M3 Max 16/40 48GB 1 TB vs M4 Pro 14/20 24GB 512GB

[juanmaasecas]

If you needed to choose

M3 Max 16/40 48GB 1 TB (second handed with apple care)

Or

M4 Pro 14/20 24GB 512GB (new)

Both 16”, same price

To be used mostly with Lightroom/PS/Capture one.

Which one?

 

[Basic75]

M3 Max mostly because of more RAM.

 

[throAU]

M3 Max mostly because of more RAM.

This. And more storage. Oh and way more GPU cores.

 

[G5isAlive]

I understand and mostly agree with the M3 choice, but I have a different answer. If you have a week, buy the M4 pro .and test drive it. If it works for you, keep it. If you see excessive ram pressure or feel the graphics are slow, return it and get the M3 max.

 

[throAU]

I'd be interested to see a max power consumption measurement between m3 max and m4 pro.

CPU wise, the M4 Pro will be slightly faster in single thread, but be similar in multi. In GPU it will get crushed by the M3 max.

512GB storage is imho just to small for a MacBook Pro, unless you're very diligent about keeping stuff off the machine. You can make it work, but imho if you're spending the money required to get a MacBook Pro with a decent ram capacity and processor - cheaping out to the extent of crippling it with 512 GB is just... not money well saved, imho. It will be a significant limiting factor in the versatility of the machine - if you ever want to run a Windows VM for example (e.g., you run into some edge case where an app you need, needs windows) you probably want to shave 100GB or so off for that.

48 GB will be a lot nicer than trying to fit in 24 GB as well.

That said, it may be worth trying out the nano texture screen. That's only available on the m4 pro and if you don't need the spec, imho the screen is a real life, tangible benefit to eye strain, visibility, etc. - if you're one of the people who likes it.


/additional thoughts

 

[smirking]

CPU wise, the M4 Pro will be slightly faster in single thread, but be similar in multi. In GPU it will get crushed by the M3 max.

The OP's use case is Capture One Pro, Lightroom, and Photoshop. I'm not sure where Photoshop stands, but both Capture One Pro and Lightroom lean on CPU more than GPU.

 

[throAU]

The OP's use case is Capture One Pro, Lightroom, and Photoshop. I'm not sure where Photoshop stands, but both Capture One Pro and Lightroom lean on CPU more than GPU.

Yup, but I'm sure that:

• some of the things he may do on the side use GPU
• more and more apps are being rewritten to use the GPU for heavy data processing

Not saying it's a primary driver for the M3 max vs. m4 pro, but it's certainly nice to have. Especially at same cost with double the storage and more RAM.

 

[Matck06]

The OP's use case is Capture One Pro, Lightroom, and Photoshop. I'm not sure where Photoshop stands, but both Capture One Pro and Lightroom lean on CPU more than GPU.

No, AI noise reduction relies on the GPU on lightrrom and is a function used by those who push the iso.

 

[Matck06]

If you needed to choose

M3 Max 16/40 48GB 1 TB (second handed with apple care)

Or

M4 Pro 14/20 24GB 512GB (new)

Both 16”, same price

To be used mostly with Lightroom/PS/Capture one.

Which one?

Hi, there,
my choice by far is the M3 Max
-for the extra ram 24go it's not enough in photo you need a minimum of 32/36gb if you start playing with high resoluton files a7rv sony a1 etc... you have the Youtube channel Art is right which demonstrates it very well with photo use LR ps capture one etc...
-For file noise reduction with lightroom denoise IA it uses GPU cores, so it saves a lot of time on the M3 Max.

-for me, 1tb is the minimum when you take a lot of photos, so it's still more comfortable.

for me, the real point is the RAM on the M3 MAx, it's indisputable.
then on the cpu it's the same thing but the gpu the M3 max is far superior.

 

[smirking]

No, AI noise reduction relies on the GPU on lightrrom and is a function used by those who push the iso.

I stand correct then. I'm not a Lightroom user so it was just stuff I heard from others.

Capture One also uses the GPU, but it doesn't maximize it. It's an ongoing complaint in Capture One though it's possible that it's changed recently.

 

[Matck06]

I stand correct then. I'm not a Lightroom user so it was just stuff I heard from others.

Capture One also uses the GPU, but it doesn't maximize it. It's an ongoing complaint in Capture One though it's possible that it's changed recently.

Yes, more and more applications are using the GPU, and even the 24 vs 48 ram, no debate, really makes the machine durable and safe for good photo use (panorama with more than 200mpx) using LR+PS. In any case, on my machine with 48gb and my sony A1 files, no exchange problems in heavy use.

