Which MacBook Pro to buy or not?

I went from an 2019 Intel 16" i9 to an M4 Pro MPB with 48 GB of memory. The performance boost is significant for things like batch converting RAW images and transcoding video. Those activities would result in >4000 rpm fan speeds on the Intel Mac, the fans on the M4 Pro remain off. There have been reports of the M3 and M4 Max models running the fans more, which is one reason I went with the Pro. If you work with the Mac open in bright settings, the Nano texture display is a great option.

I would not expect Intel machines to be supported for much longer.

Phil Weyman wrote:

I have a 2019 MacBook Pro 16" with 32GB Ram, 2.3 GHz 8 Core i9, AMD Radeon Pro 5500M 8GB graphics card.

What I don't want to do is upgrade to a lower performing machine but I find the new configurations confusing - for example is 16GB RAM on an M3 gonna be better than the 32GB I have on the Intel machine?

I would not assume that you can get away with less RAM on a new machine.

Your 2016 MacBook Pro has 32 GB of RAM, plus 8 GB of separate video RAM for the discrete GPU. On the Apple Silicon Macs, all of the computing units share memory. That is, if you were to purchase an Apple Silicon Mac that had 16 GB of RAM, that would be the total amount of RAM available to the CPU and the GPU.

Apple Silicon chips – especially Max chips – are designed to provide high bandwidth interconnections between the RAM and the various computing units. A Max chip may have GPU performance which is similar to that of a discrete GPU even though, technically speaking, the GPU on a Max chip is an integrated GPU. But you will still want to have enough RAM to handle the combined job that you are putting on the CPU and the GPU.

I remember the hyperbole around the first M1 chip, is the most basic configuration on an M3 gonna outperform the highly specced machine I currently have?

It would depend on the characteristics of the particular workload. How much does that workload depend on single-core CPU performance? mult-core CPU performance? having lots of RAM? GPU speed? How long do things take relative to human perception time? (If one computer is twice as fast as another, but the "slower" one is fast enough that it seems to do things "instantaneously" on a human time scale, there might be no perceived speed advantages to an upgrade.)

I'm guessing that you bought your 2019 MacBook Pro with 32 GB of RAM for a reason – that you are running things that use a lot of RAM, where not having enough RAM could cause big slowdowns (because virtual memory is not as fast as the real thing).

As far as fans running every now and then, I assume they would do that on the new machines, also.

Phil Weyman wrote:

I have a 2019 MacBook Pro 16" with 32GB Ram, 2.3 GHz 8 Core i9, AMD Radeon Pro 5500M 8GB graphics card.

Intel is being phased out.

macOS 26 is compatible with these devices

OS - macOS Tahoe 26 - Apple

Help me choose which Mac—Answer a few questions to find the best Mac for you

Mac - Which Mac is best for me? - Apple

Phil Weyman wrote:

I'm just concerned that the Intel line of machines aren't really a priority for Apple anymore

Apple no longer makes any Intel-based Macs.

I believe that macOS 26 (Tahoe) will only run on four Intel-based Macs:

• MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2020, Four Thunderbolt 3 ports)
• MacBook Pro (16-inch 2019)
• iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, 2020)
• Mac Pro (2019)

No Intel-based MacBook Airs, low-end 13" MacBook Pros, 21.5" iMacs, or 27" iMac Pros need apply.

All Apple-Silicon-based Macs released to date will get Tahoe.

It is also known that macOS 27 (to be named) will not support any Intel-based Macs.

Ideally I'd like to go back to Ventura as it was the perfect machine (not really sure why I upgraded!)

You might be able to do a "clean install" of Ventura, but when Apple releases macOS 26 (Tahoe) this fall, Ventura will fall off the list of "the most recent three" supported by vendors such as Microsoft and Adobe.

Update macOS on Mac - Apple Support

I would suggest trying to troubleshoot performance issues under Sequoia first before thinking about a downgrade to Ventura.

