Mac hardware

We help to solve your hardware hassles, from interrupted upgrades to running diagnostics

Do you really need an M3 Max?

I’m considering trading in my MacBook Pro 16-inch M1 Max for its M3 equivalent. Do I need an M3 Max, or would a Pro suffice?

QDepending on model and option, you’d pay £400-£700 more for an M3 Max. With its extra cores it’s also likely to use significantly more power, resulting in shorter endurance between recharging.

As you’re already using an Apple silicon Mac, one good way to check whether your new Mac would make good use of those additional cores is to monitor their use with Activity Monitor’s CPU History window while doing your normal work on that Mac. Most user tasks are run preferentially on the Performance (P) cores; an M1 Max has eight, in two clusters of four.

AIf both clusters are heavily loaded for significant periods when you’re working, that suggests you may benefit from the additional cluster of six CPU cores in an M3 Max.

Assessing GPU use isn’t as straightforward, though. While Activity Monitor’s GPU History window can give an indication of the load put on the GPU in your current M1 Max, GPU core performance has increased considerably even in an M3 Pro. Relatively few games or other apps really push the GPU to its limits, although those that use its cores for non-graphical computation will normally run them to 100% in any case.

Beware of making decisions on benchmarks alone, as multi-core figures are dominated by the proportion of Efficiency to Performance cores, which make the M3 Pro appear weak in comparison. They also say nothing about battery endurance.

Can I upgrade the memory in a Mac mini 2018?

> You can, to a maximum of 64GB, using 260-pin PC4-21300 (2666 MHz) DDR4 SO-DIMM modules. However, Apple expects any upgrade to be performed by one of its own technicians, or an Apple Authorised Service Provider, as it isn’t straightforward by any means.

Is there a complete list of Diagnostics codes?

> Apple provides a complete and current list of the meaning of diagnostic codes generated by its hardware diagnostics utilities at bit.ly/ mac401refcodes. The code you hope for is ADP000, which officially means ‘No issues found’.