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