M1 Max 32gb. It starts to make me sick.

[adamjackson]

I wanted to add my quick anecdote. everything on the M1 Max is faster...by a lot. I blew through Lightroom RAW processing session yesterday at 3X the speed. The actual edits like that my fingers were doing...no change but everything else was 3-5X faster. Exporting DNG to JPEG was the fastest I've ever seen a Mac do it. I'm in heaven

Importing HEVC / H.264 content into Final Cut Pro from an SD card from a DJI Mavic 3...insanely fast. the transcending again was so stupid fast I was just sitting at my computer laughing.

However, exporting that edited footage to HEVC h.265 was slow as dog ****. well I take that back. It was slightly slower than my now boxed up Core i9 3.6Ghz 9th generation iMac running the 9900K Coffee Lake and a Vega 48 card. The Vega rarely kicked in when doing h.265 exports. This task had Apple's G13X GPU at about 50% usage but the M1 max 10Core was using all 10 cores at 100%

Result...Ht 3 minute video to HEVC took about 25 minutes which, based on my experience took about 5 or so minutes longer than the iMac could do it. Export times aren't deal breakers for me but if they were, I'd probably return this and go back to the iMac until the M2 Max comes out.

Overall, everything is significantly faster this is the only time I went "huh, that's pretty slow"

Keeping in mind too this is a brand new computer so this is doing PhotoAnalysisD, Time Machine backup and other things. It's really the 11PM hour that I wanted to highlight.

Oh interestingly enough about this data...since I did a system migration, everything before 3PM was my iMac, everything after 5PM is the mBP. again new computer but the last slide is interesting. Look at the load average of iMac versus MacBook Pro last 24 hours.

CPU:

GPU Processor:

GPU Memory:

Load Average:

I'm actually including 2 more photos:

CPU Load last 7 days:

Load Average Last 7 days:

 

[theluggage]

I think a reality check may be needed.

1. The M1 doesn't represent some magical vast step forward in computing power. It does represent a useful step forward in computing-power-per-watt, which means it can offer far better performance at the MacBook Air end of the market - but the further up the range you go the less impressive the gain is going to be. The Intel 15/16" MBPs were pushing the limit on thermals and battery life - so some of the M1 premium may come with cooler running, less throttling and better battery life.

2. The M1 GPU isn't very special compared to discrete GPUs. It thrashes the pants off the Intel integrated GPUs in the old 13" Macs - but, again, you're in to diminishing returns c.f. machines with discrete GPUs.

3. One source of the "extra power" of the base M1 vs. the low-power x86 chips it replaces, and of the M1 Pro/Max vs the plain M1, is more processor cores. The effect of that is completely dependent on the application and how specific software is written - software that can scale across multiple cores may run twice as fast with twice as many cores, software that can't may even run slightly slower because of the extra overheads. Sometimes the payoff is "responsiveness" - i.e. the CPU intensive task takes just as long, but the computer remains usable while the heavy task is maxing out 1 or 2 cores. More cores is not going to mean faster across-the-board.

4. Similar with GPUs, although GPU heavy workloads may be more capable of scaling to use multiple cores.

5. Another source of the "extra power" is extra hardware acceleration (codecs, neural engines etc.) that has to be specifically targeted by the OS or application software. Where software uses that - or calls Mac OS frameworks that can use it - the performance improvement can be night and day. If the software is hard-coded to do a job in software, the hardware acceleration won't help a bit. If the task was already hardware-assisted on x86, why should there be any big difference? In the case of h.264 etc. that's probably enjoyed hardware acceleration on Intel/AMD/NVIDIA for years. Prores - an Apple proprietary format - not so much (unless you had a Mac Pro with an afterburner card). So it shouldn't be any great surprise that ProRes performance on M1 is impressive and h26x is ~meh.

6. Apple Keynotes are advertisements not critical reviews. They're going to tell you that their new computers are the best thing since unsliced bread so of course they're going to quote all the use cases that give impressive results, and conveniently ignore the downside. Some people seem surprised at this. In the good old days, the computing press - though far from incorruptible - would have the chance to do an in-depth critical review, but these days it's over to Youtube and other internet fast news sites - and while there is excellent stuff out there and I wouldn't want to tar all YouTubers with the same brush, it is always dominated by clickbait echo-chamber stuff. You get more clicks (and more free swag) with fawning puff-pieces or nonsense alt-fact hatchet jobs than with reasoned criticism.