Consider downloading and running this little "discovery" utility, Etrecheck. It changes NOTHING. Etrecheck was developed by a senior contributor here, and uses mostly system calls and simple tests to collect often-needed information.

it contains little tests for speeds of devices, CPU utilization, memory usage, energy usage and a digest of recent problems, in one easy to use package. it does not even need to be Installed. Because less can be learned when your Mac is running great, best time to run is when your problems are actually occurring, if possible.

if you follow the directions faithfully, its report (pre-laundered of all personally-identifiable information) can be "Shared" to the System ClipBoard, then Pasted into an ‘Additional Text’ window in a reply on the forums.

Use Etrecheck Pro for free:

http://Etrecheck.com

The amount of data you get can be daunting. If you POST your report, some Readers here are willing to look over those reports, and can provide valuable insights.

then start reply on the forums, click the "additional text" Icon, and PASTE

Phil Weyman wrote:

I have a 2019 MacBook Pro 16" with 32GB Ram, 2.3 GHz 8 Core i9, AMD Radeon Pro 5500M 8GB graphics card.

UPDATE!!!

This is all since the upgrade to Sequoia - my advice to anyone running Intel machines if everything is working fine DO NOT upgrade to Sequoia.

ref: " 2019 MacBook Pro 16"

hmmm...seems a bit myopic

This is the machine I have— and I had no such issues...to make your same proclamation(?)

Including the initial 15.0— through the current:

Current stable release of Sequoia  including bug fixes,  security updates  is macOS 15.6.1

Keep your Mac up to date - Apple Support

Keep your Mac up to date - Apple Support

please note: macOS 26 Tahoe  available Sept 15, 2025  OS - macOS Tahoe - Apple

Phil Weyman wrote:

What I don't want to do is upgrade to a lower performing machine but I find the new configurations confusing - for example is 16GB RAM on an M3 gonna be better than the 32GB I have on the Intel machine?

Some people will tell you that you can get away with less RAM on Apple-Silicon-based machines, either because they are "more efficient" or because they have very fast SSDs.

I would not make that assumption. The data that you are working with is not going to become magically smaller, just because you are working with it on an Apple Silicon machine. Also, while your Intel-based Mac has 32 GB of main memory plus 8 GB of dedicated video memory belonging to the GPU, Apple Silicon machines use a Unified Memory architecture. On an Apple Silicon Mac with 32 GB of RAM, the GPU doesn't have its own separate RAM, but is using part of that 32 GB of RAM.

That is, in Wintel PC terms, Apple Silicon Macs have "integrated GPUs." Now the Unified Memory setup on a Max chip may allow the Max chip's GPU to deliver the type of performance that would normally require a discrete GPU, over in the Intel world. But in terms of the amount of RAM needed, I would not want to make the assumption that you could replace a machine with (32 GB RAM + 8 GB VRAM) with one with only 16 GB RAM total – and not suffer from any performance degradation as a result.

I remember the hyperbole around the first M1 chip, is the most basic configuration on an M3 gonna outperform the highly specced machine I currently have?

In terms of CPU benchmarks,

• MacBook Pro (16-inch, 2019) (2.3 GHz) – 1344 / 5969
• MacBook Pro (14-inch, M3, Nov 2023) – 3091 / 11611
• MacBook Pro (14-inch, M4, 2024) – 3813 / 14837

If you move up a notch to a Pro chip:

• MacBook Pro (14-inch, M3 Pro) (11/14 core) – 3087 / 13959
• MacBook Pro (14-inch, M4 Pro) (12/16 core) – 3870 / 20240

This suggests that the Apple Silicon notebooks would be nigher-performing IF you have enough work to throw at them that the speedup is visible in terms of human reaction times, and IF you don't starve them for RAM.

Note that MacBook Pros and MacBook Airs with plain M3 chips can only drive one external monitor with their lids open, or two external monitors (with limitations) with their lids closed. Mac notebooks with Pro chips, Max chips, and plain M4 chips can all drive at least two monitors at the same time as the built-in display.

neuroanatomist wrote:

I would not expect Intel machines to be supported for much longer.

If I'm not mistaken, Apple announced at their developer's conference that Tahoe will be the last major version of macOS that will run on any Intel-based Mac.