MacBook Pro M4 Max specs. Which should I buy?

Forum|Forum|3 months ago
October 21, 2025
3 replies
788 views

Hi, I am looking to buy a Macbook Pro 14 inch M4 Max.

I only do video editing on Premiere Pro and edit 1080p, 4k, and 8k video from a Canon R5 and Sony FX30.

Do I really need to get the M4 Max? Will the M4 Pro do? Should I get 128gb of memory or is 36gb of unified memory enough. I have the budget to get the highest spec macbook pro, but I have some friends telling me I can do the same with the base model M4 pro chip Macbook Pro.

Your knowledge on this would help me to decide which one to get. I'm also look for best export times.

Thank you

Conrad_C

Community Expert

A lot of this will depend on workload. The M4 Pro can probably do it, but because you mentioned 8K, I’m guessing the M4 Max would be a better idea.

What the M4 Max brings is a lot more GPU cores which helps for any features that are GPU accelerated or AI powered, and two Media Engines instead of one which can help with general encoding/decoding if the timeline has lots of tracks.

The M4 Pro might be able to do the job if your editing tends to be just basic cuts and fades.

The M4 Max might make a difference if your sequences involve lots of tracks and effects stacked in a single sequence, like multicam, and the more you edit 8K.

Should I get 128gb of memory or is 36gb of unified memory enough.
By @creazer

I think the sweet spot is probably somewhere between 36GB and 64GB, but wait until some other opinions show up because maybe there is a video editing use case for 128GB. But my impression is that 128GB is for people editing large After Effects projects, extremely large Photoshop files, or doing computer programming work with large LLMs.