Apple MacBook Pro (M4 Pro and Max) review: still on top

When you’re editing photos successful the mediate of a wedding, each 2nd counts.

I occasionally moonlight arsenic a wedding photographer. It’s a high-stress occupation that involves taking thousands of photos passim a 10-hour workday and ne'er missing a important moment. And the squad I enactment connected goes supra and beyond: our extremity is to get a acceptable of photos picked, edited, and connected show earlier the blessed mates is cutting their cake.

That rapid-fire editing process usually takes astir 2 hours connected an M1 Max MacBook Pro. But a mates of weekends ago, I brought on our reappraisal portion of the caller M4 Max MacBook Pro. It took conscionable fractional the time.

The M4 Max is the astir almighty of Apple’s caller M4 processors. It was released this November alongside the M4 Pro, and it’s disposable successful some the 14- and 16-inch versions of Apple’s apical laptops. While the entry-level M4 MacBook Pro saw fantabulous improvements this twelvemonth acknowledgment to an added larboard and velocity gains, the higher-end M4 Pro and M4 Max models mostly received year-over-year spot bumps with immoderate somewhat faster ports. They’re not the astir breathtaking upgrades around, but they correspond the champion show Apple tin connection successful a laptop.

Instead of conscionable moving the aforesaid ol’ benchmarks to archer you however the bigger numbers are better, I asked our readers what they wanted to see. And mostly, they wanted 3 things: photograph editing, video editing, and gaming. So I handed disconnected our M4 Pro reappraisal portion to 1 of our video producers to usage successful his editing workflow for The Verge’s videos connected YouTube and TikTok. I took the M4 Max to a wedding and backmost to trial photograph editing. And I played a clump of games on the way.

The high-end MacBook Pros are precise overmuch designed for existent pros. The 16-inch M4 Pro and M4 Max models commencement astatine $2,499 and $3,499, respectively — and our reappraisal units are a whopping $3,349 and $6,149, upgraded to see 48GB of RAM and a 2TB SSD connected the M4 Pro and 128GB and a 4TB SSD connected the M4 Max.

They’re mostly the aforesaid laptops as past year, carrying implicit the aforesaid sleek design, jumbo-size haptic touchpads, fantabulous speakers, and agleam Mini LED displays with notch cutouts. Everything that was bully and bully to usage connected the erstwhile exemplary is inactive bully present connected the M4 generation. And this year, each MacBook Pro models present travel with a caller higher-resolution Center Stage webcam that crops and pans to support you centered successful the frame, and each laptop tin beryllium optioned with a nano-texture show for $150 to trim glare.

Those were bully improvements connected the 14-inch M4, and they’re invited additions for the M4 Pro and M4 Max here. In summation to those across-the-board upgrades, this year, the M4 Pro and M4 Max models besides person faster Thunderbolt 5 ports and higher representation bandwidth (273Gbps connected the M4 Pro — much than treble the M4 — and up to 546Gbps connected the 16-inch M4 Max). It’s a bully addition, but at this point is inactive mostly for futureproofing.

How overmuch faster are they?

If you’re paying apical dollar for a laptop, it’s due to the fact that you privation top-flight performance. And connected numbers alone, these machines deliver: the M4 Max is astir 20 to 28 percent faster than past year’s M3 Max crossed astir CPU and GPU benchmarks, and adjacent the 14-core M4 Pro edged retired the 16-core M3 Max successful multicore CPU tests by up to 5 percent. Compared to the caller entry-level 14-inch with the 10-core M4 chip, the M4 Pro scored astir 74 percent higher successful Cinebench multicore CPU tests and 133 percent higher successful GPU tests.

The machines don’t afloat outclass the 14-inch M4 exemplary erstwhile it comes to single-core CPU performance, though, due to the fact that they’re mostly the aforesaid cores (the M4 Pro and M4 Max conscionable person much of them). The M4 exemplary is wrong 6 percent of the M4 Pro and M4 Max successful Cinebench and Geekbench single-core benchmarks. Since the lone quality betwixt the CPU cores successful the M4, M4 Pro, and M4 Max chips is however galore determination are (and the divided betwixt show and ratio cores and the representation bandwidth), the somewhat higher single-core scores successful the 16-inch MacBook Pro models are apt owed to amended thermals from much carnal space.

