Anyone have an M1/Pro/Max Macbook and can report on Figma performance?

With the new M1 Macbooks released, the potential performance increase is very appealing—however the price range is not so wonderful. I’m looking to upgrade but I want to purchase wisely.

If anyone has one of these Pro or Max chipped Macbooks and is working in Figma, I’d really like to know:

  1. What config it is
  2. How it does in a common (for me) covid-times situation like this: screensharing in zoom/teams/meet while connected to one or more 4k monitors. While this is happening, working in Figma with several web apps in tabs and maybe another app or two running.

The critical ingredients that can slow down my current Intel Macbook the most are the 4k screen and screensharing. Over the course of a 30-60 minute meeting, zooming around a canvas and editing, the performance can get pretty bad for me.

  • Can an M1 Mini handle this smoothly?
  • How about the 14 or 16 GPU core M1 Pro MBP?
  • The M1 Max with either 24 or 32 GPU?
  • Are any of these overkill or can 4k+screensharing even bring the mightiest Apple Silicon to its knees?

A real-world account of this kind of test would help me decide much more than all the reviews I’ve seen so far, since most of them are either all about the unboxing experience or how great they are for video editing.

It looks like I’ll have more time than I want for deciding, since a week after the October announcement, the shipping dates are already pushing to December.

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Yes very interesting will be waiting for answers because I’m deciding between 16 GB of RAM and 32 or even going for max version

It’s been 2 years, but this post is pretty helpful in understanding how to optimize your computer for Figma.

I vaguely remember reading that Figma refactored their entire codebase at some point so not sure if this is still relevant or not.

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I would say if you are just doing design work the M1 pro should be fine. If you want a little more performance to last I would go with the 32 base m1x to handle the load as it gets older. I have intel core w/ 16 GB RAM and the performance just sucks when Im zooming, working figma, photo and affinity at the same time. If you are not doing AR/VR, 3D rendering/modeling or video editing then I would say 64GB might be overkill, But who am I to say? I just bought one and had maxxed out to get the most avail processor and RAM

Well when it arrives, if you’d be willing to report on 1 and 2, that would give me some concrete info.

Well, guys, I have the Brand New 14" Base model (M1 Pro, 16 GB of Ram for memory, 8 Core CPU, 14 Core GPU, and 512 SSD), and let me tell you, the performance is incredible! I come from a Macbook Pro 2019 Core i7 with 32GB Of Ram for memory and the difference regarding performance is completely insane! Having a thousand Artboards, components Design systems, anything open the performance is amazing!

My advice: We as Product / UX Designers don’t need the Max, not even the 32 GB of Memory. This is a real war machine.

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Hi…I don’t think anybody has gotten the 24 center model at this point since it was a worked to arrange choice. Probably individuals would begin getting them in the following 1 fourteen days I think.

I’m more inquisitive in the event that anybody has run computer chip put together benchmarks with respect to the 16core/16gpu professional versus 16core/32gpu max to check whether there is a lot of contrast with the further developed memory transmission capacity and store. (since the 24 would see comparable central processor, not gpu gains).

I can answer my own question for the M1 Mac Mini since I bought one in the 16gb RAM and 250gb SSD configuration:

  • So far it’s smoothly handling Figma + other apps, while screen sharing from 4k and 1920 displays (always connected).
  • It does this in much-welcomed silence.
  • This suggests to me that any of the new Macbook Pro models/configs should behave just as smoothly but even more so, and portably.

It would still be a good thing to hear from people who’ve purchased the new Macbooks.

--------------- UPDATE ----------------

I can’t follow up with more replies but I can edit this older post.

I’d like to report that after testing with the Mac Mini, I got a 14" M1 Pro MacBook (16 gb ram, 1 tb ssd) and it’s been running this stress situation for months without fail. It is every bit as smooth and silent as the Mini, plugged in or on battery.

This is like a whole new computing experience. I just wish the MacBook Pro also accepted touch and Pencil input.

Since I couldn’t justify the price of owning both computers, I returned the Mini. It’s the first time I’ve ever returned a computer I was totally happy with.

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Things are not working as well as expected for me. Upgraded from Windows AMD Ryzen 5 3600. Performance is worse in places. With 7 tabs and 20+ frames in each - it starts to slow down. I drag 6-7 frames - the frames follow the cursor with a delay of 1 second.

I would stay on Windows.

imac 2021, 16GB

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