Sure, but that contributes to price, so you have time, check from time to time, you have enough till September to really get hold onto something amazing.

Consider that brand new Macbook Pro M4 Pro 12C 24/1TB costed 2200 configured, so for 1600 you should be really looking at something that is pretty much having few cycles of battery and it's in mint condition. Also M5 Pro 15C starts with 24/1TB for 2200 (Costco seems to have it for 2050 bucks right now), but this one have no E cores and performance uplift is substantial in DAW's like Logic/Bitwig over typical P/E cores, again, probably they will start popping out soon too, even for 1800-1900 they are great deal for few months old stuff

 

Last edited: Apr 11, 2026 at 9:42 PM

Yeah, while you want to pay attention to the power of the individual cores the way it works, and they have progressed over the years as things go... I wouldn't worry much about Voltage Modular creating issues, hell even on a 2 year old system like mine with 14 cores (10 performance and 4 efficiency, 30 gpu).. and those cores aren't m5, at all... especially if your coming from an intel chipped Mac. Apple Silicon will eat that stuff for breakfast.

Just get the best you can afford at the time, don't buy "second hand" (and that doesn't mean apple refurbished as that is first hand for all intents and purposes), and since you have a few months, just study up on what the transition from intel to m chipped is gonna be, and what you are going to either lose or have to upgrade and all of that. It can be a little much at first, but once you get settled, it's blue skies.

I can do more on my laptop right now than I could with four upgraded 5,1 cheesegraters with crap tons of ram for the most part (sure, lost pcie slots and some software as it was deprecated), and I kept my old systems on ice should I have to revisit things,... but it is so so much better. and portable. and saves so much money in a rapidly increasing world of power costs. and no damn fan noise.

 

I’m already aware of the transition from Intel but yes I can study up on any performance enhancements, plus I can prepare my hard drive so I can easily grab my installers to get set up quickly with a new Mac, plus I have to keep my eye out on any other raiders so I can replace the money I spent and save up ahead of time, and there should be plenty of time to put in some more into savings by then

 

yeah, there is gonna be some growing pains with the intel/mchip shift, so I wouldn't plan on "migrating" your system or using those offered tools, or rather, I certainly wouldn't recommend it.

I just wiped the slate clean and rebuilt with what I actually used, and found substitutes for things that wouldn't make the chip migration...

Sure, took longer. But you don't want to be dragging over a lot of detritus from your old setup other than what you specifically target and want. (i.e. you can bring your presets and audio assets and what you may need but don't use apple migration assistant or anything like that, as it will cause more headaches than ease). I had a pretty involved system(s) going on, so it didn't happen real quick, but taking the time and doing it right certainly was the right play looking back.