 

[raythompsontn]

for the extra ram 24go it's not enough in photo you need a minimum of 32/36gb

Yeh, right. Tell that to my 16 Gig M2 Air. Which ran just fine with large raw files doing noise reduction. There was never any memory pressure. You can also inform my 24 Gig M4 pro that it is short on memory. It has no problems dealing with large images with no memory pressure.

It is really easy to spend other people's money.

 

[juanmaasecas]

I just sold my 2017 MacBook 15" and now just using the Mac mini M4 that just bought to have it connected to the TV for Stremio and manage all my external SSD/HDD...

For the laptop I will mostly use it for Lightroom. I am not a professional photographer (although some times I have gigs of thousands of pictures in nightclubs, events etc)

I don't do video normally but sometimes I've done a bit, and maybe in the future... (but I always say the same and it's exhausting editing video to me)

I just made an external 4TB SSD that's faster than the internal storage in the Mac mini M4 that I am writing from, and my MacBook Pro before was 256, so not too concerned about the internal storage.

I feel the M4 pro CPU is slightly better and it will be used more in my case than the GPU, but, everyday the software is getting more and more optimized for GPU and IA is pushing hard, I wouldn't like to feel that the intelligent masks are taking too long to copy and paste in several files because my GPU is not good enough, or that the AI noise reduction is taking double the time because of that.

I also would like the new screen with the quantum dot. I care a lot about color and that is why I use apple products instead of windows/android. And same reason I use Canon instead of Sony. So I would like the latest screen and with NO nano-dirtiness, I want the glossy one.

I also like the idea of the M4 pro being more power efficient and with longer battery life...

The thing is, the obvious choice would be going for the M4 max, and I can definitely afford it, but it is too hard to justify for my use essentially just for that (I have a work laptop at work, etc).

But seeing that the M4 max will be outperformed next year in CPU for the cheaper pro chip (not in GPU though), makes it look "unfair" to me spending so much, and that is what makes me wonder on going second hand, to "lose" less money, as maybe it is better to go that route, buying second hand every 2/3 years (instead of 7 years as this MacBook Pro that I just sold, that was for the last 3 years with problems in the screen and couldn't handle editing sessions over 1h without turning on the screen (T-CON with issues due to overheating)).

I am waiting for the next reviews from Artisright and Max Tech and see if I can decide...

Thank you for your help

PD: I have a Canon R5, 45mpx.

 

[throAU]

It is really easy to spend other people's money.

The proposed options are the same price...

 

[throAU]

I feel the M4 pro CPU is slightly better and it will be used more in my case than the GPU, but, everyday the software is getting more and more optimized for GPU and IA is pushing hard, I wouldn't like to feel that the intelligent masks are taking too long to copy and paste in several files because my GPU is not good enough, or that the AI noise reduction is taking double the time because of that.

I also would like the new screen with the quantum dot. I care a lot about color and that is why I use apple products instead of windows/android. And same reason I use Canon instead of Sony. So I would like the latest screen and with NO nano-dirtiness, I want the glossy one.

I also like the idea of the M4 pro being more power efficient and with longer battery life...

All valid considerations -

I've got M1 Pro and M4 Max 14" machines here, I can say that the quantum dot thing isn't night and day (before the info leaked out, nobody reviewing them noticed - and seriously, I didn't either); both screens are great. I got the nano texture on the M4 and that's the bigger draw to M4 IMHO. far less reflections is just nice. That alone is worth going and checking out a machine with the nano texture in person in my opinion, if you're not so sensitive to the processing spec.

If you are looking for some level of AI future proofing, the M4 series does have slightly faster ML cores (and the max doesn't get any more of those than the pro line). But I think whatever machine you buy today for AI is going to be left in the weeds for that within a few years. I really don't think the difference from m3 to m4 for the AI cores is going to be significant in the medium to long term.

Are other options on the table? Considered base M4 chipwith more storage and RAM? That will get you comfortable ram/storage, the new AI cores, new machine warranty, new machine support longevity, etc.


Shortages of storage, ram and OS support are the things that will stop a machine dead in its tracks eventually, CPU/GPU core count is just a matter of how fast things will be processed, not whether or not it can be done at all.

 

[Matck06]

Yeh, right. Tell that to my 16 Gig M2 Air. Which ran just fine with large raw files doing noise reduction. There was never any memory pressure. You can also inform my 24 Gig M4 pro that it is short on memory. It has no problems dealing with large images with no memory pressure.

It is really easy to spend other people's money.