The way I see it, the M1 is a great development that offers many advantages over Intel - but like any other bit of tech, there are swings and roundabouts, and some applications for which it is better to stick with x86. There have been some absurd claims about the performance of the M1 (not necessarily from Apple) and equally absurd claims about how much it sucks.

There's a lot of debate over the definition of "pro". Here's an alternative: a Professional does a lot of research to choose the correct tool for the job and knows when to use something tried and tested rather than the latest shiny thing. Apple's weakness is that they're a bit too eager to drop support for the tried and tested in order to promote the new shiny... The PC world's weakness is that they never move on from the tried and tested and just sprinkle some glitter on it every few years to make it look shiny and new.

 

[elbateria]

I agree. This M1 Max is insanely fast doing some jobs, like HDR merging or JPG exports in C1, but results are inconsistent in video editing. They are very dependent of editing and delivery codec. I don't buy "this is because it's intended only for pros who use ProRes" because full prores workflow is just a very little part of industry.

Pros Vs Cons I still think M1 Max is great, but there are some issues and inconsistencies that make my experience worse than it could be. Besides, some youtube reviews probably contributed to set the expectations too high, maybe way much.

 

[kingtj1971]

Same problem, it's a known issue that exporting H.264 on the new MacBook Pros is slower than on 5 year old machines

I'm trying to get ready to do more video editing work on my Mac, so it's one reason I recently bought a copy of FCP X and upgraded to a new M1X 16".

For my use-case? Oh yeah, lots of conversion to H.264/265 will be involved.

So this is disappointing for sure ... but I'll give this some time for Apple to sort it out. Like others commented, if it's only showing 40% CPU load during the conversion, that's got to be about software optimization for the M1X CPU. With a whole new architecture, I figure we've got to give it at least an entire year to really see developers figure out how to use the processor optimally. (This has always been the trend, even with game consoles like each new generation of Playstation.)

 

[cocoua]

It's been a few days since I received my new M1 Max 32gb. In all the reviews they say it is a beast for video editing, but it really isn't looking like that to me, at all. I only get it to work well with a 100% workflow in ProRes, but of course, this is crazy in real world.

From ProRes to ProRes.

View attachment 1933225

View attachment 1933226

Exporting to H264 / H265 for Youtube is incredibly slow since it seems that the processor barely goes over 40% load. I've tried Da Vinci, Final Cut and Compressor with the same bad results. It is really hard to spend € 3,800 on a laptop and get worse results than with a € 1,500 AMD RYZEN.

From ProRes to H264.

View attachment 1933227

View attachment 1933228

On the other hand, when I connect an NVME hard disk through a TB3 / USB4 box, many times it does not start it, having to disconnect the rest of the USB devices, connect the disk, wait until the M1 Max starts it and reconnect the other USB devices. It's like it doesn't have enough energy. I'm having issues with my external screen and recovering from sleep.

I am happy with the overall speed and performance with Capture One, but if exporting H264 / H265 is so slow I will surely return it.

I am doing something wrong? Is this performance normal?

Regards.

HI, I 'm experiencing same huge amount of time for exporting H265

And I have also the "screen dont wake up after screen issue", they said latest MacOS seed fixed this, not for me

Also main screen flashes to blank time to time. this setup on my rMBP 15 worked like charm among another list of several minor bugs I'm experiencing as wrong cursor, missing folder icons in Finder's window ETC


Im on a MS Max32GB

 

[cocoua]

I'm trying to get ready to do more video editing work on my Mac, so it's one reason I recently bought a copy of FCP X and upgraded to a new M1X 16".

For my use-case? Oh yeah, lots of conversion to H.264/265 will be involved.

So this is disappointing for sure ... but I'll give this some time for Apple to sort it out. Like others commented, if it's only showing 40% CPU load during the conversion, that's got to be about software optimization for the M1X CPU. With a whole new architecture, I figure we've got to give it at least an entire year to really see developers figure out how to use the processor optimally. (This has always been the trend, even with game consoles like each new generation of Playstation.)

shouldn't 40% sound good ? knowing that there are dedicated hardware acceleration for this task, so CPU could be somehow free or helping

 

[kingtj1971]

shouldn't 40% sound good ? knowing that there are dedicated hardware acceleration for this task, so CPU could be somehow free or helping

What other "dedicated hardware" would be helping do the video compression though? The M1 series Mac is all about the CPU being a combination of processor AND video processor AND RAM memory, all in one package.

So yeah, in this case, you'd want to see the "CPU usage" go as high as possible when it's focused on conversion or compression of video as the only task at-hand. That would reflect it working as hard as possible to get through the job, even if part of it involves some hardware acceleration built in to the M1.

