Buying 16" M2 Macbook Pro - Do I upgrade GPU/RAM?

[ThankYouRob]

I do a lot of video editing - music videos mostly. All in 1080p, I might make the transition to 4k but that's not quite in demand by my clients just yet. Just to be clear, I'm getting the 1TB HD so that's not what is in question here.

I'm curious if the base 19-core GPU/16GB RAM will suffice for my needs, as obviously editing in FCPX is where the GPU/CPU really counts, not so much the RAM. Or is the RAM as important in this situation? I'm not crunching numbers, coding, programing, or running spreadsheets. I mainly browse the web with Safari, edit videos, some audio in Garageband or Logic Pro. I'm expecting to keep this laptop for a good amount of time, which sways me towards the higher GPU/RAM route...but I'd rather not spend extra $ if I really don't need to.

Apple bumps the CPU from the M2 Pro to the M2 Max when going from 16 to 32GB of RAM, so there's significant added cost out of the gate there.
If I go with the 38-core GPU/32GB of RAM its $800 extra - this seems like overkill.
If I go with the 30-core GPU/32GB RAM, it's still $600 extra - is this where I want to be if I want to get into 4k video? Or is the base 19-core/16GB going to be just fine?

 

[dmccloud]

Even the 19/16GB model should be more than enough for 1080p editing and even 4K. The 30/32GB is really the sweet spot, IMO. It gives you more than enough headroom as you shift towards more and more 4K editing, even into 8K editing if you go down that path. The RAM is still important, because of how Mac OS handles data being passed between storage and the SoC, but there are inherent efficiencies in the unified memory structure used by Apple Silicon which give it an advantage over either Intel or AMD in that regard (primarily transfer speeds and not having to copy data to multiple locations so that the CPU and GPU can do their modifications/calculations then reconcile the differences in the two copies).

 

[GMShadow]

Apple bumps the CPU from the M2 Pro to the M2 Max when going from 16 to 32GB of RAM, so there's significant added cost out of the gate there.

No, they don't, unless you're just trying to buy the pre-built option. You can get 32GB on an M2 Pro without issue - it's 64GB or 96GB that requires a Max.

 

[ThankYouRob]

No, they don't, unless you're just trying to buy the pre-built option. You can get 32GB on an M2 Pro without issue - it's 64GB or 96GB that requires a Max.

Ahhh yes, you're right! My bad. Good catch!