M4 pro 48GB vs. M4 Max 36GB
I'm a developer and for running VMs and multitasking Im considering the M4 pro with 48gb ram.
But the thing is I also used to to a lot of video editing and I would like to get back to it. I don't really know nowadays how much power you realistically need for say 4k editing with color correction etc what you would expect for semi pro results... For example I used to edit shortfilms, YouTube videos etc but I stopped when I got into software dev. If I try to throw a 4k project at my current machine it would die lol
So I couldn't tell you exactly the specs I would be editing, but I would like to be ready to edit 4k stock videos right now as well as let's say in a couple of years whatever comes out of a cheap Black Magick camera recording raw for a budget short film
Is it worth the 500 bucks upgrade to the base M4 max?? (Same cpu but 12 more gpu cores, 20 vs 32. But m4 max base model only has 32 gb ram)
Here I'm thinking about future proofing more than anything... Like 500 is a lot but Idk if let's say in 2 years I will miss those extra 12 gpu cores and dedicated extra media engine. And I would ideally like this device to last long for my investment. (I'm upgrading after using my mbp for 10 years)
In summary
16-inch MacBook Pro - 3400
Hardware: 1TB SSD storage 16-inch Liquid Retina XDR display² Nano-texture display 140W USB-C Power Adapter 48GB unified memory Accessory Kit Three Thunderbolt 5 ports, HDMI port, SDXC card slot, headphone jack, MagSafe 3 port Backlit Magic Keyboard with Touch ID - US English Apple M4 Pro chip with 14‑core CPU, 20‑core GPU, 16‑core Neural Engine
16-inch MacBook Pro - 3900
Hardware 16-inch Liquid Retina XDR display² Nano-texture display Apple M4 Max chip with 14‑core CPU, 32‑core GPU, 16‑core Neural Engine 36GB unified memory 1TB SSD storage 140W USB-C Power Adapter Three Thunderbolt 5 ports, HDMI port, SDXC card slot, headphone jack, MagSafe 3 port Backlit Magic Keyboard with Touch ID - US English Accessory Kit
From the hours of researching i've done so far: people are saying the basemodel M1 Pro is completely fine for video-editing. It's my own experience that even the M1 macbook air can handle adobe premiere fine. If you buy the M4 pro, it's more than sufficient for years to come. I want to be able to keep my macbook pro for 10 years, I want to be able to edit video in all these years, and I, for myself, have concluded the M4 macbook pro with 14 cpu, 20 gpu and 24 gb memory will be sufficient. But I'm no expert. I just did some research.
I had a similar dilemma also being a developer. I settled on the M4 Pro w/ 48GB of RAM.
The M4 Max would make sense if you jump up to the M4 Max w/ 48GB was $1K. Too expensive IMHO for limited gain in my workflow.
My pick would be the more ram. M4 Pro 48 GB. Just got one myself (14 inch model). Handles everything I throw at it like a champ (1 windows arm vm, docker vm via orb stack, 3 jetbrains ide's, slack, a whole bunch of tabs in chrome, photoshop, lightroom).
I really think the M4 Pro with 48 GB of memory is the way to go. The Max chip differs in memory bandwidth and number of GPU cores, but memory is the bigger bottleneck for video and VM’s. The extra GPU cores would probably be wasted on your workflow.
I want a binned M4 max with 48gb 🤣🤣🤣 so sad
Fr tho They're so freaking sneaky forcing you with their options
I preferred MBP Max 36Gb, there is only 12Gb ram less than M4 Pro, but is most powerful chip.
Wherever, the two options is too best election.
Yep it's $500 difference which is a lot. But compared with whatever I'm spending already it's not that much lmao. Crazy how they push that ladder
I'm on the same boat trying to decide M4 Pro 48GB vs. M4 Max 36GB.
I'm looking at 14" and not much graphics power is needed for me so M4 Max was out of the question for me... until I saw "MacBook Pro 14-in M4 Max 36GB Mem 1TB SSD" for $2,899 ($300 off) on Best Buy.
"MacBook Pro 14-in M4 Pro 48GB Mem 1TB SSD" I was looking at on Apple Store is $2,799.
I'm a software engineer currently using a windows laptop with 32GB memory using 70% of that memory on a normal workload running multiple instances of Visual Studio, SSMS, something like 100 Chrome tabs open, a few docker containers running and looking to do more with docker going forward.
I also have a personal Asus Zephyrus G14 with light gaming on Steam and some light 1080p video editing on Davinci Resolve.
I often need to carry these two laptops around on a weekly basis so I'm trying to see if I can get this MacBook Pro with Parallels and have one laptop to replace the other two...
24GB seems too little memory so thought to upgrade to 48GB (which is the next one up; not sure why 36GB for a bit cheaper is not an option...) on M4 Pro but that's just $100 shy of M4 Max with 36GB.
If 36GB is enough for my needs.. I'm thinking M4 Max with stock config would be better value over M4 Pro with 48GB... I am just not sure how much memory would be sufficient with a bit of headroom.
No, you don't need M4 Max as you don't do video stuff or run AAA on Mac (is that even a thing?). Also, you can get an M4 Pro + 48GB + 512 SSD for about $2000 with a friends & family discount if you know any Apple folks. Put that $700 diff on an external drive or AppleCare.