FWIW though? I used Handbrake the other night to take a 28GB H.264 compressed movie from a Blu-Ray disc and crunch it down into a 3GB .MP4 file optimized for a Roku playing it at 1080HD resolution. It finished the job in under 30 minutes, which I was pretty impressed with. I don't have a direct comparison to doing this exact same task on other machines, but I did something pretty similar on an Intel based iMac Pro a while ago and I believe it took roughly twice that long to finish.

 

[cocoua]

What other "dedicated hardware" would be helping do the video compression though? The M1 series Mac is all about the CPU being a combination of processor AND video processor AND RAM memory, all in one package.

So yeah, in this case, you'd want to see the "CPU usage" go as high as possible when it's focused on conversion or compression of video as the only task at-hand. That would reflect it working as hard as possible to get through the job, even if part of it involves some hardware acceleration built in to the M1.

OH! I see now.

 

[Ziperix]

There seems to be a bug with H264/5 that many have noticed. Not sure if Apple made any statements about it.

 

[Ethosik]

This is just a 90" 4K vídeo in the timeline exported to H264 and ProRes. No filters, no transitions, no color correction, nothing. Ultrafast ProRes performance but a total disaster in H264 and only 30-40% processor load. Why? I don't know but same results with Final Cut, Compressor and Da Vinci, so I don't think this is something I'm doing wrong.

Is the source h.264? I think we have pretty much plateaued with the performance of 264. My 2010 Mac Pro exports just as fast on a pure h.264 workflow as current computers. Maybe shaving off just a couple of minutes on an 8 hour export. This is why I moved to h.265 workflow.

 

[MacLappy]

Thank you guys for this thread!

I have been toying with the idea of upgrading to a Mac studio from my 16" i9 Intel MacBook Pro 5500m. Have been holding back mainly because I still enjoy gaming thus having windows bootcamp is a big plus.

I am somewhat confused and if possible would like to be enlightened on this subject.

Assuming I shoot videos mainly on my iPhone 13 Pro Max WITHOUT using ProRes and my final output using Final Cut Pro is always exported in h.264 @1080 24 or 30fps format(mainly for compatibility), I am probably not going to notice a performance increase from upgrading right?

With the intel Mac I am benefiting from intel QuickSync as well as the T2 chip, what benefits are there for encoding in h.264 on the M1 Max base systems over what I already have?

 

[Ethosik]

Thank you guys for this thread!

I have been toying with the idea of upgrading to a Mac studio from my 16" i9 Intel MacBook Pro 5500m. Have been holding back mainly because I still enjoy gaming thus having windows bootcamp is a big plus.

I am somewhat confused and if possible would like to be enlightened on this subject.

Assuming I shoot videos mainly on my iPhone 13 Pro Max WITHOUT using ProRes and my final output using Final Cut Pro is always exported in h.264 @1080 24 or 30fps format(mainly for compatibility), I am probably not going to notice a performance increase from upgrading right?

With the intel Mac I am benefiting from intel QuickSync as well as the T2 chip, what benefits are there for encoding in h.264 on the M1 Max base systems over what I already have?

In my experience, no for h.264 you won’t notice enough difference to make it worth it. My advice would be to switch to HEVC for the exports. I did this and it helps drastically. As I said, I think h.264 is pretty much at the ceiling if my 2010 Mac Pro is still just as effective!

My workflow is mixed of ProRes and h.265 source and h.265 as always what I export to. I noticed enough difference where I replaced my 2019 i9 iMac with 128GB of RAM with a base M1 Mac Mini with upgraded RAM to 16GB. And a difference again with the M1 Mac 16” MacBook Pro. And hopefully again with the M1 Ultra Mac Studio. All due to the extra encoders.

And also, to point out your CPU and GPU utilization, that’s the added benefit of these encoders! It feels like I have two computers in one now. I can work on stuff while my video is exporting (finally) since my CPU and GPU are not pegged.

 

[Sanpete]

What other "dedicated hardware" would be helping do the video compression though? The M1 series Mac is all about the CPU being a combination of processor AND video processor AND RAM memory, all in one package.

So yeah, in this case, you'd want to see the "CPU usage" go as high as possible when it's focused on conversion or compression of video as the only task at-hand. That would reflect it working as hard as possible to get through the job, even if part of it involves some hardware acceleration built in to the M1.

Not sure what you have in mind. I suspect the usage % doesn't include the video acceleration.

 

[Ethosik]

Not sure what you have in mind. I suspect the usage % doesn't include the video acceleration.

