Macbook Pro M4 vs Dell Pro Max 16 Plus for After Effects

Note: Although I use After Effects, it’s not my primary application so it isn’t used daily. 

Clock speeds aren’t very useful for comparison anyway, because what really matters is real world speed which can depend on many more factors. For example, my 2008 Intel MacBook Pro processor ran at 2.4Ghz and my current 2021 M1 MacBook Pro runs at up to 3.2GHz, but the performance of the 2021 Mac is several times faster than the clock speed difference would suggest. 

Clock speeds are a little like RPM…at a certain speed, a 4-cylinder compact car might reach a higher RPM than a 12-cylinder luxury sports car, but the higher RPM doesn’t mean the little compact car is the faster one.

Even the number of cores isn’t a reliable measure except within the same processor family. There’s a recent video on YouTube where an Asus ROG with a 24-core Intel CPU went up against a M4 MacBook Pro with a 16-core Apple Silicon CPU. The Mac turned in faster single-core and multi-core Geekbench scores, and the PC score was even lower (by a lot) when unplugged. (Mac performance stays almost the same on battery due to lower, more battery-friendly power requirements, although the Dell may be one of the newer PC laptops that can also sustain maximum performance on battery, not sure.)

So far my answer isn’t being too helpful except to caution against comparing based on unreliable specs. The only real way to compare those is by trying to find head-to-head reviews online with the software you use (not always easy of course), because whether the Mac or PC is faster can depend on a specific application’s usage mix of CPU, GPU, memory, and storage. 

For After Effects, having a faster CPU with more cores has traditionally been desirable, but After Effects has been using GPU acceleration more lately so now the GPU is important too. I’m not familiar with the Nvidia GPU in the Dell (I’m a Mac user), but it looks relatively new…hopefully a knowledgeable PC user will comment on that GPU with After Effects. 

Knowing that the GPU in the proposed MacBook Pro configuration is sort of midrange (M4 Pro processor), if the Dell’s Nvidia GPU is considered midrange for After Effects they might be comparable. But if that RTX 1000 is considered upper end, then for the MacBook Pro GPU to be comparable it may have to be upgraded to the M4 Max processor. 

Although I’m a Mac user, that Dell has several points in favor of it. On my MacBook Pro with 1TB storage, to have enough free space for After Effects Media Cache files I have to carry around an SSD, but it sounds like you can just put more storage inside the Dell. Also, the 64GB RAM on the Dell will give After Effects a lot more breathing room for previews and such than the 48GB on the Mac…especially because on the Mac, the GPU takes its graphics memory from the 48GB of main system memory. The Dell has 64GB all for the OS, and another 8GB for the Nvidia GPU.

Another point of comparison is the display. The specs posted in the qustion didn’t include that, but the 16" MacBook Pro has a 3456 x 2234 P3 gamut display that fully supports 1000 nits sustained HDR, in case your video work needs that. Because After Effects really crams a lot of controls on the screen, having more screen pixels is welcome. If I’m looking at the right web page, it looks like the Dell can be upgraded to a 4K screen (3840 x 2160) if you customized your build.