Please stop falsely restating my comments.
-----------------
You state: Your "decades" of experience using an app that hasn't even been around for a full TWO decades doesn't seem to provide much here.
What I said was "I have performed reasonably similar work using Macs for decades."
If you're not talking about the app the OP is using and you're referencing having done this sort of work for a much longer time than the app has existed, then it's not "reasonably similar" when it comes to making comparisons. In fact, such statements only serve to assert authority in this topic that is ultimately not applicable and mostly functionally useless.
That work primarily involved Photoshop since the 1990s and later the full Adobe Design Collection, Aperture and later the Affinity products; lots of film scans and Nikon DSLR captures (D100, D2x, D3, D500, D850). Reasonably similar work, for decades.
Incidentally, you are talking about software technology that doesn't exist anymore and isn't relevant to the tools we're talking about in this thread. I appreciate that you have this experience, but the notion that it means you have CURRENT expertise is not something I'm inclined to take seriously in this specific context.
Also note that the OP faces real world computer work, and real world is not UTube bimbos (I use that derogatory term very intentionally, but not gender specific) playing at seeking clicks. Real world involves real workflows, usually with concurrent usage of multiple apps and OS/apps evolving over time.
Considering
(a) The OP is wishy washy about what those workflows even are
(b) M2 Pro is stupid performant (blowing away pretty much any Intel Mac that doesn't have a Xeon inside of it by at least a factor of eight) and to the point where the only people that will EVER appreciate the difference in RAM, memory bandwidth, and GPU cores are those with needs that FAR exceed even the wildest that the OP has stated at any point in this nonsensical thread
(c) The experience of using a 15-inch or 16-inch MacBook Pro with a weaker CPU and/or GPU within a given generation DOESN'T result in significantly more performance degradation (if any at all) over the period of time in which Apple is releasing updates for it compared to one of the exact same generation with a higher-end CPU or GPU.
...what you say here is your opinion rather than fact.
-----------------
You state:
Yeah? So, how is YOUR experience on an M2 Pro with 32GB of RAM then? Do tell me more about how you purchased THIS machine and found it insufficient for those tasks, because I'd love to hear it.
What I said was "...determining the optimal specs of a new box is about the future (2023-2028+)." Optimal specs, not "found it insufficient." Your usage of the words sufficient/insufficient is at best misleading, because like I have said repeatedly the Mac OS memory management still allows a box to function even when lamed by sub-optimal RAM on board (see my personal-experience 16 GB example below). One individual (you) might consider a RAM-lamed, sub-optimal box sufficient, but I call that limiting.
Considering 8GB of RAM has been shipping in Macs for the last 14 years (and that no Mac has had that long of a support period), the claim that 32GB won't even be optimal in 8 years is at least mildly absurd.
Incidentally, you speak of "future" and your "decades of experience using the Mac" without ever once citing statistics of how Macs eventually lose support or how software changes enough over time to actually make these configurations useless. You can use these very same statistics to reasonably bet that an M2 Pro Mac and an M2 Max Mac will probably stop getting updates at the same point in time and that other than maybe an intense game, there will very likely never be a version of an app that will allow an M2 Max to the party, but not an M2 Pro. You also neglect that statistically (with both Intel Macs and Apple Silicon platforms), it's reasonably likely that the point in time in which an M2 Pro is rendered either incompatible (or even sub-optimal) will also result in a situation where doing that same exact task will still suck on an M2 Max, but marginally less at best.
This is why I assert that you are stating your opinion on how to best shop for a Mac as though it is fact. You are not backing up anything you say with facts, history, or statistics. Just doubling down on your opinion that one ought to buy as much computer as possible to accommodate for a future that you can't even be bothered to use your "decades of experience using the Mac" to reasonably predict.
-----------------
As to "how is YOUR experience on an M2 Pro with 32GB of RAM then?"
my answer is that I chose not to limit my new box to the Pro's half the GPU cores, half the memory bandwidth, lesser external display capability (I drive three 4K Viewsonics) and max of 32 GB RAM. Therefore I lack experience with the lesser Pro configuration.
Wait...wait...you don't even have experience with a Pro SoC based Mac?! So, you can't even assert to how well it does the task at hand today (and therefore give any kind of reasonable estimate as to how that is likely to degrade over its supported lifetime given your experience with using Macs to do these things and having performance inevitably degrade over time)?! How do you expect me (or anyone else in this thread) to take what you say here as anything other than your uninformed opinion-based computer buying strategy? How do you expect anyone to take that seriously?
