Why a Apple M6 is faster with InDesign than even any Ultra series…

I was astounded when I upgraded from Intel to M4 Max MacBook Pro, I had seen friends with M1 Macs and couldn’t believe the speed so my jump was a big one!

Yes, Fred, I think that’s really the issue here. InDesign still seems to rely heavily on single-core performance for a lot of everyday work. Some parts use multiple cores and the GPU, but it doesn’t scale across a big multicore CPU anything like Premiere Pro, Media Encoder or rendering in After Effects.

So you can end up in the odd situation where a newer base chip with faster individual cores feels quicker in InDesign than an older Max or Ultra, despite the Ultra having vastly more processing power overall.

That’s why I’d be wary of recommending an Ultra specifically for InDesign. You’re paying for a lot of hardware that InDesign may simply not make much use of. ​@graphics_4075  M1 Ultra to M4 Max experience seems to underline that as well.

Upgraded from a M1 Ultra to an M4 Max recently (128GB Mem on both) and can’t exactly say my performance has improved at all in any Adobe app other than After Effects having increased rendering speeds. The 21.6 InDesign update that is supposed to improve rendering did the opposite for me and watching my CPU History, not all of my 12 performance cores are being utilized. Do you have a link for this pic?

Hello ​@Frans v.d. Geest 

Thanks for reaching out. Could you share more specifics about the installed OS/InDesign version and whether you are experiencing slowdowns with a particular workflow, so we can better assist you?

Looking forward to hearing from you.
Anubhav