Which new Mac Studio for Lightroom Classic and Photoshop with Sony A7RV

[doc4x5]

Today Apple released new Studio Machines. Some of the nomenclature is confusing but basically it seems there are two chips, the M4 MAX and the M3 ULTRA. They can each be configured with different levels of CPU and GPU, RAM and storage. I suspect any of them will be pretty impressive.

I use a Sony A7RV. I process my files in Lightroom Classic and Photoshop with an Intel 2020 iMac with an i9, 64GB RAM, and 4 TB of storage. I have a RAID 5 array in an OWC Thunderbay (Thunderbolt 3) for my archive. I've figured out I likely do not need 4TB of internal storage, 2TB is plenty with the current external options. My final files after all my manipulations are in the 1-2GB range. I do straight photography, and use AI only for things like removal and masking, not generating things that do not exist in the original.

I'm excited by these new computers and would love to hear from those more knowledgeable than me which configuration is likely to give the best performance for my use situation.

Thanks for any thoughts.

 

[B.A.T]

Go look at FM I posted a response there.

 

[ondioline]

You will almost certainly be better served by the M4 Max considering it has higher single core performance. PS and LR still have a lot of operations that are single threaded, like most art programs.

Take the money you’d spend on the Ultra and get more RAM.

 

[Chancha]

CPU wise I recall even the M1 Ultra was chewing through SONY 60MP RAWs, and that the M4 Pro is already faster than the M1 Ultra. Primarily the Ultra chip's advantage is on very parallel tasks, with photography this only happens when doing large batch export or preview generations.

I concur with the above the the M4 Max is already adequate, if not better due to the newer gen of single core advantage.

 

[whwang]

M4 Max is likely to have better single-core performance than M3 Ultra. But I kind of wonder if the 2x larger memory bandwidth of M3 Ultra helps to close the gap. Or, single-core processes don't even saturate M4 Max's memory bandwidth?

 

[TMF93]

Take the money you’d spend on the Ultra and get more RAM.

I completely agree.

I have the same camera and a similar workflow to yours (LrC with a bit of Ps thrown in), but I'm using a M2 pro mini with 32GB of RAM. While it is clearly more than enough, as Lr is plenty fast in all circumstances, I can often see the LR process using over 25GB of RAM by itself after some time spent editing. Meanwhile the CPU is mostly idle.

IMHO, if you don't already know why you need an "ultra class" chip, then you probably don't need it.... And your money is probably better spent elsewhere, such as storage or RAM.

 

[Mr.Fox]

Today Apple released new Studio Machines. Some of the nomenclature is confusing but basically it seems there are two chips, the M4 MAX and the M3 ULTRA. They can each be configured with different levels of CPU and GPU, RAM and storage. I suspect any of them will be pretty impressive.

I use a Sony A7RV. I process my files in Lightroom Classic and Photoshop with an Intel 2020 iMac with an i9, 64GB RAM, and 4 TB of storage. I have a RAID 5 array in an OWC Thunderbay (Thunderbolt 3) for my archive. I've figured out I likely do not need 4TB of internal storage, 2TB is plenty with the current external options. My final files after all my manipulations are in the 1-2GB range. I do straight photography, and use AI only for things like removal and masking, not generating things that do not exist in the original.

I'm excited by these new computers and would love to hear from those more knowledgeable than me which configuration is likely to give the best performance for my use situation.

Thanks for any thoughts.

I am a professional photographer. Based on my experience and the recommendations I've given people, I can advise you to take the M4 Max. This is enough for your tasks. I don't recommend looking at the M4 Ultra. You'll just needlessly overpay for power and performance that won't be in demand. 64 GB of memory is enough for RAW processing in sony a7r mark 5 + you need a normal and fast card reader. I have a Hasselblad H2D 100 C, 64 GB of memory is quite enough.