Mind you, I'm not going to knock the "buy as much computer as you can afford" strategy. I've done it too at times. But I don't do it for the hell of it and I don't do it out of uneducated fear that a lower-end configuration that more than meets my needs today will change so drastically over the next eight years that I find myself wishing I had spent more on graphics cores and RAM. Generally speaking, those are not the kind of differences that change anywhere near that much over the supported lifetime of the Mac. Usually, by the time one feels a mid-range machine being too slow for them, the high-end machine from that same generation isn't much better.
However I have no doubt that (except for the display-driving limitations) I would not in 2023 find such a box insufficient for my needs today but I would find it limiting by 2026 at the latest.
So, again excluding display driving limitations, the difference between 19 and 38 GPU cores, a RAM ceiling of 32GB and one of 96GB, and of memory bandwidth is not something that is apt to be insufficient for your needs today, but...somehow, in the next three years, it definitely will be? How on Earth does that reasonably make any sense?
You do realize that the PowerPC (and even Intel Core Duo) era was like 18 years ago, right? Three years is an extremely minimal difference when you're talking about computers that generally lose support to run new software well before they stop running decently.
-----------------
You ask:
"Would also love to hear your statistical analysis on how one will, within the next 5-7 years (or however long Apple keeps supporting M2 Pro based MacBook Pros and Mac minis), find this configuration with 32GB of RAM insufficient BEFORE Apple drops support for it for completely unrelated reasons."
Answer: Specifically, time outgrew the (max available at the time) 16 GB RAM of my 2016 MBP. The RAM overloading presented circa 2020 as slower, less smooth operation, SBBODs, intermittent video issues on the 3 external displays, etc., requiring me to constantly quit apps not in immediate active use. The excellent Mac OS (Mojave, which is still getting upgrades) memory management still allowed the box to function; you might deem that sufficient, but I call it limiting. When I moved the workflow to an M2 Max MBP with 96 GB RAM it immediately took advantage of ~25-35 GB RAM. I am quite confident that (except for the display-driving limitations) today an M2 Pro with 32 GB RAM would qualify as sufficient for my needs today.
First off, in a 2016 MacBook Pro, we're talking about DDR3L RAM (which was limited to 16GB of RAM), which, compared to pretty much every other Skylake Intel based computer running DDR4, was garbage. Not saying 16GB wasn't still insufficient for your needs (I'm sure it was) and that you don't need more than that. Nor am I saying that 64GB, FOR YOUR NEEDS, isn't a good idea (it probably is, honestly). But you don't go from 16GB being insufficient to 32GB being sufficient to 32GB being insuffcient THAT quickly. Either, 32GB gives you plenty of headroom or it doesn't. Considering the beef I routinely get on these forums whenever say that 8GB isn't enough for the average low-end user, I'm not about to advocate that anyone not buy themselves at least extra headroom. But the notion that 32GB of RAM will go from providing enough headroom to not providing enough headroom in a span of three years is absurd.
Secondly, macOS Mojave stopped getting updates almost two years ago upon the release of macOS Monterey. macOS releases (dating all the way back to Tiger, if not earlier) are supported until they are more than two releases older than the current release. Mojave is now four (about to be five) versions behind.
Thirdly, no, I define "sufficient" in terms of RAM as not consistently running with a yellow memory pressure. Incidentally, Apple also shares this view of mine.
Which gets us to what you repeatedly fail to grasp: when buying a new box the analysis is about what one thinks one may need 2023-2028+, not about today.
Incidentally, of the two of us, I've been the only one citing recent history that can be used to reasonably predict just how long it will be until a configuration that is optimal today will no longer be. And, again, unless you were snug on headroom on RAM or didn't factor needing a beefier GPU configuration initially, there is no evidence to suggest that a Max will not last someone fine on a Pro today any longer. You provide absolutely NOTHING in the way of data or analysis to support that theory whatsoever.
Which is where all that empirical experience doing reasonably similar work using Macs for decades comes in.
...Except your empirical evidence (at least any of it in recent history) is limited to a 2016 MacBook Pro and a 2023 MacBook Pro with more RAM than all but the highest end of mobile workflows will ever need, let alone appreciate. That's nice and all, but there's tons more datapoints that you aren't even considering, let alone citing.
