Calling All Mac M-Series Chip Users!

[Duke_Mulligan]

Hi all,

I’m hoping to get some comments from those using the M1, M1 Pro, M1 Max chips in their Mac. My (very) old Macbook is still running like a champ, but it’s so outdated that it can hardly even display 2.7K, much less edit! I also use Logic to arrange and record music, sometimes to accompany my drone videos, sometimes for other things.

What I’m hoping is that my next machine can run Logic and video editing simultaneously, I like to be able to reference the video I’m scoring to while working on the music. I’m not a computer tech person, but I think Logic uses mostly a lot of RAM, and video editing a lot of processing power, although there’s probably some overlap there, too.

My gut feeling is to get a MacBook Pro with the M1 Max or Pro chip, and likely 32gb RAM, but just wondering if anyone has real-world experience with that being overkill. TIA!

 

[Saladshooter]

Hi all,

I’m hoping to get some comments from those using the M1, M1 Pro, M1 Max chips in their Mac. My (very) old Macbook is still running like a champ, but it’s so outdated that it can hardly even display 2.7K, much less edit! I also use Logic to arrange and record music, sometimes to accompany my drone videos, sometimes for other things.

What I’m hoping is that my next machine can run Logic and video editing simultaneously, I like to be able to reference the video I’m scoring to while working on the music. I’m not a computer tech person, but I think Logic uses mostly a lot of RAM, and video editing a lot of processing power, although there’s probably some overlap there, too.

My gut feeling is to get a MacBook Pro with the M1 Max or Pro chip, and likely 32gb RAM, but just wondering if anyone has real-world experience with that being overkill. TIA!

I have a MacBook Air M1. It edits all of my Air 2S footage in Davinci Resolve without any issue...... my 5 year old MacBook Pro doesn't work at all when trying to edit 4K and above.

 

[Cosmo0g]

I too have an older iMac suffering from the new tech. I wish I'd never updated to OS 11. Mac Sales has good prices on used ones.

 

[brett8883]

Hi all,

I’m hoping to get some comments from those using the M1, M1 Pro, M1 Max chips in their Mac. My (very) old Macbook is still running like a champ, but it’s so outdated that it can hardly even display 2.7K, much less edit! I also use Logic to arrange and record music, sometimes to accompany my drone videos, sometimes for other things.

What I’m hoping is that my next machine can run Logic and video editing simultaneously, I like to be able to reference the video I’m scoring to while working on the music. I’m not a computer tech person, but I think Logic uses mostly a lot of RAM, and video editing a lot of processing power, although there’s probably some overlap there, too.

My gut feeling is to get a MacBook Pro with the M1 Max or Pro chip, and likely 32gb RAM, but just wondering if anyone has real-world experience with that being overkill. TIA!

I have a fully loaded M1 Max and love it. I have 64 GB of RAM and I notice that it almost always uses more than 16 GB of RAM, more regularly than you’d think, but I have to be really really be pushing it to go over 32 GB which is rare so I think 32 GB is a good amount. Not overkill but still plenty. 16 GB might be pushing it.

Of course the SSD is so fast that even if you use up all the ram you it should still be pretty quick using swap just so long as you have plenty of disk space.

 

[BBartol]

I've got the 16" M1 Pro, 16 GB of RAM, and 1 TB SSD, so the one that retails for $2,699 USD.

While it works perfectly, I kind of wish I would have spent the extra money and went M1 Max with 32 GB RAM. I say that based on the fact that last weekend I edited a 4K60 H.265 video in Final Cut Pro X. Not a single hiccup visually, but for curiosity, I used the activity monitor during export.

I noticed that when all said and done I ended up using a bit over a GB of swap memory for a 1 minute video with audio and color correction/grading. Seemed a bit much for my tastes. To be clear, had I not looked, I would have never noticed at all and I know there are many arguments to be made as to why swap memory may or may not matter on today's machines. My preferences are to not use it though, so that's my anecdote.

