Apple’s new M3 Pro chip is looking like an odd duck in an otherwise solidly improved MacBook Pro laptop. For most people who need a computer with a bit of oomph over dreary office tasks and need multiple external monitors, the M3 Pro will serve their needs and have great battery to boot. But year-over-year computer upgraders who might already have a Mac with an M2 Pro chip or even an M1 Pro might not see many (if any) performance improvements unless they shell out more dough for an M3 Max.
When you put the 12-core M2 Pro and M3 Pro head-to-head, you’d expect the latter to perform much better. In reality, the M3 Pro isn’t running away from the older chips. That’s because of an interesting design choice: Apple gave it an equal split of six…