NEW M1 Ultra Mac Studio vs. M1 Max Macbook Pro 16" - Export Results Are Surprising!

These results are a bit closer to what you can expect if you edit projects with effects, don’t like transcoding media to pro res/making proxies, and use plugins! I plan to do the same tests again using pro res media in the full review, this I’m sure will offset the results heavily in the Mac Studio’s favor! I also ran these tests with all media on the internal SSD’s of both computers and with background rendering turned off. What do you think about the new Mac Studio?

Do you still prefer to use the 16 inch MacBook Pro by itself or do you like using it with an external monitor better?

Thank you soooomuch bro, I NEEDED this comparison cus yeahh I’ve seen plenty of in-depth comparisons/reviews and literally none of them showed me from the view point of the heavy editing I’d do for a music video, lookbook, and etc! This really helped me out a lot and you have a good personality. You definitely earned my sub, look forward to going through your content. 🤝💯

good video!!

Dude I was hoping you could
Help me!! I just brought the base
Model mac studio. Trying to download after effects and premiere pro and keep getting installation errors. Any idea how to fix this? Absolutely gutted because this is why I brought it 😭🔫

Finally some real world test not useless benchmarks. Clearly Software is Behind Hardware.

have you done this test with the new fcp release?

The M1 Ultra appears to be having coherency issues between the two fused chips. So perhaps I will wait for the M2, non-fused chip for my editing / exporting. Plus I do feel that 128GB of unified memory is still not enough.

Thank you so much for showing “real world” music video workflow performance. In complete honesty, I’m not impressed with these new machines. They should be matching the hype much more than they are.

1st, good review. 2nd, have you considered doing a convert to ProRes on import, or saving a duplicate project and letting FCP “optimize” your media? Since both machines have a chip to handle ProRes conversion, you would likely see a large improvement in user experience and faster exports. This is true as long as the plugins can take advantage of multi-core. Again, good review. Just some things to consider.

Thank you for this! Very helpful! I was also wondering how you set up your storage for these tests. I'm used to Premiere, where it's HIGHLY recommended to use external storage. I have no idea if Resolve and FCPX have this same requirement to avoid slowdowns, but am curious how you like to have things set up.

Sad Apple has us hype about ports.

Are the guys in that video the same ones in the ottoman humping video, all grown up?

Why use color Finale at all? I ditched it completely when masking became available within Final Cut

This was the review I needed to see, especially even though I'm nowhere near your level my workflow and arrangements in FCX are similar. Thank you for the great review!

THE VIDEO I NEEDED. my 3500 2012 i7 imac that I future proofed became obsolete when nvidia and apple got a divorce and I couldnt get a driver update. Yeah. so now its laptop or mac studio. my work bought me a 8,000 2017 i9 imac pro and it struggled with mogrts so like next year I'm sure we'll see quad ultra M2's or something. yeah. we cant win. I use premiere and want the Gh6, I used to have Gh5's that I used with the i9 mac pro... I need whatever I buy to work.

Thousand percent getting the studio. I appreciate the export test. Should be way better then my 6yr old i5 core 27in iMac. Takes me like 2hrs just to rotobrush a person out a 5sec scene 😂

what are your specs on your macBook Pro?

Incorrect: 2 Thunderbolt ports on the front of the Ultra. The Max is USB-C.

What are your specs for both devices?

Ain’t gunna lie bro. A lot of reviews on this bro and you did a great job. Simple and straight to the point.

🥂🥂

128 vs 64 GB. and 32 Core vs 64 Core. Is this a fair fight?

Thank you so much for this video! I immediately subscribed. Finally someone who doesn't only do synthetic benchmarks that have nothing to do with real life FCP X timeline handling. Also love your chill delivery. Just came from the Max Tech channel and boy does he yell at you...

I like seeing someone shows by real world results.

Good sh!t.

💪

How does the fan noise compare for these two devices, is the MacBook louder both when idle and when under load? Thanks.

Cool video. ✌️

Minor comment, next time activate the dropped frames indicator in Premiere Pro. it is hard to tell for sure if you are not dropping frames.

This is one of the most realistic tests I have ever seen, real work real effects heavy (great work btw!!) - thank you. Looks like the M1 Max is max enough! - I should add based upon other reviews it seems FCPX needs an update, which hasn't come out yet. It should render faster (the Ultra) like it did on Premiere Pro.

Dang that's crazy! That is a good set up to have especially if you're in a position of hybrid editing like being on the go but also having a home setup. It's good to know that both of your machines are going to run very similar so you don't have to worry to much when deadlines creep up 👌🏾

Great video, it would have been nice to see Activity Monitor's CPU's usage on both machines. Also you may want to reposition the mic to be closer to your mouth to improve the audio quality

Awesome! Thanks for the relevant info for us music video shooters. Been waiting to make a decision about my next laptop.

Shiping in Russia?))

Considering the MacBook Pro can edit on the fly cause it's portable and doesn't require an external monitor + it has a pro motion display + it's performance is outstanding. Of course it's not as superb as the M1 Ultra but that doesn't mean it doesn't perform excellent + it's cheaper = it's an overall better choice than the Mac Studio. I think the better choice for a desktop PC would be either an iMac because it comes with an excellent display, or wait for the Mac Pro for a truly substantial and game changer in performance.

So Apple lied.

The base Studio Display should reasonably have been a $699 monitor, without the A13 SoC, meant for the regular Apple users to accompany their $800 Mac Mini and $2000 Macbook Pro. Just in my humble opinion/wishful thinking. As it is now, it is an overpriced 60 Hz old LCD tech monitor with no real advantages over other $699 monitors, with no HDR, no 120Hz, no true blacks, and an unneeded/underused A13. (compare to MSI Optix MAG281URF IPS G-Sync HDR 1ms 4K 144Hz 28" Gaming Monitor for $699)

honestly, after seeing this, makes me more of a supporter of proxies / transcoding. because these new macs are so good at doing so, that even if you have a boatload of footage it'll only take like 20 min max (I'm ballparking it) for a full project. and once you make the proxies its to easy to do everything in final cut.

Damn but dont yall think when you watch the apple video's advertising this.. they show literally two M1 Max chips fusing together to make a massive new one. But the speeds are only slightly faster. Like I actually want things to be done x2 faster. Like half the time every time haha

The reason why the Mac Studio doesn't run properly in FCP is because FCP 10.6.1 isn't customized yet. Means it doesn't scale properly to the M1 Ultra. Sometime in early April comes the update and then the wall wobbles. 😉

I use lot of green screen in my 4K video editing in DaVinci Resolve. Do you think it makes sense to spend extra $200 and get 32 core GPU Mac Studio?

Finally a real day in a life use cases between this 2 machines. Love your videos bro!

Fist off your work looks dope AF. And thank you for this real world demo. The results are eye opening. Every other review kinda seems like an advertisement for Apple. You put the Studio thru it's paces and I appreciate that. Good job!

USE DAVINCI RESOLVE!!!!

really, really helpful review for video editors. thanks!

Maybe Color finale isn’t optimized yet to take advantage of all the cores or something in the new studio?