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Ask HN: How would you, a software engineer, spec out a new MacBook Pro?

12 points by Eugeleo ↗ HN
I've read through the MacBook threads and seen one question repeated again and again: which specs to go for in the new MacBooks. I figured it might be worth it to make a dedicated post to discuss this.

To start this off, consider the following scenario:

- 50% of my work is web or mobile app development

- another 50% is training ML and deep learning models (currently on a cluster, but I'd prefer do it on my notebook of course)

- I also do raw photo editing work, as a hobby

In this case, what specs would you choose for your Mac? Specifically:

- M1 Pro with [14, 16] GPU cores, [8, 10] CPU cores, and [16, 32] GB of unified memory

- M1 Max with [24, 32] GPU cores, 10 CPU cores, and [32, 64] GB of unified memory

18 comments

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wmf
Max CPU, max RAM, min GPU.

The full GPU would help for ML training only if that actually works.

Eugeleo
Apple neural engine officially supports Tensorflow, I'm not sure if the GPUs are good enough to bother with it, though.
yuppie_scum
If you’re likely to do any Kube or docker swarm work you’ll be happy to have more ram. Try for 32 at least
avl999
The answer is do not buy a MacBook pro with their ridiculous premiums on memory and disk. Buy a Dell or Thinkpad, install Linux on it, will support all your usecases and you won't be trapped by Apple, will also save some $$$s in the process.
Eugeleo
Thanks for the viewpoint l. I've been wholly satisfied with my old MacBook, though, and thus don't think the overhead of switching systems is worth it for me.

Just out of curiosity, which Dell laptop would you recommend? Ideally a 14", light, and with good battery life. (I'll leave the more technical specs up to you)

avl999
I don't own a Dell right now but in the past I've had good success with the Inspiron series.
cercatrova
The Dell XPS series are good, either the 13 inch or 15 inch, they don't have a 14 inch version. You could also get something with an AMD CPU (sadly Dell's are all Intel), the Intel ones have lower battery life.
procinct
I had a 2015 XPS 13 and it’s mobo died. It was disappointing but lead to one of the best support experiences of my life with a technician coming to my apartment to fix it for me.

Then the mobo died again 2 years later now out of warranty :(

My 2015 MacBook Pro is still going strong though :)

andrei_says_
I am used to MacOS, and find Windows unbearable. Saying this as a former decade-long windows-only user.
Jtsummers
Under business laptops, didn't check consumer, here's what Dell offers with 64GB of RAM and a 14" display:

https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/dell-laptops-and-notebo...

It comes with 2TB of storage (NVME). There's some kind of discount on their site that brings the price down to $3739, but list before that is $5346. A 14" MBP with the maxed out processor and RAM (also 64GB) and 2TB of storage is $4099. So about $300 more than the discounted Dell. Searching all their laptops and only limiting it by RAM (64GB) they show me five options, the above and 4 more. The above is the only one cheaper than the 14" MBP, and all of them are listed with a discount. Ignoring the discount they're showing me right now (how long is this good for? EDIT: Through 15 November, so a month remaining at these prices) they all (including the above) cost more than a 14" MBP with 64GB of RAM and 2TB of storage.

Are there other configurations which demonstrate that Dell is actually a spec-for-spec better price?

ev1
For $5000 you also only get a standard 60hz 1080p screen on the dell
Jeremy1026
Thats one thing that the "Apple Tax" crowd never mentions. Yes, you can get another brand for 1/5th of the cost, but the specs aren't even close for 1/5th of the cost.
moooo99
I don't know if I missed something, but the last time I configured a comparable device (the Dell XPS 13) the prices for storage upgrades were basically identically. The overall configuration ended up being 200€ cheaper than the Apple equivalent, so not really worth considering the effort it takes to completely switch platforms.
dougbarrett
I've got the M1 Macbook Pro, 16 GB RAM and 2 TB hard drive, and do 95% software development and 5% photoshop, related to web development, so I'm not dealing with massive files with a ton of layers.

I'd say that this is more than enough power to hold me off from upgrading for the next few years, so fortunately for you I'd say if you can, the RAM upgrade may be more important than the actual CPU upgrade.

tmaly
Go with 64 GB of memory. All of these IDEs are memory hogs, it is better to have the extra memory. Also you might want to load a larger dataset into memory at some point.
kevinherron
I'd probably get the M1 Max with 64GB but I'd like to know if there's any discernible difference when driving two 5K monitors between the various GPU options.

I know it's not a great experience on my current 16-inch MBP with AMD Radeon Pro 5500M 8GB.

stocknoob
Figure out your income/hour, how many hours/day you plan to use the device, and realize saving pennies per hour on a machine that is your lifeblood isn't necessary.

You don't need to spring for extra storage, stick a 1TB SD card in the slot.