So to start with, I work professionally in photography and I use a sony A1 50MPX. so yes, your M2 will reduce noise without any worries, but how long will it take? on a 45 to 60mpx file, you tell me ?

also, run a stack of raw files to denoise on LR and keep working to see and tell me if you have any slowdowns, personally on my old Macbook pro 16 m1 pro 32gb I couldn't keep going smoothly with the denois function on.
in short, i'm not even talking about photoshop with added slaps on top of lr in use, your ram will be easily exchanged, everyone knows that the adobe suite consumes a lot of ram, i'm not pushing users to buy, but i'm helping them not to be disappointed.

and i'm not talking about panorama with 16gb ram you'll be limited with the beach ball. anyway i invite you to have a look at the art is right channel on youtube with real conditions.

what's more, the user is using a 45mpx canon R5, which is a high-resolution camera, nothing to do with 20 or 24mpx files for noise reduction or panaromas, which will take much longer.
I'm not saying that the M4 pro isn't suitable or that it's impossible to work with a m1 pro m2 etc... I'm just saying that it greatly improves export denoise and fluidity with heavy use.

 

[smirking]

So to start with, I work professionally in photography and I use a sony A1 50MPX. so yes, your M2 will reduce noise without any worries, but how long will it take? on a 45 to 60mpx file, you tell me ?

This is going to depend a lot of what you shoot. Not everyone does your kind of photography.

I shoot events. My files are 24MP because that's all I need and Capture One Pro breezes through them just fine on a 16GB machine. It actually did fine on an 8GB one too.

It may have taken a bit extra time to export, but I really can't tell you if it did or not because by the time I'm exporting I'm done with my work. I go get something to eat. Whether it took 4 minutes or 8 minutes isn't of any consequence to me.

 

[Matck06]

This is going to depend a lot of what you shoot. Not everyone does your kind of photography.

I shoot events. My files are 24MP because that's all I need and Capture One Pro breezes through them just fine on a 16GB machine. It actually did fine on an 8GB one too.

It may have taken a bit extra time to export, but I really can't tell you if it did or not because by the time I'm exporting I'm done with my work. I go get something to eat. Whether it took 4 minutes or 8 minutes isn't of any consequence to me.

Yes, it depends on the workload, and I use AI reduction a lot because the clubs I work with are quite dark, and on my M1 pro, launching the denoise function paralyzes editing and causes latency on the sliders. To denoise an a1 50mpx file, I'm already at 21 or 22 sec on M3 max 16/40, but the M3 max lets me continue adjusting my subsequent photos without slowing them down.

 

[raythompsontn]

and i'm not talking about panorama with 16gb ram you'll be limited with the beach ball. anyway i invite you to have a look at the art is right channel on youtube with real conditions.

I have. The time difference between a M3 Air with 16 Gig vs a M2 Air with 24 Gig is a whopping 1 second with the M2 being slightly faster when denoising a 36MP image. Denoising 10 images the M2 Air was 2 minutes faster. That 2 minutes gives me enough time to read an email, go to the bathroom, etc.

Yes, more memory will always help. But at what cost versus the time savings? Spending an extra 10 minutes a day (extrapolating 10 images with a 2 minute savings with 50 images) is worth what? If my time is that valuable I would be using the highest performing system that I could find and it most certainly would not be an Apple machine.

By your argument I should be using a M4 Max with 128GB of memory. That is hardly cost effective in my opinion. It is well known that the more memory the better. I have maintained multiple servers with 1TB of error correcting memory in matched pairs and multiple multi-core CPUs. Always wanted to run Lightroom on one of those beasts.

I have more issues with maxing the CPU when importing images and Lightroom is building thumbnails. Importing 2K images takes a couple of minutes (high speed SDXC cards). Building the previews takes much longer. I usually just start the process and do something else during that time. Since the CPU is maxed having more memory would not make much of a difference.

I get more beach balls with Turbo Tax opening a file than I ever have with Lightroom or Photoshop. Why? I have no idea.

I never batch process in Photoshop so speed is not really a concern and I don't care if Photoshop swaps to disk.

Real world never matches benchmark tests which are designed to stress a system to the maximum.

 

[raythompsontn]

launching the denoise function paralyzes editing and causes latency on the sliders

I think that is more of a CPU issue than a memory issue. At times I run multiple exports, generally 3 at a time, along with a WEB build and upload. That will stress Lightroom and make other items within Lightroom slow. Other applications maybe, but I don't notice, as most that interface is between me and the keyboard.

Lightroom is a weird animal at times. I generally never paid attention as once I started an import, or export, I went off and did something else. I then started watching the system monitor during an import and the CPU maxes out. Doing an export the CPU usage stays low. I would have thought the opposite. This is with images with color correction, contrast, cropping, exposure correction, sometimes angle adjustment and format conversion (raw to jpg).

