Apple M4 Pro Vs M4 Max: Which New Chip Is Better For Your Next Mac?
It's been a busy October for Apple, which has been announcing a bunch of new products across several categories. Recent launches from the company include the redesigned 2024 Mac Mini, the new M4-chipset-powered iMacs, and the refreshed iPad Mini. Today, Apple continued its streak of new launches with the company's new MacBook Pro lineup also making the inevitable switch to the new M4 chips.
What's new this time around, however, was Apple also chose this occasion to announce two new, more powerful variants of the M4 chipset family; the M4 Pro and the M4 Max. The first product to feature these powerful, high end chipsets are the refreshed 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models. In fact, these MacBook Pro models are the only Apple products that currently use the M4 Pro and M4 Max chipsets.
If not already evident from the naming scheme, the M4 Pro and the M4 Max chipsets offer a higher performance across the board compared to the standard M4 chipsets. For those wondering what is the more powerful chipset between the M4 Pro and the M4 Max, the quick answer would be that it's the M4 Max that takes the crown. In fact, the M4 Max is — as of now — the most powerful chipset powering any MacBook Pro model in Apple's history.
Choosing between these two chipsets, however, isn't a straightforward task given that different target audience for the M4 Pro chip differs from that of the M4 Max.
Apple M4 Pro vs. M4 Max: Should you get the more powerful chip?
There is no denying that the Apple M4 Pro is a very powerful chipset capable of handling most things you intend to throw at it. At the crux of it is the new 14-core CPU — 10 of which are dedicated to performance, and the other four cores taking care of efficiency. These machines support up to 64GB of unified memory — twice that of the standard M4 chipsets — with a memory bandwidth of 273GB/s, which according to Apple, is 75% more than what its M3 Pro predecessor offered. For those into video editing and graphics-related work, the M4 Pro also gets a beefed up 10-core GPU.
Effectively, the MacBook Pro models powered by the M4 Pro chipsets make sense for professionals who wish to carry a machine that is more powerful than the standard M4 models but do not wish to pay extravagant money for these performance gains.
Moving to the more powerful M4 Max chipset, the MacBook Pro models with this chipset boast a 16-core CPU — with 12 performance cores and 4 efficiency cores. It also gets a 40-core GPU, making it 2x faster than an M1 Max processor.
With support for up to 128GB of unified memory (twice that of the M4 Pro), machines using the M4 Max will almost never be strapped for RAM. The memory bandwidth on offer with the M4 Max — at 546GB/s — is twice that of the M4 Pro. The M4 Max chipset also has an integrated 40-core GPU, as opposed to the 10-core GPU on the M4 Pro.
If not evident already, these M4 Max-powered machines are intended for a category of users that range from data scientists and 3D artists, to music composers with heavy workflow demands.
Apple Intelligence shouldn't be the deal breaker
As was the case with the standard M4 chipset, both of Apple's new high-end chipsets are optimized for the features arriving with Apple Intelligence. Some of these features have already been rolled out to users in the U.S. with machines that run MacOS Sequoia 15.1.
Examples of Apple Intelligence features enabled by these new chipsets include new writing tools that can proofread, summarize, and rewrite text for users. These chips will also enable new Siri features — enabling them to seamlessly switch between spoken and typed requests. By December 2024, Apple is expected to roll out another update that will enable even more new Apple Intelligence features, including ChatGPT integration with Siri, and a new Image Playground feature that will help create AI-generated images and custom Genmoji.
It is pertinent to note that all the aforementioned features will also be available on machines that use the entry-level M4 chip, not just the Pro or Max. For those still on the fence between these two advanced M4 chips and M4-powered MacBook Pro models, the promise of Apple Intelligence features alone should not be a motivation for purchase.
Apple has already started accepting preorders for the new M4, M4 Pro, and M4 Max-powered MacBook Pro models. These laptops will be available for purchase from Apple Stores starting November 8, 2024.