[neya]

I upgraded to an M3 Pro from an M1 Pro. I sold my M1 Pro at 90% of the original cost (not even exaggerating) on Facebook marketplace AFTER 2 YEARS.

I thought the buyer was insane to buy it at that price. But, of course mine had a decent spec and still had the Apple care warranty with very low battery cycle count. After the sale, the buyer told me the truth: The M1 is the best chip Apple ever made and I wouldn't see much of a difference in real world between the M1 Pro and an M3 Pro unless it was the Max version of the chip.

I didn't believe him then. But, after a year of being on M3 Pro, I gotta say he was spot on. Don't get me wrong, the M3 Pro is definitely faster in a lot of things. But not 3x or 2x faster like Apple always like to market. I can open a few extra tabs without slowing down, compile times (Elixir) did get somewhat faster. But definitely not faster to the point where there were two generations worth of performance improvements like Apple claimed.

The M1 chip series is vastly underrated.

[freehorse]

M3 was a weird generation, as they contained fewer transistors than the previous ones. It is slightly faster in single core tasks, and has a few more cores, but they are very close. But in terms of gpu, m3s are quite nerfed esp because they lowered the memory bandwidth, so on llm performance they are on par. I have both an m3 and an M1 Max, one of them from work, so I have tested them extensively (though the m3 is binned and 14”, the m1 full and 16”). M3 had better TTFT but the M1 had a bit higher tokens/s.

[neya]

Wow! Thanks for sharing. I didn't know this. Time to upgrade to M5? What do you think about the M5? I know it's too early for tests. But I would love to hear your opinion.

[freehorse]

M4 was already imo a more meaningful upgrade compared to m2/m3, and they increased the memory bandwidths too. But then, all apple silicon is good hardware, and I do not personally feel in any rush to upgrade, unless you want a specific upgrade like more ram.

[neya]

Thanks mate :)

[retired]

Impressive. Four years in and my once €2100 M1 Pro is worth maybe €600.

[neya]

You can try selling it in Asia (Singapore / Malaysia). You can get a good deal for it there usually if your battery cycle count is low. One thing I really learned is - it's super important to keep the battery cycle count low if you want a good resale value on your machine. I was extremely fortunate enough with the M1 Pro to always use it plugged in because I was constantly worried about not having enough battery when I actually needed it.

[theodric]

Does replacing the battery reset the cycle count? If so, does it raise the resale value by more than the cost of a replacement battery?

[neya]

Officially via Apple? Absolutely not. Unofficially? A risky affair that mostly will end up losing the warranty on the device. However if you plan to keep the device longer with you, it's a path worth exploring if the cycle count is high.

[retired]

Personally I rather just use the MacBook how I want and not limit my usage based on potential resale value.