MacBook Pro m4 pro 12 core cpu 16 core gpu 48gb ram for uncompressed Sony a7rv raw photos?

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Would a MacBook Pro m4 pro 12 core cpu 16 core gpu 48gb ram be good enough to edit uncompressed raw files from a Sony a7rv in lightroom classic?

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Conrad_CCorrect answer

Community Expert

thanks for the reply's guys, what about a MacBook Pro m4 10 core cpu 10 core gpu 24gb of ram? just want a MacBook that can handle the a7rv uncompressed raw files with basic editing
By @fantastic_Eclipse4861

For basic editing (defined as mostly using the options in the Basic panel), the M4 10/10 24GB might be fine, especially on a tight budget.

However, my opinion is that it goes in the wrong direction compared to the M4 Pro you originally proposed. In the M4, the number of CPU performance cores is reduced to just 4 while the M4 Pro has 8. This is because the M4 increases the number of efficiency cores for better battery life. The M4 MacBook Pro basically puts the M4 Air processor into a MacBook Pro enclosure. It's a MacBook Pro designed for less demanding tasks.

Normally I wouldn‘t be so concerned about reducing the performance cores in favor of efficiency cores, but at 61 megapixels your raw files are much larger than average, so they may need more processing power than an average raw file. (In the table below, you can ignore the Cooling Fans column unless you will be doing a lot of bulk processing of those 61 megapixel raw files.)

Processor	CPU performance cores	CPU efficiency cores	GPU cores	Unified Memory	Cooling fans
M4	4	6	10	24GB	1
M4 Pro	8	4	16	48GB	2
M4 Max	10	4	32	36GB	2

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Anonymous

thanks for the reply's guys, what about a MacBook Pro m4 10 core cpu 10 core gpu 24gb of ram? just want a MacBook that can handle the a7rv uncompressed raw files with basic editing

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E

ExUSA

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I'm using an M1 mini with 16Gb of RAM, everything except scratch disk is on spinning hard drives, and performance is fine with 30MP 5D IV and 50MP 5DSr files.

Get more RAM, not less. I'd say a minimum of 32GB for a new computer.

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Conrad_C

Community Expert

It would work, those are decent specs. I’ve been using a much older and less powerful MacBook Pro to edit images from a Sony A series camera, although my camera’s images are only 24MP.

There may be a use case for a higher level M4 processor, however. If you plan to frequently use the latest AI-powered features (Denoise, Adaptive profiles, image defect removal) in bulk, or if you frequently work with large sets of images where you’d benefit from GPU acceleration for bulk export and bulk preview generation, you could think about getting the M4 Max processor. The reason is those features run faster with more GPU cores, especially for higher-megapixel images, and the M4 Max has up to double the GPU cores (32 cores) compared to the M4 Pro (16 or 20 cores).

It’s because of the recent Lightroom Classic push to add AI and GPU-accelerated features that I am likely to get a Max-level processor for my next MacBook Pro, just to get more GPU cores.

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