My 2019 MacBook 16 Intel-powered (16GB RAM and 1TB SSD) Laptop is driving me nuts. It simply can’t handle my large SU projects without endless beachball twirlings and awful functioning when the full drawing is on the screen. I’ve just bitten the bullet and just ordered a new Apple MacBook Pro 16" M5 Pro CPU with 48GB RAM and 1 TB SSD. Anyone have any experience with the new chip and am I going to be excited or annoyed that it runs SU as it should run or has other glitches to contend with?
As some of you already know if you’ve been following any of my threads, that I’ve been complaining about my laptop’s performance for over a year now, but wasn’t annoyed enough to shell out $3,000 for a new one. I explored going to a desk top which would cost about the same, but didn’t want to have to isolate myself up in the multi-purpose room over the garage and be away from my wife and television. I spend enough time in the shop that I didn’t want to aggravate things further. I’m stuck with Apple for a variety of reasons, the most of which is the interface with my iPhone 16 Pro.
I dread having to migrate all all my software and especially all the plugins and stuff on SU. I have SketchUp Studio with VRay, but it doesn’t migrate. You have to got to VRay and load a new copy. But Apple isn’t supporting Intel-based MacBooks and the time had come to get a new one. I find that they last about five years. My battery life is already awful, running out of charge in about 2 hours (or faster). I’ve worn the upper finish on the “A” key, and the track pad is starting to get a bit skittish. So it’s time, even without the degrading performance.
Now I feel better rationalizing a puchase that depreciates $600.00 a year. I am getting $235.00 trade in from Costco on the old Mac, which is better than Apple which now offers, “Help in recycling your computer”. That covers the Kentucky sales tax. I’ll take anything I can get. Being a hobbyist and not in business, my laptop represents pure cost with no tax benefit.
I’m on a mac mini m4 with 32gb RAM replacing a mini m1 with 16gb, it’s great really.
you can be excited yeah. you bought a higher end mark.
depends on the use, in our field, yeah, 5years is a good rythm, especially if we want to keep up with nex versions of software.
my sister bought a mini m1 in 2020 for her office, and migrated the imac 2015 home. it’s still going strong for what she does with it.
actually, if both machines are on the same wifi, you can just migrate the old one to the new one during setup. it’s really quick, you’ll need to re-enter credentials now and then, and a couple apps might need a proper reinstall (especially if they were older versions), sketchup isn’t one of these. for me SU was pretty much ready to use 5 min after the migration
it took me almost as much time going through all the preference panels checking all the new things I wanted to get rid off (all the siri / continuity / space things)
M series chips are extremely good, I’ve said it a lot of times, my 2021 M1 Max MacBook still feels extremely fast and responsive, I’ve seen that the new $500 MacBook neo has a lot more single core power than my MacBook but at the end that are just numbers, when I bought my MacBook I spent like $4000 dollars cause I speced out the memory and increased storage, I thought that probably in three years I was going to upgrade to the then newest chip, I’ve thought about it a couple times but again I don’t feel I need it, all the performance numbers and comparisons are great for tech tubers, I will keep using mine until it really feels laggy or struggling with some task, I will take a lot of time for that, then I’ll retire it and put it in a frame next to my 2013 MacBook Pro.
The Neo only arrived today, so I’ve only done a couple of tests. In one I did an FPS test of the model that people have used in the forum. That gave 117 FPS. I also tried a >600 MB model, which worked fine, and measured at 34 FPS.
Both models were slower on my M4 MacBook Pro. But, my work Mac is doing a lot of other things, and has a good amount of security software installed. The Neo was only running SketchUp.
The M5 pro powered MacBook arrived on Thursday and I got right to work doing the migration from my MB 2019 to the new one. Then I find that the new one’s not charging. It was the adapter… dead as a doornail. Tested it the old Mac and it didn’t charge that either. Then I tried the old Mac’s charger with the M5 and it charged perfectly. Proof! Dead Adapter!
Called Costco tech support and they were talking with apple. They wanted me to bring the whole deal to the Apple Store on Friday, But… I was already migrating files and did not want to stop in prematurely. My old Mac’s battery time had degraded to a little over two hours so I needed to keep the charger on it. The new Mac’s life is over 20 hours, but the migration was estimated to take 22 hours. Turned out that over 900,000 files transferred.
I took an agressive approach and took the brick and charge cord to the Apple Store betting that they’d have a new brick in stock. They gave me a little bs about needed to run a diagnosis on the computer, but I was convincing and told to just plug it into any piece of equipment they have and it will prove very dead. She disappeared into the back room and came out about 10 minutes later with a brand new WORKING 140w power adapter. They said it was the first Mac that had a bad power adapter right out of the box. My luck!
Took it home, plugged it into the new Mac and migration went on without a hitch until sometime before 6:30 a.m. when I went out and checked it and it was complete.
The migrtation went well except VRay is unable to find its license. I’ve been working with Chaos and so far the problem persists. I’ve removed and replaced all the license management software as per their instructions, but it’s still giving me the error. It’s funny because it’s still working perfectly on the old Mac. I wonder if it’s because I’m trying to run it on two machines…
CorelDraw didn’t work and CorelDraw Customer Service sent me a new CorelDraw 2021 to reload it from scratch and that worked.
iMovie didn’t work, but it just needed to updated with help from Apple Tech Support.
All that’s left is fixing VRay.
Meanwhile, SketchUp RUNS PERFECTLY IN THE NEW MAC. All motions and everything else is silky smooth and instantaneous… just like it’s supposed to be. I was correct in my assessment that the MacBook 2019 with the Intel i9 just wasn’t up to the job. The new one clearly is. I’m hoping this is the last $3,000 laptop I’m going to have to buy.