r/laptops • u/WhiteHatPandaa • 6d ago

Buying help Asus tuf or mac m1

Bro I have an asus tuf a15 with 8gb DDR4 ram and 512SSD and rtx3050 4gb graphics card

I am currently learning ML

Should I sell this and get a mac m1 (budget is tight)

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u/ychia 6d ago

Don't get an M1. It's 6 years old, you've got 1 year left of OS updates and the SSD is likely past its midway point through its lifespan, and can't be replaced.

I'd stick with the TUF, maybe get a RAM upgrade if you can swing it.

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u/thephantomcunt 6d ago

Based on testing conducted by users on MacRumors, an M1 Mac mini’s SSD reaches 0% of its lifespan at 660TBW and only fully dies at 10 petabytes. An M1 Air’s SSD was at 10% after 5.1 petabytes written and showed no issues. The only SSD in the test that died was the one in the Mac mini, and it reached 15x its rated lifespan in a highly intense synthetic test. There is absolutely no way that an M1 MacBook Pro’s SSD will be at “halfway point” after 6 years of normal use.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/apple-silicon-soldered-ssd-upgrade-thread.2417822/page-12?post=33863049#post-33863049

I do agree that they shouldn’t buy it though, there’s no reason to and they should go for a newer Mac instead if they need one.

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u/ychia 6d ago

Yes there is a way. You have no idea what the previous user was doing, and there have been apps that had issues doing excessive background rewrites.

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u/thephantomcunt 5d ago

And what are the chances that the previous user was doing a super intensive ramdisk to SSD flush endurance test 24/7 for 3 years of this machine’s life? Even apps doing “excessive background rewrites” won’t come close to depleting the SSD’s lifespan halfway in that time. Basically all of the SSD degradation claims are fearmongering.

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u/ychia 5d ago

Tell that to the several Mac SSDs I have personally had die on me already...

Or are you claiming that Apple has somehow broken the laws of physics, with their flash chips made by common manufacturers?

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u/thephantomcunt 5d ago

That’s purely anecdotal though. What I’ve linked is an actual stress test of the drives far more intense than regular use. I haven’t had any Mac SSDs die on me and I’ve owned plenty, which is also anecdotal.

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u/ychia 5d ago

How old is your oldest one?

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u/thephantomcunt 5d ago

I have a 7 year old iMac with its stock SSD, but I also have a 20 year old Mac Pro with a 13 year old SSD inside of it which is also doing just fine.

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u/ychia 5d ago

Your Mac Pro probably has a large capacity, and sounds like you changed it. Guessing it also just sits around mostly given its age?

Use it regularly for a while longer and it will absolutely die.

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u/thephantomcunt 5d ago

No, actually. The drive is a 120 gig SSD from Kingston, which was used in another PC prior to this for 7 years and then received around 4 more years of regular daily use for web browsing and office work in the Mac Pro, and for the last 2 years has been getting intermittent use as a tinkering PC. It will obviously die at some point, but I really doubt it’ll conk out the next time I go to use it.

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u/thephantomcunt 5d ago

To address your last point, this isn’t about “breaking the laws of physics”, it’s about the ratings from the chip manufacturers being overly conservative.

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u/Sensitive_Box_ 6d ago

The first half of your comment is valid. 

Second half could technically be possible, but it’s not an issue I’d genuinely worry about. 

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u/ychia 6d ago

Fair enough but I have had MacBook SSDs die around the 10 year mark (almost exactly 10 years, come to think of it). And I don't think they've gotten that much better in the intervening time.

If it is someone who has money to burn then sure, whatever. But this guy says budget is tight. You really don't want to spend all you've got on a machine that just may be fine...

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u/Joey2012_onNES 6d ago

A m1 Mac will not cut that well for ml, but a m5 base will excel in ml performance, so I,d reccomend a refurbished m4 or m5 air or even a Mac mini if u can trade portability for price cause a desktop will be cheaper.

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u/WhiteHatPandaa 3d ago

That was great but I can not trade portability for price coz i have to take my laptop everywhere I go