How much RAM with M5 Pro?

[dseg42]

I could probably get away with a M5 MBP 14" with upgrading to the 24GB of RAM.
But figured I would just go for the M5 Pro and upgrade to the 48GB RAM - is this enough RAM for the M5 Pro or would it bottleneck?
Also, I'm coming from Windows so wasn't sure if 1TB was enough of storage, is that worth upgrading too?
I save my stuff on external drives but not sure how big the Apple OS was and big a lot of the mac apps are.
I plan on using Final Cut Pro, DaVinci Resolve, and other video editing software. Along with extensive browser tabs open.

 

[maflynn]

What is your intended usage?

That will dictate how much ram you should go with.

As for storage, that also goes with what will be stored locally, vs. the cloud. ITs not really platform specific, i.e., if you're using 600GB of storage on your windows machine, odds are you'll be using 600GB of storage on your mac.

 

[throAU]

I'm going to start assuming that people who don't specify a use case are using it as a glorified web browser.

Buy an iPad.

 

[ddebacker]

Do you intend on working only from home (or office) or on the go?
That would determine whether you’ll need additional storage space on your MacBook or whether you could rely on storage easily (yes you can use portable SSDs but it’s not convenient to do so, at least for me).
24 GB for video editing might be on the low end. Especially if you have browser tabs open at the same time or if you’re editing 8K videos.
I’d go for 48 GB if I were you as you can never ‘upgrade’ the RAM in a MacBook and the longevity of your machine will directly depend on how long it’s still relevant.

 

[Harddrive]

I still live by as much ram as the budget will allow especially if you do intense things in audio /video or run Parallels with one or more virtual machines.

 

[Alameda]

I could probably get away with a M5 MBP 14" with upgrading to the 24GB of RAM.
But figured I would just go for the M5 Pro and upgrade to the 48GB RAM - is this enough RAM for the M5 Pro or would it bottleneck?
Also, I'm coming from Windows so wasn't sure if 1TB was enough of storage, is that worth upgrading too?
I save my stuff on external drives but not sure how big the Apple OS was and big a lot of the mac apps are.
I plan on using Final Cut Pro, DaVinci Resolve, and other video editing software. Along with extensive browser tabs open.

I had no difficulty using DaVinci to edit 4K videos on a 16 GB M1 Pro, so 48 will be plenty. But if you think you "need" to have three 4K video editors open at the same time that you "need" to have 128 browser tabs open, well, yeah, go spend even more money.

It's not impressive to run a zillion browser tabs at once. For me, my company wants me to use Google office tools, so I have to have Chrome windows running all of their tools in browser windows. I'm not crazy about that approach but that's what I have to do. It doesn't take 48 GB of RAM either but having a lot of memory doesn't hurt.

 

[RamboCommando]

I have been douing 4k/60fps easily with my M5 Pro(18cpu/20gpu) 24gb/1tb. I just close first browser or something else if they are memory hungry. Even better if using Final Cut Pro can use proxy and then even less memory is easily enought. I dont know if do heavy editing i just do mostly cutting, put some text and other small. I just got Final Cut PRo and i think i will use proxy allways when do longer editing and my advice use it even if you have 64gb ram if you do basic editing.

 

[960design]

I will await the use case from the OP before making recommendations.

For me:
I got all the ram, M5 Max 128GB, but I need it.
I had an M4 Pro with 48GB and it limited me in my work.

 

[Biro]

I pulled the trigger this week on a 16-inch MacBook Pro. I went for a standard build with 18-core M5 Pro chip, 48 GB of RAM and 1 TB of storage. I had been considering spending $600 more for the same MBP with 64 GB of RAM and 2 TB of storage. On a purchase that already passes the $3000 mark, that’s not that much more money for some future proofing. I’m a heavy photo editor - a good amount of it high resolution. I do some 4K video editing but not as much as I used to.

But when I went to the Apple Store near me I discovered two things. First, it turns out the 64GB/2TB build that I was thinking about would take at least a month to get. Then, I had a long, friendly conversation with three employees about whether it was worth waiting for the device.

All three, who seemed to know what they were talking about and understand what I was seeking, thought I would be overpaying for specs I’m not likely to use. They all see the 48GB/1TB build as a 7-year-plus machine. So that’s the one I walked out of the store with.

BTW, I also have an M2 Max Mac Studio with a 1 TB SSD. It has more than 10-thousand photos on it - and another 10-thousand songs… plus documents and a few videos. I haven’t even written over 256 GB on the SSD yet. It was time to stop imagining I need much more than I really do. And there’s always external storage if it turns out I really do require it.

Hope this helps with the OP’s decision.

 

[Harddrive]

My opinion but unless you make a living in the AV world 48 gb is plenty and will last years I am on 36gb and with that ram I have yet to experience a beachball something that seemed to happen a lot in the past with 16gb.