M4 vs. M4 Pro vs. M4 Max Chip Buyer's Guide: Which Should You Choose?

[RumorChaser]

But would you choose the 10, 12, or 14-core CPU with a minimum of 48 GB memory or maybe more? In the past, it was easy, but now there are so many options.

I really would not worry too much about exact core count. You'll probably want a Pro, so it is either 12 or 14. Either one would be fine, honestly. But a 20% step up in GPU core count is not bad. I would probably go for it if money is not very constrained.

Thinking about it more. You could skip the Pro chip upgrade to 14 cores. It doesn't make that much difference unless you're taxing the GPU at full load, which happens rarely. 24GB can work but 48GB would let you forget about RAM limitations. You wouldn't need more in the foreseeable future.

Even the M4 base model can handle 4K60 video editing very well as long as the codec are native (H264, H265, ProRes). Where it hits limitations is if you do anything more, e.g. 4K120, 5K/6K/8K, BRAW, REDRAW, etc. The Pro chip will be able to handle those very well.

4K60 is about what 16GB of RAM can handle. 24GB is comfortable for editing 10 tracks 4K60 with the browser and Zoom and other apps on the side.

Not sure what you ended up with. But the choices are quite clear to me.

 

[RumorChaser]

Opening Excel files is not really a problem, at least not for me. But whenever I have multiple files open, formulas start being a problem.

But I'm unsure if the CPU is the problem, or more so, Excel in itself is the problem, no matter the amount of resources you have.

Excel could be a problem. Past some amount of rows it is impossible to open in Excel because the program was simply not designed to handle that much data. But I would first check if you're running into limitation with RAM (since you mentioned M2 MacBook Air). Open Activity Monitor and see if the memory pressure is yellow or red. Then make sure your SSD has 10% or more empty space. If those are all fine, then it is Excel.

 

[Javah]

Thinking about it more. You could skip the Pro chip upgrade to 14 cores. It doesn't make that much difference unless you're taxing the GPU at full load, which happens rarely. 24GB can work but 48GB would let you forget about RAM limitations. You wouldn't need more in the foreseeable future.

Even the M4 base model can handle 4K60 video editing very well as long as the codec are native (H264, H265, ProRes). Where it hits limitations is if you do anything more, e.g. 4K120, 5K/6K/8K, BRAW, REDRAW, etc. The Pro chip will be able to handle those very well.

4K60 is about what 16GB of RAM can handle. 24GB is comfortable for editing 10 tracks 4K60 with the browser and Zoom and other apps on the side.

Not sure what you ended up with. But the choices are quite clear to me.

Eventually, I ended up with a 12-core M4 Pro, 64 GB of memory, and a 2TB SSD. I have an external disk I can use, but that is always slower.

After the order, I found an article that the 12 core is the best choice if you take into account the performance for money. The €300,—upgrade from 12 to 14 core only delivers around 10% more performance. And 2 core is not that much more performance. I will only miss them if I do multiple multi-threaded processes at once, and that will not happen.

I am waiting until the mac mini arrives.

 

[MykDeans]

I bought the M4 Mac mini with 512 SSD. I recently picked up a 16" MacBook Pro with the M4 Pro. I compared the two by using the same application process I use and the M4 Mac mini ran in 6.8 seconds and the M4 Pro MBP took 7.2 seconds. I am more than somewhat surprised by these numbers.

 

[pksv]

I bought the M4 Mac mini with 512 SSD. I recently picked up a 16" MacBook Pro with the M4 Pro. I compared the two by using the same application process I use and the M4 Mac mini ran in 6.8 seconds and the M4 Pro MBP took 7.2 seconds. I am more than somewhat surprised by these numbers.

Mac mini with M4 and MBP with M4 Pro?

 

[MykDeans]

Correct

Mac mini with M4 and MBP with M4 Pro?

Correct

 

[somagfx]

I bought the M4 Mac mini with 512 SSD. I recently picked up a 16" MacBook Pro with the M4 Pro. I compared the two by using the same application process I use and the M4 Mac mini ran in 6.8 seconds and the M4 Pro MBP took 7.2 seconds. I am more than somewhat surprised by these numbers.

That's really interesting.

How much ram do you have in those machines?
And what application process was it?

 

[MykDeans]

That's really interesting.

How much ram do you have in those machines?
And what application process was it?

Both are standard - 16Gb in the Mac mini, 24Gb in the MBP.

I'm using the Vassal application (vassalengine.org), using the same module and steps. Not exactly scientific, but should be good enough to give comparable results, and multiple executions give very similar results each time.

I wasn't sure what to expect from the M4 Pro, but I certainly didn't expect it to be slower.

(Incidentally, a similar comparison process on my old M2 Pro MBP (16Gb memory) ran in 20 seconds and on the M4 Mac Mini took 12 seconds. This met or exceeded my expectation.)