I need to buy a new MacBook for video editing

MAX processor have TWO Video Encode engines and TWO ProRes Encode engines. PRO processors have one of each. Each type of processor has one Video Decode engine.

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mickr7an wrote:

Hi everyone. I'm working on an (about to be) three-year-old M2 MacBook Air with 16 GB of RAM. It's been a wonderful computer but over the last three years I've moved from mostly photo editing to  mostly video editing. And the MacBook Air is stalling on some projects where a lot of transcoding is involved. I often have to wait one hour or more for it to finish "background tasks" before I can output the video for a client.

So it's time to upgrade. And my budget gives me two options. MacBook M4 Pro or MacBook M4 Max. One has more RAM and the other one has more GPU power. Does anyone with video editing experience (especially FCP) know which of these options would be more beneficial to me. Even on my M2 MacBook Air, everything else except FCP is super smooth and instant, so that is my only bottleneck.

I'm sticking with the smaller size (14”) because portability is key. And I have to use external fast SSD drives so the amount of internal storage space is irrelevant. It's about cutting down the transcoding time. But I don't know enough technical details to be able to choose myself.

Any help is appreciated. 

Option 1: Macbook M4 Pro, 48GB RAM. More RAM. 16 core CPU and 20 core GPU

Option 2: Macbook M4 Max, 32GB RAM. More GPU power. 14 core CPU 32 core GPU

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it would seem bigger/more is always better... its your budget, no(?)

I use a M1 Pro and that is already enough for some very complicated tasks. I think The M4 Max is already very good, and I do not think it is necessary to upgrade.

Also, M5 is coming out if you want to run some really complicated programs.