because sometimes it's sites looking quite lightly.

video streaming battery test

I'm not a fan of video test cause actually it's a mostly a test of hardware video decoding. Usually the laptop with deeper hardware codec implementation wins ahem ahem macbooks with their hw codecs for like everything.

Btw if you are using Chrome or Firefox, check that your Youtubeserves you videos in VP9, not AV1. Right click video - stats for nerds. There are browser extensions to pick which formats you prefer for Youtube, e.g. enhanced-h264ify for Firefox. On M1/M2 chips AV1 is running in software, they've added hardware decoder only in M3 generation. And make sure "ambient mode" is disabled - it's an awful battery hog on some browsers - it's in settings on video.

[Neenyah]

I'm not a fan of video test cause actually it's a mostly a test of hardware video decoding. Usually the laptop with deeper hardware codec implementation wins ahem ahem macbooks with their hw codecs for like everything.

They switched back to Intel?

[A]

They switched back to Intel?

Nah, they've fully implemented codecs in a separate hardware module instead of, like, 'decoding/encoding acceleration'.

[Plum]

@A

You are right that I need to look into it more specifically. Dozen tabs was an underestimation, tbh. It could well be more than 1,000 tabs for me as well across various browser windows.

In any case, the difference between my Mac and my Windows Laptop seems to be much less than what the NBC tests suggest, also relatively speaking.

What drains the most battery for me are Google Meet meetings. A thirty minutes video call costs almost 20% in battery life... I can literally watch the battery drain during the meeting. Is your experience with Google Meet different?

A quick Google search indicates that I am not alone with this problem, specifically on Mac. Here is a quote from the Apple discussion boards which received almost 300 'Me too's from other users (thread id 251938676):

High battery usage in Google Meet

With online classes, we have to use Google Meet to attend class with our webcam on. However, I notice that my battery life drains from 100% to almost 0% in less than two hours. My MacBook Pro is barely a year old (13inch MBP, 2019). Likewise, a friend with a PC in chrome (an older laptop), his battery lasts much longer even though my battery is much newer. What can I do to be able to save more battery and make using google meet more efficient? I've been running it using Safari.

It is not unusual for me to have 5-10 Google Meet meetings per day, so unfortunately that alone will not allow me to leave the house without a charger.

My Mac also constantly shows Chrome and Discord (FYI: I am constantly at the 200 servers limit, such that I also have a separate Discord instance running in the browser for additional servers) as heavy battery drainers.

[Plum]

Just realized that the user in question must be still using the x86 Macs, if his Mac was from 2019, however with my M1 Mac Pro 16 inch, my experience is very similar.

[A]

Is your experience with Google Meet different?

I don't use it.

A thirty minutes video call costs almost 20% in battery life...

Sounds like 40W power draw to me. Bit on the crazy side actually, I just turned camera on (without call) in Zoom, consumption with background blur and beautifier grew only by a little less than a Watt from idle.

My Mac also constantly shows Chrome and Discord

Chrome being there is fine probably, Discord not so. But I imagine 200+ discord chats can keep that CPU constantly busy'ish just by receiving messages.

[Plum]

@A

Just for reference: Here are a few more links with the same problems for video conferencing including M1 users, which can be easily find online.

Macrumors forums (threads/google-meet-battery-drain-m1pro.2389600/):

hey guys,

Trying to get some additional information on this. I am upgrading from an M1 MacBook Air to a 14" M1 Pro MacBook Pro and am alarmed at the battery drain, specifically during Google Meets with Safari. My battery drains over 20% in less than 1 hour. This seems to be more than double what I experienced using the M1 Air (1hour~ 10% battery loss). FWIW, meetings over Zoom do not seem to be hitting the battery as hard as Google Meet.
Is this a normal amount of battery drain for this machine/processor?
Any tips to reduce this battery drain? Would the updated Chrome help with this?
Thanks so much for your insight!

Reddit: /r/MacOS/comments/ibzloc/i_thought_the_macbook_battery_lasts_for_around_8/

I thought the MacBook battery lasts for around 8 hours. I just came out of a google meet and it's gone down 32%, what am I doing wrong here?

Although I am not using it a lot, it seems that Zoom as a similar problem:

From Zoom Community forums (/t5/Meetings/14-quot-Macbook-Pro-M1-Pro-CPU-horrible-battery-life-with-Zoom/m-p/22233):

My base-model 14" Macbook Pro (M1 Pro CPU) gets really good battery life unless I fire up Zoom. I've tried it twice so far:

1st time - 1hr43m Zoom meeting drained battery from 100% to 38%. Nothing else running in the background.

2nd time - 1hr30m Zoom meeting drained battery from 100% to 51%. Again, nothing running in the background.

I verified that I am running the "Apple Silicon" version of Zoom with System Information.

All I can say is that Zoom absolutely destroys my brand new MBP's battery way too fast!

Is anyone else seeing this problem?
Tim

Some users commenting on the thread:

I'm also experiencing this. Just did a zoom call with only Safari open in the background and battery went down 20% in 50 minutes.

The same issue with mine! But not only zoom - TEAMS, MESSENGER, MEET, SKYPE ... all of these apps drain the battery of my M1 Pro like crazy. I noticed that on average these apps consume around 20-25% battery / 1 hour. Everything else runs simply perfect, besides when I have to do some conference calls - I get roughly 5 hours if I'm lucky. Without calls around 10 hours on battery.

The fact that generally no one tries to refute this issue across the internet indicates for me, that it is a widespread problem and not an isolated problem for myself.

So basically, anyone who needs to attend regular Google Meet (or Zoom) conferences during work, has no chance to get through his work day without a charger on a Mac Pro...

Might be different if for your work you barely need to attend such meetings, but for everyone else...Charger it is pretty much for every work day :-(

[A]

or Zoom

I'm often on Zoom calls, consumption numbers never looked outstanding or high, raising by around 1-2 watts. We've even discussed once M1 MBA doing a Zoom call using 2.7W with screen sharing.

Just to compare, Genshin Impact uses 24W on MBP M Max. Inferencing a 70B language model - 56W. Meeting apps can't be more than that or even around that, right? Yet you have 40W. Something is wrong. What is the CPU/GPU usage in activity Monitor? Does fan kick in? Any Rosetta apps running?

[A]

Actually 40W even sound like 100% CPU load on M1 Pro.

Seems to be happening on Windows too

High Cpu usage when i turn my video on!
I am using meet for 2 years but from 2-3 months i am facing high cpu usage almost 100% when i turn my camera on. Camera: Logitech C270, 720p , Windows 11.

Have you tried any fixes from the Internet?

turn visual effects OFF.
The blur background was increasing CPU from 8% to 100%

Settings > Video > Adjust Video Lighting
Disable that, spike drops. Sad to lose that much performance for such a small feature.

[Plum]

I can't speak about Zoom from personal experience as I'm only using it very occasionally. But for meet it is definitely true and it seems to affect others as well.

I'm not using Rosetta, didn't notice the fans. I'll control CPU/GPU usage in activity Monitor next time.

I've had this Mac for a year and a few months now and I was disappointed by battery life with video conferencing right from the start.

Also I asked some team members on Mac to pay attention during next meetings.

Let's see... Would be glad to be wrong here.