 

[MavicAir2Marc]

I have about as basic as you can get and it still runs circles around most everything else. You should be golden with the one you want.

 

[Helikido]

Hi all,

I’m hoping to get some comments from those using the M1, M1 Pro, M1 Max chips in their Mac. My (very) old Macbook is still running like a champ, but it’s so outdated that it can hardly even display 2.7K, much less edit! I also use Logic to arrange and record music, sometimes to accompany my drone videos, sometimes for other things.

What I’m hoping is that my next machine can run Logic and video editing simultaneously, I like to be able to reference the video I’m scoring to while working on the music. I’m not a computer tech person, but I think Logic uses mostly a lot of RAM, and video editing a lot of processing power, although there’s probably some overlap there, too.

My gut feeling is to get a MacBook Pro with the M1 Max or Pro chip, and likely 32gb RAM, but just wondering if anyone has real-world experience with that being overkill. TIA!

I recently bought a 2020 MacBook Air M1, 8GB RAM & 512GB Storage for $800 during one of the recent BB sales.

I've used it with Davinci resolve, regularly have over 20 tabs of browsers open, many social apps running in the background, and it runs perfectly.

RAM management on this platform is beastly. The SSD & RAM are closely integrated, so when you start running low on RAM, swap speeds occur at really fast speeds so most of the time you don't even notice that you're running low on RAM.

Battery life is also amazing - 10+ hours consistently. Coming from windows laptops, this is a huge upgrade.

For your use case, I recommend going with the 16gb option if you think you'll be regularly using more than 8GB of RAM. A M1 MacBook Air or Pro will probably be more than enough for personal use. The new Pro laptops are geared towards people who use their laptops for income generating professional work, hence the even more powerful chipsets & steep starting price.

If you have a Costco membership, buy one, you have 3 months to return if you don't like it. Highly likely that you will keep it - no pressure .

 

[Maviac]

View attachment 141439
I have about as basic as you can get and it still runs circles around most everything else. You should be golden with the one you want.

I have the same Mac mini. It can run circles around my 2019 MacBook Pro i9 that cost 3x as much. Though I do wish I'd gotten the 16GB version as I occasionally get memory warnings, but it's never caused a problem.

 

[Todd Clarke]

We replaced our 2011 iMac recently with the base model M1 Mac Mini because of this issue, it wasn’t able to even display 2.7K let alone edit it. The new config is an absolute beast coupled with a thunderbolt hub that sits under the Mini with an SD card slot, 3 extra USB, loaded with a 1TB SSD. The Mini is the base model 256Gb/8Gb RAM and it’s running anything I’ve thrown at it. iMovie, Davinci Resolve, Garage Band, Logic Pro, the full Adobe CC suite without issues all run as smooth as butter. I already had a big Samsung 32 inch curved monitor and used the old iMac keyboard, mouse and touch pad. I even tried out rendering 4K/60FPS video from my MA2 in Davinci, whilst also editing in iMovie and GarageBand all at the same time without any noticable slowdown. I think for the average user would be more than happy with the standard M1 Mini as my setup was around $1000.00US (Conversion from Australian dollars)

 

[RobW01]

I do all my video editing—always 4k and usually 25fps—on a 2017 model iPad Pro (500Gb storage). I have 2Tb and 1Tb hard drives and two 500Gb SSDs for external storage. The set-up is extremely quick and I can only imagine what the performance of the new M1 iPads must be like.

 

[Helikido]

An important note about the non M1 Pro/Max MacBooks is that they natively support only one external display.

You can alternatively just wait a little until the MacBook Air with M2 chip launches within the next few months if you are not in a rush and need a late MacBook that supports multiple display output natively without shelling out extra money for performance you don't need.

 

[Maviac]

An important note about the non M1 Pro/Max MacBooks is that they natively support only one external display.

