Upgrading 2019 MacBook Pro for Photoshop-focused work

atom400 wrote:

I have a 2019 Macbook Pro, 2.3 GHz 8-Core i9 with AMD Radeon Pro 5500M 8GB card, 32GB Memory and a 1T drive (400GB free). 

I used to stack a lot of 4k footage with heavy filters in FCPX and process hour long files, but rarely work in video anymore and never again with those heavy stacks of long clips. Mostly Pshop from here on out.

For the same $2000 I can replace my old rusty with:

1- New 2025 MBP M4 10 core CPU, 10 core GPU, 16 core Neural, 24GB Memory, 1T HD

or 

2 - Rerfurb 2024 MBP M4 14 core CPU, 20 core GPU, 16 core Neural, 24GB Mem, 1T HD

My thought process now is to wait for the new 10 core to go refurb for $1700 (saw them before but too slow to buy), I think it may be good enough for the work I do now, and can use the savings. However, I do want to make this change before December 1st. 

Any thoughts or advice ? TIA.

[Re-Titled by Moderator]

Original Title: Seeking MBP upgrade advice

Help me choose which Mac—Answer a few questions to find the best Mac for you

Mac - Which Mac is best for me? - Apple

First off, there is no difference between a 2024 M4 and a 2025 M4. The M4 MacBook Pro launched in late 2024 and that model is still being sold in 2025. There is no 'new 10-core' it's the same as the one released in 2024.

So what you are comparing is the M4 base model MBP (10-core) with the M4 Pro MBP (14-core).

Personally, I went from a similar spec to yours 2019 16" i9 MBP to a 16" M4 Pro MBP (48 GB memory, 2 TB storage). For processor-intensive tasks like video transcoding, the M4 Pro is a better choice. Just using Photoshop CC is not terribly taxing, the base model M4 would work fine for that. One notable difference is cooling, the Mr Pro (and Max) models have two fans, the M4 base model has only one. Honestly, the fans on my M4 Pro almost never even come on, even when exporting a bunch of high ISO RAW images.