Best configuration without breaking the bank to run primarily Lightroom Classic, Photoshop and to some degree Resolve Studio and Priere Pro. Could M4 work or need M3 Max? How much RAM for optimal performance. I run a BenQ 4K HDR momitor and an old delll HD. Also blackmagic 4k device. Coming from 2019 MacPro with Dual radeon and 256gb ram
I would suggest looking at
Since you'll be using the machine to run Lightroom Classic, Photoshop, and some video editing programs (DaVinci Resolve Studio, Adobe Premiere Pro), don't skimp on RAM.
The Max chip has more hardware video encoding and decoding engines than the Pro chip – which might be a point in the Mac Studio's favor if you are doing a lot of video work and the applications that you are planning on using are able to take advantage of the hardware video engines.
The Max chip also has a stronger GPU, but it's not clear if you'd need it for your Lightroom Classic and Photoshop work.
In the M2 days, the high end of the Mac mini line (M2 Pro) blended into the low end of the Mac Studio line (M2 Max) – and there came a point where, if you loaded up a Mac mini enough, it made sense to get a Mac Studio. I have not looked at the pricing of the M4 Pro Minis and M4 Max Studios in detail, but the same may be true there.
in every M-series model, processors vary in their built-in Pro-Res Hardware encode/decode ability:
the M-x (plain) may not have high-end Video encoder/decoder,
the M-x PRO has one,
the M-x MAX has two,
the M-x ULTRA has four.
Ned Soltz wrote:
Could M4 work or need M3 Max?
I'm not sure why Apple put a M3 Ultra in the high-end Mac Studio. I would have expected it to include a M4 Ultra.
All of the Mac Studios based on Ultra chips (M1 Ultra, M2 Ultra, M3 Ultra) are probably mostly of interest to people who do heavy video editing work all day long. An Ultra chip is basically two Max chips joined "back to back", which doubles the number of CPU cores, the number of GPU cores, the number of hardware video engines, and maximum RAM capacity. If you can keep all of the extra hardware units busy, more power to you … but if you can't, you would just be spending a lot more to get hardware that would sit idle and provide no performance benefit to you.
The M4 Max Mac Studio makes much more sense for still photographers, and even for many of the people who will be editing video.
The M4 Max with 16 Core CPU and 40 core GPU should be more than enough.
Buy Mac Studio with M4 Max - Apple
You can pump up the RAM to 128GB and it will still be under $3000.
Thanks for all of your replies. Looking now toward the M3Ultra with the standard 28 Core CPU. Coming out of the Intel world where one would deal with RAM and VRAM, would the standard 96GB unified RAM handle my Lightroom, Photoshop, PremierePro and Resolve needs or is it worth the $1600 for 256GM. Have 128GB in my MacPro 2019 with dual Radeon cards.
Have you looked at the Mac Mini M4 pro. Less cost and users on Youtube have no issue running Resolve and other high intensity apps.
New Mac Studio Configuration
