Hey Enthusiasts.
I’m being having my arm more or less twisted to force me to buy a macbook. Granted, with brands like lenovo shutting down on urp and arch Linux these days having a list of show-stopping issues longer than your phone’s scrolling ability, uh, why not. Meh tho.
Local corner shop still has 'pro in M1pro/16GB ram or M2"basic"/8GB ram for not unaffordable prices. Single Core benchmarks puts the M2 at maybe 10% better than M1pro, but Multicore and “Metal” (???) says M1pro is better than M2 basic, sometimes by a lot (geekbench).
I don’t understand benchmarking, especially with such variation in results.
I need a machine able to play 12 tracks of 16bits .wav files + some effects (Ardour) and / or output video in 1080p on 2 outputs + some gimmickery (Isadora). Or you know, run qlab like everybody else, with fades and envelopes and stuff.
Which one should I buy?
Agreed on the M1. Anything entry level for Apple is decent but not really meant to push the envelope very far. I had a 16GB Mac mini and it served me very well for software development. I had to run multiple ram hogging tools at the same time so it did have pauses when switching between them. Other than that it was a beast. It held up well compared to my higher end MacBook Pro i9 with 32 GB Ram. The M1s run very cool. You’ll wonder if your machine even has a fan except if you’re doing a long intensive processing job. The M2s from my experience run hotter. I have an M2 iPad that I’m betting becomes thermally throttled just by watching Netflix. Not that it stutters, it just becomes warm to the touch.