OS/app demands on RAM always increase over time, so if a workflow is making good use of ~32 GB today one can anticipate that a similar workflow (with evolved OS and apps) will probably make good use of ~64 GB or more RAM in a few years.
Except it's been five years since MacBook Pros first had the ability to have more than 16GB and 64GB is still considered to be a ton of RAM for all but the highest end workflows.
That is empirical experience from years of buying Mac boxes and doing the work over decades, not UTube clickbaiting based on today only.
Yet you speak of rising RAM requirements like it's still almost two decades ago.
Note that 32 GB is 1/3 of the max RAM Apple offers in MBPs; that alone should give anyone a clue as to where Apple thinks (I would say knows) RAM usage will be going. It ain't rocket science: the RAM usage trend has now been a 40-year timeline with RAM usage always inexorably increasing.
...And yet, the rate at which the average comfortable RAM capacity increases is DECELERATING over time. One can argue that 16GB is what most people (i.e. the average casual user) should consider buying in 2023. That number was 8GB for at least a decade. It was 4GB for half that, at most. It's statistics like that one that you are conveniently ignoring here.
-----------------
You state:
"...you are arguing your opinion based on empirical evidence, at best, and stating it as fact; and I can't really be bothered with much of that."
Correct, I am arguing my opinion based on decades of empirical evidence using Macs.
Which, again, in the context of the last eight years (an eternity in the tech world), is limited to your use of two machines and no supporting data of how other Macs have aged over time.
I have found using more competent, less limited boxes impacts my state of mind and creativity in addition to the simplistic workflow operational speed metrics. It is (for me) a huge value add to not be constantly opening/closing apps, instead flying back and forth to various open tertiary apps on a whim, without even giving it a second thought.
Again, I'm not saying that one shouldn't buy a computer with enough headroom. Just that someone who is more than fine on 32GB of RAM (due to even considering 16GB of RAM) won't need 64GB of RAM before otherwise needing to replace the computer.
Incidentally, how waiting a few seconds more for renders to complete impacts your state of mind is subjective. Not objective. Again, you're advocating your opinion like everyone has your same priorities, which is not a good way to help others, unless your priorities are those that every user ought to consider (which is arguably not the case here).
Building FMP databases for years I learned that time is the enemy of computer based workflows. The longer an operation takes, the more likely it is that some potentially catastrophic hiccup will occur.
While one's mileage seems extremely apt to vary here, that seems like an immense logical stretch. Though, I suppose it depends on the operation in question relative to the hardware in question.
Similarly, as a designer I found that the longer an operation takes, the more likely that some fleeting creative thought will get lost. Solid hardware competence, including avoiding being RAM-constrained, provides huge value add in both those regards; much more complex than simplistic sufficient versus insufficient. My experience says that +$400 for 32 GB more RAM is to me and to the OP very good life-cycle value.
If the priority is to buy as much computer as possible, then sure. That makes sense.
If the priority is to be hyper-vigilent about making sure that there is no possible situation wherein you have latency, then sure. You coming to that conclusion in that condition makes sense, despite it not necessarily being practically logical.
However, your views on this seem to be stuck in a bygone era where computers only last five years and age extremely fast over that period of time. That is not the world we live in today. These things are stupid fast. All Macs within a given generation (regardless of RAM, CPU, or GPU disparities) are getting dropped from software support at the exact same time. Hell, even the Intel Macs they replaced STILL get TONS done even as Apple drops support for them for Sonoma and beyond.
Although my workflow is only similar, not identical to the OPs, my MBP mobile/desktop usage seems exactly the same as he describes his to be. The M2 Max MBP does everything moving desktop to mobile and back smoothly, whereas my previous MBP was the antithesis of smooth.
Well, you did buy the absolute top of the line machine (a minimum MSRP of $4300). Incidentally, your comparison is to a 2016 MacBook Pro and lacks any actual experience with any lesser configuration out of risk to the impact of your state of mind and creative mojo.
But again, your opinions and empirical evidence with your two most recent Macs seems to override all other practical logic when it comes to recommending what to buy for a given use case.
Furthermore, had the OP been honest about futureproofing being a top priority from the getgo, I would've advised just as you had and we'd all have stopped debating the virtues of Pro vs. Max like it isn't as cut and dried as it was 21 months ago.
