When the Mac Studio was announced, I realized that, for video editing, the M1 Max was more than sufficient. That way, you have an older system to refer to when you need to open an older project.

When you do, keep your existing Intel gear and don’t upgrade it. This is not to say that your existing Intel gear is no good, simply that you’ll benefit from the newer hardware. There are already features that only run on newer systems. If you are still on an Intel system, at some point you’ll need to upgrade to Apple silicon. You can spend as much as you want – but you don’t need the top-of-the-line to get your work done. Given that, here are my thoughts on hardware as you look to upgrade your system. In other words, I wasn’t anywhere close to maxing out my system. However, my software never used more than 50% of all CPU cores, GPUs were busy but not buried, storage could transfer files 2.5 faster than the software could create those files. Editing was smooth and I didn’t need to render to see most effects. Exports were running around 350 MB/second. I was seeing render speeds up to 900 MB/second. I recently souped-up my MacBook Pro system, running an M1 Pro SoC, with an SSD RAID. Not so much that you MUST upgrade.įor example, I was editing a recent webinar, which used ProRes 4444 for source files. They edit smoother, render faster and output more quickly than any other system. I’m looking forward to adding an M2 system to my office in the near future. Still, the new M2 family of chips are exciting. This also links to articles specifically covering Apple Final Cut Pro, Adobe Premiere Pro and multicam editing with these new M2 SoCs. NOTE: After three weeks of testing, here’s a summary of performance and configurations for the 2023 Mac mini with an M2 Pro SoC. Today’s computers are more than fast enough for video editing.

Instead, Apple highlights software for 3D modeling, Photoshop rendering, or compiling code. (I mean, really, how often are you streaming more than a dozen 8K ProRes video clips in an edit?) Once a chip is fast enough, there’s not a whole lot new to show. That, I suspect, is why Apple no longer uses Final Cut Pro when showcasing new chips. When Apple silicon chips are described as simultaneously playing almost 20 streams of 8K ProRes video, you know that this hardware is more than adequate for virtually every filmmaker.

Macbook pro for editing