The new M4 MacBook Pro has these 7 major changes

Apple has officially announced the M4 MacBook Pro in both 14-inch and 16-inch screen sizes. In addition to the base M4 model, they also come in M4 Pro and M4 Max configurations in both sizes.

But let’s be real: the M3 MacBook Pro was already a fantastic laptop. Is it really worth upgrading to the new model? I won’t know for sure until I’ve tested them myself, but here are the six major changes you need to know about when it comes to the next generation of MacBook Pros.

The M4, of course

The main reason to be interested in these new MacBook Pros, of course, is the M4 chip inside. The M4, M4 Pro, and M4 Max are all still options, and they actually still come with the same CPU core counts as in the previous generation. The highest-end configuration of the M4 Max has a 16-core CPU, which comes with 12 Performance cores and four Efficiency cores.

Apple proclaims the M4 as “the world’s fastest CPU core,” playing up the increased single-threaded performance. The graphics have improved as well, despite the fact that GPU core counts haven’t changed either. But the cores themselves should have higher frequencies and wider video memory bandwidth, resulting in better graphics.

Apple provided a few notable examples of improved performance in a variety of apps such as Redshift and Cinema 4D, as well as the upcoming game Control, but we’ll have to wait until third-party testing comes out to see what the gen-over-gen improvements prove to be. That’ll remain true with AI performance as well, given Apple’s claims about the improved efficiency of the M4 Neural Engine, which is twice as fast as the previous generation.

More, faster RAM

Apple has bumped the memory in its base configuration of the M4 from 8GB to 16GB. The fact that Apple was selling a “Pro” device with only 8GB of RAM has been a sticking point for years now, so it’s great to see that rectified.

At the time, the company had defended its decision to stick with 8GB for the M3…