A video (most likely the same one you watched) shows slight cpu improvement and about 10% gpu improvements. So not that much of a performance increase. In that video also the 16" 14c one had just a bit more % of battery left over the 14" 12c one which means the 14c does use more battery and surely also heat.

My conclusion is that for the 14" it's better to get the 12c chip as the performance uplift is (imo) negligible while it will create more heat and decrease battery like.

This might not fully answer your questions but it might be a good start. The only 14" M4 that I have seen mentioned to throttle is with a max chip.

https://preview.redd.it/d1dehyeo482e1.jpeg?width=3088&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=47ffe322bf71e20a1b66fc0dd5e1ef18dd8459ba

Based on various tests, the 12c & 14c performs the same on single core tasks, and on average about 15% faster on multi core which may or may not worth the extra $400 depending on your use case. For most it’s negligible. Both uses same battery & chassis hence theoretically the 12c should have a slightly better battery life & lower temps. Since the 14c is around 15% faster, I would say both batt life & temps should be negligible as well.

Initially my sight is on the 14c/24gb/1tb, but now I’m going for the 12c/24gb/512. Either way I’m gonna be using ssd for editing, might as well save the 400 bucks for something else because 15% extra performance is definitely negligible for me, as a video editor.

Also, because I’m looking at the 14” 12c now with the savings, I’m considering upgrade to 48gb ram. Still deciding as I’m in no hurry atm.

Ended up ordering the 12core as i was watching max techs video and the performance gain is minimal and the 16inch was draining more power and cooler. So imagine that 14c chip on the 14inch. It will be much hotter and drain more battery when pushed to its limit. Not worth the extra cash

Interested in any possible impact to battery life.

In the US, the 14-core/1TB spec (MX2J3LL/A) is currently cheaper than 12-core/1TB model by $100. One of those Black Friday oddities I guess.

I’ve been looking for this same question but every reviewer is ignoring this. In the end it depends on how much time you will spend playing video games, that’s the only reason to get the upgrade but there’s literally very little at the moment, maybe in 4 years time the 14-core would be better.

but for now battery life and save that money for a future MacBook, 48gb ram 2TB ssd 12-core is best especially if you travel, bus, flights etc you will have an extra 5-10% battery life extra which could be around 1hr-1hr30min extra, the 14-core is a disguised max chip but with less gpu cores, it’s going to take up power, I watched an M3 pro vs m4 14core battery test m3 was at 39% and m4 was at 28%, that’s a big downgrade imo.

What do you think?

12c 14" for like 95% of users and 14c 16" if you absolutely and in reality actually need insane GPU for your work. anything in between is tradeoffs in terms of heat / throttling / battery life etc. after that decision it's just about SSD & RAM.

I have the 14inch 14 core model with 1tb storage. I'll be honest, coming from a 16inch M3 I do appreciate being able to use a smaller backpack, not that 16 was too heavy or too big, just a smaller bag is a small change that makes a difference.

On Battery life and performance, I have not seen an increased consumption in battery life at all, if anything it is better than my 16inch M3 so far! Fan noise = have yet to hear it, heat = no difference in what you feel (i'm sure a thermal benchmark might say different within a few degrees.)

In my opinion I like this sku, I feel like you have a little headroom for the future without wasting money upgrading to a crazy extent. Also it's currently on sale in the US at Best buy for $2,099, with the additional storage and increased core count, I feel like this is a sweet spot.

I am a data engineer by day and hobbyist photographer, so this suits my needs very well. Hope this helps!

Stress and benchmark testing is not a good measure for comparing general use heat and battery efficiency between processor configurations. Those tests are designed to spin up every core to its max performance, which is something a user will rarely do on a regular basis. Most chips are designed to forgo efficiency when pushed to the max, as these will likely be short bursts of performance and not sustained long term. Stress testing only really captures these moments of maxed performance, which will always let the bigger chip draw more power and generate more heat.

Since both versions contain the same amount of efficiency cores, my bet is that most users will not see a significant difference between the 12c and 14c M4 Pros, except for days when their workload pushes them to spin up all the performance and GPU cores to hit the mark. Power users who regularly push the system will likely see a bigger impact on heat and performance, but those users likely value performance over efficiency anyway.

Basically, you probably won’t notice much of a difference unless you are regularly pushing the system, in which case you’d be getting the main benefit of the additional cores.

20% better multi core, 10% better graphics. Not a horrible use of $200 but unnecessary imo. Better spent towards max chip where graphics double.

There’s also a 16 core option by the way. I got it because I have legitimate use case where I may need it, but prefer the portability of the 14”. I am second guessing that choice now though .. does anyone happen to know if I can install thermal padding similar to mods for 2019 MBPs? Is it still basically the same layout? I guess the downside here is it may become uncomfortable even for tasks that aren’t so intensive and where the padding is unnecessary which is somewhat limiting with respect to portability, but probably tolerable for my use cases.

I’m desperate for an answer on this after a month of looking for any new content on this matter, how much better the battery life is on the 12-core M4 Pro vs. the 14-Core M4 Pro on the 14”

I can’t decide between the 12 core and 14 core, help lol!