It won’t depending on the codec. And that’sa good thing. I was never able to do anything extra on my computer while it was exporting since the CPU and GPU were pegged. Now it’s not only insanely faster, but the CPU and GPU aren’t as pegged meaning I could work on a photoshop document while exporting now!

 

[UBS28]

I agree.

I was creating a few 4K videos with alot of effects and basically decided to downgrade to 1080p because it was too sluggish on my 16“ M1 Max MacBook Pro.

I guess Apple forces you to use ProRes? If not, good luck?

My 16” M1 Max MacBook Pro doesn’t perform like this super powerful machine everybody is talking about.

 

[kingtj1971]

It won’t depending on the codec. And that’sa good thing. I was never able to do anything extra on my computer while it was exporting since the CPU and GPU were pegged. Now it’s not only insanely faster, but the CPU and GPU aren’t as pegged meaning I could work on a photoshop document while exporting now!

Yeah, I understand this ... except a codec is still software the CPU is processing through it. (My original point was only that there have been cases with previous computer systems where they had either dedicated chips or the CPU itself had some dedicated silicon inside it to essentially act like a "co processor" for certain video compression tasks.) If there's some other dedicated co-processing happening to crunch the video, that wouldn't show up as part of the CPU utilization percentage.

I think a good software codec just acts like a "library" the rest of the software can call on to do that video processing task optimally through. It might keep the CPU from being "pegged", but only because it's efficient enough to get that processing done without the need to max out the processor working on only that one thing. You probably COULD still hit close to 100% CPU if the right command parameters were passed to the codec to instruct it to use all the CPU time?

 

[Ethosik]

Yeah, I understand this ... except a codec is still software the CPU is processing through it. (My original point was only that there have been cases with previous computer systems where they had either dedicated chips or the CPU itself had some dedicated silicon inside it to essentially act like a "co processor" for certain video compression tasks.) If there's some other dedicated co-processing happening to crunch the video, that wouldn't show up as part of the CPU utilization percentage.

I think a good software codec just acts like a "library" the rest of the software can call on to do that video processing task optimally through. It might keep the CPU from being "pegged", but only because it's efficient enough to get that processing done without the need to max out the processor working on only that one thing. You probably COULD still hit close to 100% CPU if the right command parameters were passed to the codec to instruct it to use all the CPU time?

No if it’s prores or hevc, M1 has dedicated hardware that offloads a lot of the CPU and GPU. If it’s RED RAW, it can’t use those dedicated encoders so it causes higher CPU.

 

[kingtj1971]

No if it’s prores or hevc, M1 has dedicated hardware that offloads a lot of the CPU and GPU. If it’s RED RAW, it can’t use those dedicated encoders so it causes higher CPU.

Oh, ok! Yeah, in those cases, I knew the M1 did that. I thought we were talking about formats like H.264/265 here.

 

[Ethosik]

Oh, ok! Yeah, in those cases, I knew the M1 did that. I thought we were talking about formats like H.264/265 here.

Well M1 does have dedicated h.264 and h.265 encoders. Picture below is for the Max. This is how I saw a difference in CPU and GPU usage from my 2019 i9 iMac and my M1 Mac Mini and my new M1 Max Macbook Pro.

 

[Lorange]

I'm not into video editing so pls be kind . I recently bought a Map 16m1max and I'm must curios to read about it and study what it can do.

I have no idea if this can be of any help regarding this issue about speed during exporting. But here it is.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

"Export HEVC from Final Cut Pro with hardware acceleration


Use hardware acceleration to enable fast encoding of HEVC 10-bit Dolby Vision HDR video using Compressor and Final Cut Pro with macOS Big Sur or later.





"To use hardware acceleration when exporting HEVC 10-bit Dolby Vision HDR video from Final Cut Pro, use Compressor to create a share destination for Final Cut Pro. Hardware acceleration is available on supported hardware only.

1. In the Settings pane in Compressor (press Shift-Command-1 if it’s hidden), select the Apple Devices 4K (HEVC 10-bit, HLG, Dolby Vision 8.4) setting.
2. Choose Duplicate from the Action pop-up menu at the bottom of the pane. The duplicate setting appears under Custom in the Settings pane.
3. Select the new duplicate setting in the Settings pane.
4. Click the Inspector button to open the inspector, select the Video tab, then set these options:
   • Click the “Encoder type” pop-up menu and choose “Faster (standard quality).”
   • If you need Dolby Vision 8.4 metadata in the output file, select the “Include Dolby Vision 8.4 metadata” checkbox to have Compressor include it.
5. Select the General tab in the inspector, then type a new