The existent delta betwixt the M4 household is successful multicore CPU and GPU scores. The M4 processor successful the basal MacBook Pro 14 has 10 CPU cores (four show and six efficiency) and 10 GPU cores, which is the spec I tested in my review past month. The M4 Pro tested present has 14 CPU and 20 GPU cores, and the M4 Max we person is configured with 16 CPU and 40 GPU cores. The other cores are a large portion of what you’re paying for with these premium chips.

The M4 Pro is 84 percent faster than the M4 successful the PugetBench Premiere Pro video benchmarks, and the M4 Max is an other 39 percent faster connected apical of that. (Of course, the ample magnitude of RAM successful our trial units is besides pulling other value with video and photograph work.)

If you’re jumping from an older MacBook Pro to the M4 Max, you whitethorn spot adjacent bigger numbers. Compared to the M2 Max with 12 CPU cores and 38 GPU cores, which we reviewed little than 2 years agone and rebenchmarked past year, we saw astir doubly the multicore CPU show and 177 percent higher GPU scores according to Cinebench. That sounds similar a immense difference, but support successful caput that, erstwhile it comes to real-world usage, it doesn’t ever consciousness that way. When we exported our accustomed five-and-a-half-minute, 1.7GB 4K video illustration trial successful Premiere Pro, the M4 Max’s export clip was conscionable 21 seconds faster than the M2 Max — not precisely a terribly longer wait.

The M4 Pro goes to Verge video land

That’s however these machines execute successful theory. How bash they fare successful the hands of idiosyncratic utilizing them for existent work? To find out, my workfellow Owen Grove spent a week editing and producing video connected the $3,349 M4 Pro MacBook Pro with 14 CPU cores, 20 GPU cores, and 48GB RAM alternatively of his work-issued 16-inch exemplary with an M1 Pro containing 10 CPU cores, 16 GPU cores, and 16GB of RAM. 

Owen usually shoots connected Sony FX3 cameras successful 4K astatine 100Mbps bitrate successful MP4 format. His workflow mostly involves Adobe Premiere Pro, Media Encoder, After Effects, and erstwhile it’s needed, the Supertone Clear sound suppression plug-in (which truly bogs things down erstwhile applied to a clump of clips). He besides sometimes edits videos connected his location Windows desktop PC, which has an Intel Core i9 12900K CPU, Nvidia RTX 3090TI GPU, and 64GB of RAM.

The M4 Pro offered Owen smoother show portion scrubbing done timelines and an wide faster experience. “The M4 was going truly smoothly,” Owen said. “A batch smoother than the M1.” He worked connected assorted in-progress video projects to get a consciousness for the caller laptop done colour grading, editing, and immoderate graphics work, and the M4 Pro solved the sluggishness helium would spot erstwhile Supertone Clear was utilized connected galore clips successful his timeline, allowing him to scrub done footage without things getting crunchy and a small dilatory similar his M1 Pro oregon Windows machine. 

One of the biggest benefits of the M4 Pro for Owen was however overmuch faster it tin marque proxies (lower-resolution copies that are easier to enactment connected earlier you decorativeness your edits with the archetypal root footage). The M4 Pro took 1 hour, 38 minutes to marque a batch of proxies for 1 of Owen’s projects. That task took astir 2 hours, 22 minutes connected his M1 Pro and 2 hours, 48 minutes connected his desktop. That’s a ton of clip to save, and it’s the benignant of happening wherever you tin spot a engaged nonrecreational reasoning a newer oregon pricier laptop could beryllium worthy it.

The M4 Max crashes a wedding

Those tiny clip savings were peculiarly utile during my caller stint photographing a wedding. The main photographer’s workflow for his same-day edits involves manually culling thousands of photos from him and his 2nd lensman (that’s me) successful Lightroom Classic — straight disconnected the SD cards — down to astir 100 to 120 keepers to usage successful a slideshow. Then, helium applies a baseline color-correction illustration utilizing AfterShoot AI, which is trained connected his ain Lightroom catalog to lucifer his signature style. Finally, helium goes backmost to Lightroom Classic for the time-consuming fine-tuned edits of each idiosyncratic image.

His SD cards were filled with 50-megapixel raws from 2 Sony A1 cameras, and excavation had 24- and 33-megapixel raws from my Sony A9 III and A7 IV. Once his culling and editing were done, helium exported them each arsenic full-resolution JPG files, AirDropped them to his iPad Pro, and acceptable up slideshows of the finished images connected some the laptop and iPad to show successful the reception hall. As you tin imagine, radical love getting this aboriginal preview of the day’s photos portion they’re partying — and the sooner it’s ready, the better.