 

[Matck06]

I have. The time difference between a M3 Air with 16 Gig vs a M2 Air with 24 Gig is a whopping 1 second with the M2 being slightly faster when denoising a 36MP image. Denoising 10 images the M2 Air was 2 minutes faster. That 2 minutes gives me enough time to read an email, go to the bathroom, etc.

Yes, more memory will always help. But at what cost versus the time savings? Spending an extra 10 minutes a day (extrapolating 10 images with a 2 minute savings with 50 images) is worth what? If my time is that valuable I would be using the highest performing system that I could find and it most certainly would not be an Apple machine.

By your argument I should be using a M4 Max with 128GB of memory. That is hardly cost effective in my opinion. It is well known that the more memory the better. I have maintained multiple servers with 1TB of error correcting memory in matched pairs and multiple multi-core CPUs. Always wanted to run Lightroom on one of those beasts.

I have more issues with maxing the CPU when importing images and Lightroom is building thumbnails. Importing 2K images takes a couple of minutes (high speed SDXC cards). Building the previews takes much longer. I usually just start the process and do something else during that time. Since the CPU is maxed having more memory would not make much of a difference.

I get more beach balls with Turbo Tax opening a file than I ever have with Lightroom or Photoshop. Why? I have no idea.

I never batch process in Photoshop so speed is not really a concern and I don't care if Photoshop swaps to disk.

Real world never matches benchmark tests which are designed to stress a system to the maximum.

Yes, I completely understand, but if the user has the budget for either a m4 pro 14/20 24gb 512 or m3 max 16/40 48gb 1tb at the same price, I'm just saying go for a m3 max for your budget, because it'll perform better than the M4 pro, with twice as much ram and storage, it's a matter of common sense.

 

[raythompsontn]

budget for either a m4 pro 14/20 24gb 512 or m3 max 16/40 48gb 1tb at the same price, I'm just saying go for a m3 max for your budget, because it'll perform better than the M4 pro

Agreed.

I was actually quite surprised how well my M2 Air processed images. A little slower than my PC with 64Gig and an I9 Intel. But certainly not a whopping difference in just general feel. I was able to take my M2 Air on the road and start processing images on the bus trips, or hotel room, to give me a head start on the process.

As I said, Lightroom is strange as what I thought would be resource intensive, wasn't. And what I thought would be not resource intensive, was. Adobe products take, or rather like, a lot of memory. But seem to function OK in limited resource environments. I have worked on very large Photoshop files, three dozen layers (large to me, maybe not others) within a 16 Gig environment with no issues. Having nothing to compare Photoshop against, it seemed to run OK for me. I did have multiple swap locations (SSDs) in the configuration.

 

[Allen_Wentz]

The OP's use case is Capture One Pro, Lightroom, and Photoshop. I'm not sure where Photoshop stands, but both Capture One Pro and Lightroom lean on CPU more than GPU.

PS leans on RAM. Those apps 24 GB would be very sub-optimal. Even though the Mac OS will make anything work, working under more RAM is much smoother and less problematic. Note that although today 48 GB is a good workable amount it is not really a lot of RAM; it is only half of what was available in an M2 MBP. M3/M4 MBPs have 128 GB available.

 

[juanmaasecas]

I have decided to go finally with the second handed 16" M3 Max 16/40 48 GB 1TB, rationale:
- Much better graphic performance than M4 Pro (maybe similar to M4 Max 14/32)
- Has Apple Care + until Dec. 2026
- 2,700 USD (equivalent).

The Other considerations were (education prices in the country I live):
- M4 Pro 16" 14/20, 24GB 512GB : 2400 USD + Apple Care (around 400 USD) = 2,800 USD
Less Ram, less SSD, less Graphics. Slightly better CPU. Similar price (the original consideration in the post)

- M4 Pro 16", 14/20, 48GB 1TB: 2900 USD + Apple Care (around 400 USD) = 3,300 USD
Same Ram, Same SSD, less graphics, slightly better CPU. 600 USD more

Then of course the M4 Max models, but the price would go even higher.
I think this is a very good deal that I shouldn't let escape, and if I am not happy I can maybe sell it later and not lose much money...

I don't like the Nanotexture and the difference in the screen I trust will be minor anyways (and I'll be 99% of the time indoors). TB5 I won't use it either...

 

[Matck06]

Honestly superb business you will not regret it.not even compared to the M4 14/32 I prefer this one for the 48gb ram instead of the locked 36gb.