Apple MacBook Pro 14 2023 M3 Max Review - The fastest CPU in a 14-inch laptop

Our review unit of the MacBook Pro 14 uses the fastest M3 Max in combination with 64 GB RAM as well as 2 TB SSD storage, which increases the price to $4299. In addition to high-end multimedia laptops, we also used two gaming laptops for our comparison group. Both the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 as well as the Razer Blade 14 offer powerful components in combination with very good screens, so they are also interesting options for content creators.

Apple keeps the familiar chassis design of the two previous years and while the new entry-level model is still available in silver or space grey – customers can choose between silver and the new space black version on the more expensive M3 Pro & M3 Max SKUs. Our review unit is the new space black model, but it is not really black and there is always a visible difference to the black keyboard, it is more of a really dark grey (it also looks brighter or darker depending on the lighting conditions). While smaller MacBook Air in the color Midnight was a pure fingerprint magnet and you had to clean it all the time, the new black model is better in this regard, but you will still see fingerprints faster compared to the silver model. Apple uses a chemical process, which is part of the anodizing and not a coating. The quality of the chassis is still excellent and the aluminum case feels premium and sturdy. The display hinges also leave a good impression, only the maximum opening angle (135 degrees) could be larger.

The hard front edge of the base unit can be an issue and cut into the skin when you use it for longer periods. The design of the base unit without any tapered edges also makes it feel quite bulky, but this subjective impression is misleading and at 15.5 millimeters, the MBP 14 is actually slightly thinner than the old MacBook Pro 13 (15.6 mm).

The high-end model of the MBP 14 tips the scale at 1.611 kg, so it is a bit heavier than the base model with the M3 SoC (1.525 kg), which is mainly a result of the more powerful cooling unit. The MBP 14 is still the lightest and thinnest/most compact device within our comparison group. The 96W power adapter tips the scale at 366 grams (including MagSafe cable); it is also possible to charge the MacBook via USB-C.

The port situation did not change compared to the previous model and you still get three USB-C ports including Thunderbolt 4 as well as a modern HDMI 2.1 output. The MBP 16 with the M3 Max can drive up to four external displays simultaneously (3x 6K @60 Hz via Thunderbolt and 1x 4K @ 144 Hz via HDMI) and the maximum resolution via HDMI is 8K @60 Hz or 4K @240 Hz. In addition to the MagSafe connector, you can also charge the large MBP via USB-C and it works with a 65W power adapter.

The SDXC card reader on the right side is still very fast, and we determined up to 221 MB/s with our reference card (Angelbird AV Pro V60) and still 156 MB/s when we copied image files from the card, which is a good result as well. Inserted cards protrude by around 1.5 cm.

Apple still uses last year’s Wi-Fi 6E module including Bluetooth 5.3 and the overall performance is very good with stable transfer rates in combination with our reference router from Asus. We did not experience any problems with large downloads or bad reception during our review period. Apple does not offer Wi-Fi 7 modules yet.

The image quality of the 1080p webcam is still good but not comparable to front cameras on iPads. Face ID or Center Stage are still not available, either.

The base warranty for the MacBook Pro is one year. You can purchase a warranty extension (Apple Care+) for three years, which costs $279. This also includes costs for accidental damage (each subject to a service fee of $99 for screen damage or external enclosure damage, or $299 for other accidental damage). It is also possible to pay $99 per year for AppleCare+.

The trackpad has been the benchmark for years and the implementation with macOS is just excellent. The clicking experience is also completely identical anywhere you touch since there are no moving parts. macOS also offers plenty of customization.

The larger MacBook Pro 16 with the M1 Max or M2 Max already offered multiple performance modes in the past (Low Performance, Automatic, High Performance), and the smaller MacBook Pro 14 now also gets these modes when you spec it with the M3 Max. The High Performance mode is mainly noticeable when you stress the CPU & GPU at the same time (at the cost of higher fan noise). The pure CPU/GPU performance on the other hand is identical, so we performed the following benchmarks and measurements with the default Automatic setting.

The single-core performance is also noticeably better and the new M3 Max is faster than the Ryzen 9 7940HS as well as the two H45 Core i7 chips in Cinebench R23, but the two Core i9 models still have a small advantage thanks to their increased Turbo frequencies, but this comes at the cost of higher power consumption. The M3 Max is once again at the top of the comparison field in the Geekbench tests.

As per usual, the processor performance is not reduced on battery power until the battery level drops to 3 %. More CPU benchmarks are listed in our tech section and we also recommend our analysis article of the M3 Pro/M3 Max for more information about the efficiency, which will be published soon.

We also performed our Cinebench R15 Multi loop, but you have to keep in mind that this benchmark is emulated, which affects the performance. The performance is still very competitive and the Core i9-13900H is once again beaten. However, our loop also shows that the performance is not completely stable, even though the drop is very small at less than 10 %. The power consumption of the M3 Max will drop from 56 to around 41 Watts in Automatic mode and about 50 Watts in High Performance mode.

The high-end M3 Max chip is equipped with a 40-core GPU, which means there are two additional cores compared to the previous 38-core unit. We also suspect the core clock is higher. The performance is between 13-25 % higher depending on the test, but the maximum power consumption dropped from 64 to 60 Watts. The big advantage of the GPU is still the shared memory, especially during video editing. We edit our review videos for YouTube with DaVinci Resolve and occasionally run into the 16 GB VRAM limit on the RTX 4090 during editing. This is an even bigger issue on smaller GPUs with 8 GB VRAM (which are much more common in the 14-inch segment).

Compared to current Nvidia laptop GPUs, the M3 Max GPU can clearly beat the RTX 4070 Laptop in the cross-platform benchmark 3DMark WildLife Extreme Unlimited and is only 9 % slower than the GeForce RTX 4090 Laptop at 125 Watts and the advantage over the M2 Max GPU is 25 %. However, the M3 Max falls behind the RTX 4060 Laptop of the Surface Laptop Studio 2 in the OpenCL test of Geekbench.

The GPU performance is therefore basically identical to the larger MacBook Pro 16, but the performance is once again not completely stable in Automatic mode. The WildLife Extreme stress test results in 93.7 %, so a deficit of around 6 %. The result is better at 98.2 % when you use the High Performance mode. There are no performance limitations on battery, which is not the case for the fast GeForce GPUs. More GPU benchmarks are listed here.

Gaming on the Mac is getting more interesting, and the new macOS 14 (Sonoma) also offers a Game mode when you play in full-screen mode. In addition to emulated titles (like Shadow of the Tomb Raider, and Total War: Three Kingdoms), you can also use CrossOver to play Windows games. Depending on the title, this works well (like GTA V, Far Cry 5), but sometimes you have to experiment a bit, and we do not always see the expected differences compared to the base Apple M3-SoC. Sometimes the emulation cannot utilize the full performance of the hardware, and GTA V, for example, shows almost no GPU load while the main load is taken by the CPU.

Native games for Apple’s silicon obviously work much better, and this includes titles like Resident Evil Village, No Man’s Sky or Baldur’s gate 3. The performance of the new Apple M3 Max is really impressive and all titles run completely smoothly in QHD and maximum settings. Still, the MacBook is not really a gaming laptop and the Windows competition in this price range just offers much mire gaming performance and there are obviously much more titles to choose from.