Apple Silicon - M3

[Lonnie.Cady]

Now that the native OSX version of Fusion has been released for a bit what are peoples feelings about it and the apple silicon chips?

I have been needing a new laptop and really like apple products but concerned about performance.  I would be considering an M3 Max.  I know they are just released and there is likely not real world evidence yet but how are the M2's working with Fusion?

[tomae]

Well I don't have any objective tests before and after, and I haven't used it extensively yet, but I just received my MBP with the M3 Max chip.  I got the 16" lower spec version (14 Core CPU, 30 Core GPU, 36GB Memory, 1TB Storage).  This is my first M-series laptop.  My previous laptop was a 2019 Intel 8-Core i9 with 16GB Memory, 1TB SSD, and Radeon Pro Vega 20 GPU.

Fusion 360 launches much faster, my parts and assemblies load very quickly was well.  Overall it's just a more responsive experience.  I haven't run many cpu intensive tasks yet, but building a couple small assemblies and also posting some G-Code for a few parts and all has been very smooth and quick.  I haven't noticed any issues at all compared with using it on my previous laptop.

So far so good.

-Tom

[Lonnie.Cady]

@tomae 

Thank you very much.  Exactly the info I was looking for.  I don't do intense fusion work.   Some small assemblies and post some simple gcode.

I just wanted so real world experience on it.  

[joeykelley]

How were you able to download the program? I Have the same Macbook, M3; 36G ram, and it keeps telling me I need to download the Rosetta app. But It wont let me download it..

[MAS.DPL]

I borrowed a Macbook air M3  (16GB) and installed Standard Fusion, using evaluation download link and then logging into my Fusion account. The Macbook was a week old but fully set up with office etc. it didn't ask for rosetta.  I then ran back to back rebuilds on a fairly complex assembly. I was just astounded by the speed - 10 seconds for full rebuild !!!

vs 20 seconds on Dell 5750 !!  (32GB Intel® Core™ i7-10875H Processor 2.8 to 5.10 GHz Nvidia RTX 3000).

That's a massive 2x speed improvement !  

Can anyone else using an Apple M3  tell me - what's the downside ?  

• Reliability ? (My Fusion Windows 11 setup, above is ROCK solid like under 1 crash per month )
• As fusion  is NOT (yet) fully native on apple M3, is there a reliability hit ? 
• Will it drive a 4K screen OK ? (the mac air had just under 4K native screen rez and I didn't hook it up to my 4K screen) 
• Mac OS - after years on Windows ? 

[TrippyLighting]

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@MAS.DPL wrote:

• Will it drive a 4K screen OK ? (the mac air had just under 4K native screen rez and I didn't hook it up to my 4K screen) 

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Yes, according to this Apple support page. 

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@MAS.DPL wrote:

• Mac OS - after years on Windows ? 

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I use both, Windows and MacOS machines. At work I use a dell precision notebook. At home I use a 2017 MacBook Pro and I built a Windows machine (AMD Ryzen 5950X, 64GB, RTN 3070ti) a few years ago.

I don't see any problems changing between the two OS. I prefer macOS, but don't have problems with Windows either.