You can alternatively just wait a little until the MacBook Air with M2 chip launches within the next few months if you are not in a rush and need a late MacBook that supports multiple display output natively without shelling out extra money for performance you don't need.

That’s a good point. I originally got the 2020 M1 MacBook Pro but realized it would not work with two external monitors, which is my office setup. So I returned it for the Mini which works fine. I understand there are some ways to make the MBP work with 2 (plus the onboard screen) using Thunderbolt and software but I didn’t want to have to buy two new expensive Thunderbolt monitors and deal with figuring it out.

 

[brett8883]

An important note about the non M1 Pro/Max MacBooks is that they natively support only one external display.

You can alternatively just wait a little until the MacBook Air with M2 chip launches within the next few months if you are not in a rush and need a late MacBook that supports multiple display output natively without shelling out extra money for performance you don't need.

This is not true. The M1 Max supports up to 4 external monitors (3 6k monitors via Thunderbolt 4 (or adapters) and one 4k monitor via HDMI) and the M1 Pro supports up to three external monitors (2 6k via TB and 1 4k via HDMI.) These are extended monitors. If you just want to mirror monitors you could potentially add unlimited monitors.

Might even be able to add an additional monitor via screen share but I haven’t tried it.

 

[Duke_Mulligan]

Hey, thanks to all for the insight! I just tonight picked up a MacBook Pro 16” with the M1 Pro chip, 1TB SSD/16GB RAM. Between the comments here and a video showing some torture testing of the 16 vs 32 GB models, it appears the swap memory speed and management is so good that there’s little performance difference between the two. I’m gonna take the $400 I saved and use it for an external drive to keep the internal SSD free for that swap memory - which is a good thing, because I would’ve needed an external drive either way.

Haven’t even opened the box yet, maybe I should do that!

 

[Maviac]

This is not true. The M1 Max supports up to 4 external monitors (3 6k monitors via Thunderbolt 4 (or adapters) and one 4k monitor via HDMI) and the M1 Pro supports up to three external monitors (2 6k via TB and 1 4k via HDMI.) These are extended monitors. If you just want to mirror monitors you could potentially add unlimited monitors.

Might even be able to add an additional monitor via screen share but I haven’t tried it.
View attachment 141527

You’re correct, but his message was specifically referring to non-Pro/Max Macs.

 

[brett8883]

You’re correct, but his message was specifically referring to non-Pro/Max Macs.

Oh sorry I missed the “non” part

 

[MavicAir2Marc]

You’re correct, but his message was specifically referring to non-Pro/Max Macs.

I was researching this a few months back and I do believe there is a way to get at least 2 monitors out of the base M1. It may require additional hardware but I think it can.

 

[Maviac]

I was researching this a few months back and I do believe there is a way to get at least 2 monitors out of the base M1. It may require additional hardware but I think it can.

The base M1 can drive 2 monitors but on a laptop the built-in one counts as one so you can only typically use one more (a Mac Mini can run two monitors fine). There is a workaround using Thunderbolt monitors and some software but Thunderbolt monitors ain’t cheap.

It’s also worth noting that you can also use an iPad as a second (or third) screen using Sidecar (I use it as a third on my M1 Mac Mini when I need it) but obviously that’s going to be smaller than almost any stand-alone monitor.

(Edited to clarify this isn’t referring to the M1 Pro or Max)

 

[brett8883]

The base M1 can drive 2 monitors but on a laptop the built-in one counts as one so you can only typically use one more (a Mac Mini can run two monitors fine). There is a workaround using Thunderbolt monitors and some software but Thunderbolt monitors ain’t cheap.

It’s also worth noting that you can also use an iPad as a second (or third) screen using Sidecar (I use it as a third on my M1 Mac Mini when I need it) but obviously that’s going to be smaller than almost any stand-alone monitor.

(Edited to clarify this isn’t referring to the M1 Pro or Max)

Yea the Mac mini has a dedicated HDMI port so that's why it's able to add another display.