The extra power of the M1 Max might not be worth the extra price.
One of the most interesting wrinkles about Apple’s new MacBook Pros is that the company offers them with two different chips. At first glance, you might assume that the more expensive M1 Max chip is simply a bigger, faster, more powerful chip than the less expensive M1 Pro—but looks can be deceiving. The two new chips are closely related, and depending on the kind of work you do with your MacBook Pro, the extra power of the M1 Max might not be worth the extra price.
But first, the M1
Before we compare the M1 Pro and M1 Max, we should cover the M1, the chip that started it all and is the heart of the new chips. Last year’s debut of the M1 chip was hailed as an amazing, revolutionary move. And it was. This was the Mac adopting Apple’s own chip architecture for the first time, trading mediocre Intel performance for the advantages that the iPhone and iPad have had for years.
But in many ways, the M1 was an evolution of the game Apple has been playing for some time. Though it added Mac-specific functionality such as support for Thunderbolt, it was mostly an evolution of the A12X and A12Z chips that powered the iPad Pro. The M1 proved that an iPad-class chip could offer more than enough performance and battery life to power Apple’s more consumer-oriented Macs—the MacBook Air, Mac mini, and iMac.
Read more at MacWorld.com