Confused about hardware priorities

Forum|Forum|11 months ago
March 8, 2025
2 replies
948 views

Hello!

I am currently looking to upgrade my main work computer because the demands of my clients have become way more demanding.

I've been using my M1 Pro base 16gb model for years and it was great up until now. For the past few months i've been constantly commissioned to create long format content thats above 1080p, 50fps and with tons of heavy effects. This laptop isn't cutting it anymore.

So my question is - what should be my priorities when buying a new macbook? Its really confusing because they have so many models. Do i get as much unified memory as i can get? From what i've heard - after effects is going to rely more on cache space in future versions. So should i invest in to a more powerful chipset instead with less memory? I'm super confused about this and i don't want to make a really expensive mistake. I would appreciate some help. Thanks!

Peru Bob

Community Expert

@Warren Heaton10841144

Can you help here?

Warren Heaton

Community Expert

@internetadraugi

Deciding which MacBook Pro to upgrade to can be tricky and since it's a big purchase there's always concern about what makes for the best choices based on how we work.

Since a maxed out Mac tends to be very, very expensive, I've leaned toward choosing options one step down from the maximum options for a work machine and one step up from the base options for a personal machine.

I think ArtIsRight provides a great in-depth look at the options.

M4 MAX is $500 Upgrade Worth it & Pro Photo & Video test on Every MAX from M1 MAX

I agree with his upgrade priority list:

Memory (RAM)
Chip Family
SSD Storage Size
Chip Varients

Coming from a base 16GB M1 Pro MacBook Pro, I'd look at the following configuration:

16-inch or 14-inch

Nano-texture display
Apple M4 Pro chip with 14‑core CPU, 20‑core GPU, 16‑core Neural Engine
48GB unified memory
1TB SSD storage minimum, 2TB is better, 4TB preferred if it works with your budget.

If budget is limited and going with the base 16-inch M4 MacBook Pro (so, not M4 Pro or M4 Max), I'd opt for Nano-texture display, 32GB RAM, 2TB Flash storage (the maximum options for the M4).

When it comes to being able to enable Preview from the Disk Cache goes, Puget Systems has a great article that takes a look at how this is working in the public beta of After Effects.

Upcoming Boost to After Effects Preview Playback with RAM and Disk Cache

Overall, users with less RAM but a good amount of disk storage should see longer (but not faster) Previews. It's also looking like a higher-end After Effects workstation might be configured with 64GB or 96GB of RAM and 4TB Flash storage instead of going with 128GB of RAM and 2TB or more of Flash storage.

I

internetadraugiAuthor

Participant

Thanks! My budget is around 3-3.5k euros. I've been using an external m.2 enclosure ssd for Disk Cache and it seems to work great, so im not really worried about SSD space on the new machine. And since i prefer 14" size, the overall costs should be slightly lower than on a 16 inch same spec model.

I'm torn between two models that cost almost exactly the same in Latvia.
a)M4 Max 14C CPU, 36GB, 1TB, 32C GPU
b)M4 Pro 14C CPU, 48GB, 1TB, 20C GPU

Is the 12gb memory increase worth the chipset downgrade? I don't know if its possible, but it'd be great if i could render stuff through media encoder while working on the next animation. I don't work with any advanced 3D. Most 3D stuff i do are parallax animations.

Peru Bob

Community Expert

I'm moving this to the Video Hardware forum, where you may get better advice.

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