Is this trade worth it? Base M1 -> M3 Pro

From what you said in your initial post, and your reply, it sounds like you are more RAM-limited than CPU-limited. RAM is not expandable on any Apple Silicon Mac – and given the programs that you say you want to run, I'm not sure whether 18 GB is really going to be enough for the long haul.

Autodesk – System requirements for AutoCAD 2026 including Specialized Toolsets says that the recommended system requirement for Macs is "16 GB or higher". But if you look at "additional requirements" for handling large datasets, point clouds, and 3D modeling, they say you need 32 GB of RAM.

Ableton – Computer specifications for running Ableton Live says that "16 GB or higher" is recommended.

It might be better to buy a machine with 24 GB, 32 GB, or more of RAM to be on the safe side – especially if your goal is for a new machine to last you "4 – 6" years with your use case.

based ONLY on capabilities:

8GB of RAM is at the very low end of usability for a Mac running modern MacOS doing ordinary work. If you have only 8 GB you may be forced to QUIT your Browser before doing anything else, and high end work like video editing, advanced picture editing, or CAD will likely be too slow to be practical.

Your work is more demanding, and you definitely need more RAM.

Last month, Apple did not sell ANY Macs as new that had only 8GB of RAM [Then they introduced the Mac Neo, limited to 8GB, but not suitable for high-end work.]

It’ll definitely be better than the severely-overloaded 8 GB Mac due to the faster processor and doubled memory, but likely still resource limited.

How far overcommitted does the current Mac get? The command-line command vm_stat will show pageins, pageouts, swapins, and swapouts, which will start accruing when available memory is lacking.

Microsoft Office, Ableton, AutoCAD, and particularly Google apps including Chrome, are not lightweight apps.

But only you can decide if it’s 800€ better.

It means you have insufficient memory for your current usage, and not by a little.

The vm_stat command can be run continuously in another window (check the vm_stat man page), and you can watch for which apps hit the counters hardest.

Activity Monitor can show swap used as well, as can the command line with: sysctl -a | grep swap

When paging and swapping increases and swap usage increases, you’re using main storage to mask insufficient main memory. Which slows things, though not nearly as slow as was paging and swapping to HDD. (M5 main storage runs at roughly the same bandwidth as DDR3 main memory from fifteen or twenty years ago.)

A write-up on the memory hierarchy describing this in a little more detail:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/256220572?answerId=261769223022&sortBy=oldest_first#261769223022

Der_Kauz wrote:

Hello people,

I currently have the base 2020 MBP 13" with M1/8GB/256GB and found a deal for a MBP 14"/M3 Pro/18GB/512GB Refurbished by Apple.

I can sell my current machine for around 450-500€ (570 US$) on the used market and the price for the new machine is 1300€ (1480 US$) with warranty, so the net cost will be around 800€ (915 US$). Is this a good deal and can I expect the new machine to last me 4-6 years with this use case?

M3 from 2023 is already 3 years old, discontinued in 2024.

see Vintage and Obsolete:

Vintage at 5 years—Apple will repair if parts are available; Obsolete at 7 years—no.

Obtaining service for your Apple product after an expired ...

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201624