So I am torn between a mini M4 Pro and Studio M4 Max. I don’t do massive graphic work. Girlfriend’s son is getting into video editing. Getting the specs close with the same, ram, ssd. The mini has a 14/20/16 chip and the studio has a 16/40/16 chip. Studio come in $300 more. Is the $300 worth it for the studio over mini.
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Yet another which should I Buy
- Thread starter comovartia
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The Studio offers more performance headroom, ram, and GPU cores if you need it in the future. One of the biggest upsides imo is that the studio runs cooler then the M4 Pro. I had the M4 Pro and it was easily hitting 90c under load. While you can manage that by manually controlling the fans, it was something that bothered me and so I returned it for a Studio
There is not a single task which the Studio can do that the M4 Pro box cannot do, especially when both have the same memory and storage. That is certain.
The difference lies in how fast the system runs tasks. My view is that both systems will run real time tasks without any difficulty. Moving brightness/color sliders and the like in a photo or video editor will all be real time. Both systems are extremely fast.
The difference will come with the very intensive tasks, such as exporting 100 photos at once or rendering a 30 minute video into H.264. These tasks take several minutes or even longer, so the very fastest system will be faster.
For me, personally, this part isn’t too important, because the final render is something I can wait for. That said, I expect 45 megapixel RAW photos as noise reduced JPEGs using DxO, and it can take maybe 20 seconds with my M1. My sister in law just got an M4 Pro system, and to my surprise, it was instant. Because, as I said, the M4 chips are all very fast.
Putting the $300 towards a 27” 4K or (better yet) a 5K display would be more useful than the higher speed of the M4 Max for most of us.