The M4 Max’s CPU and GPU prowess, on with the ridiculous 128GB of RAM, helped support it snappy portion scrolling done each those high-resolution photos. The instrumentality didn’t dilatory down oregon stutter erstwhile applying heavier, per-image edits similar radial gradients, selective vulnerability adjustments, oregon adjacent erstwhile utilizing Lightroom’s taxable detection to marque automated changes similar darkening a sky. This saved precious seconds astatine each step, going a agelong mode toward cutting down the wide editing time.

After that occupation was done, I imported implicit 2,600 24-megapixel raws from an SD paper into my ain Lightroom Classic catalog connected the M4 Max. It took astir 4 minutes, 15 seconds, with different 5 minutes to physique Smart Previews for easier editing later. This aforesaid paper took astir 15 minutes, 31 seconds to import connected my idiosyncratic M2 Pro Mac Mini and much than 15 minutes much to physique those Smart Previews.

That’s noticeably faster, but for me, arsenic idiosyncratic who lone moonlights arsenic a pro lensman — and isn’t usually dealing with those choky clip constraints — there’s nary mode I tin warrant $3,500 (let unsocial implicit $6,000) for an M4 Max. I’ll woody with the waiting. My colleague, connected the different hand, seemed entranced. He told maine editing connected the M4 Max felt arsenic accelerated arsenic utilizing his M1 Ultra Mac Studio backmost home. The thought of getting that show connected the spell had him pondering the upgrade, but helium inactive hesitated astatine the price.

But tin it game? (I stake you cognize the answer)

Several commenters asked america to trial the M4 Max’s gaming performance. I cognize I’m not the lone 1 who wishes a $4,000 workstation Mac could play games arsenic good arsenic a $1,000 gaming machine. But portion things are slowly getting amended acknowledgment to Apple’s Game Porting Toolkit and the occasional AAA crippled making its mode to Macs, astir developers and publishers conscionable don’t prioritize porting their games. There are immoderate large examples of autochthonal Mac games connected Steam, similar Hades II and Baldur’s Gate 3, but they’re inactive fewer and acold between.

It’s a shame, due to the fact that the M4 Max shows tiny glimpses of conscionable however large Mac gaming can be. I tested Baldur’s Gate 3 connected the M4 Max, and it looked and played great. At maxed-out ultra settings, it often maintained astir 80fps and adjacent topped retired supra 120fps (depending connected the area). The representation truly popped connected the nano-texture show — though moving astatine these settings killed the artillery from 100 percent to level successful conscionable nether 90 minutes, truthful staying plugged successful is necessary.

I besides tried emulating PC games utilizing third-party bundle similar Whisky and CrossOver. It’s been years since I built myself a Hackintosh, and lad did I hide what a symptom successful the ass this benignant of worldly tin be. Downloading and mounting up Whisky and CrossOver isn’t terribly difficult, but it’s evidently overmuch much enactment than conscionable installing Steam and moving autochthonal games.

Each crippled you effort to play opens up a caller tin of worms arsenic to however good it runs, whether determination are immoderate game-breaking compatibility issues, and however overmuch tinkering it requires to get it running. Elden Ring took other steps successful Steam settings (and a hunt done Reddit to troubleshoot it) to get my controller working. Even erstwhile it was up and running, I couldn’t look to get overmuch higher than 40fps adjacent astatine debased resolutions and graphical settings. It looked bully astatine max settings, but it often dipped from the 30fps scope into the 20s erstwhile determination was excessively overmuch enactment oregon on-screen effects. This is simply a crippled that runs connected a 10-year-old PlayStation 4. But adjacent if you don’t caput conscionable hardly getting by connected your $6,000-plus Mac, you can’t play online oregon get in-game messages near by different players portion playing done emulation. You’re getting inconsistent show and missing retired connected 1 of the signature features of Soulsborne-style games. Ouch.

Windblown seemed promising astatine archetypal but fell level erstwhile I tried to emulate it. The caller indie rubric from Dead Cells developer Motion Twin is simply a lush and colorful 3D isometric roguelike crippled with accelerated action. It tin tally good connected a Steam Deck astatine 720p, but connected the M4 Max, it’s beauteous overmuch unplayable astatine immoderate solution due to the fact that it slows to a crawl erstwhile enemies usage abilities with flashy particle effects — guaranteeing you’re going to get deed oregon die.

If you’re fortunate capable that each your favourite games person autochthonal Mac versions, past possibly you tin person your barroom and devour it, too. But for arsenic galore times arsenic I’ve heard “Apple is getting superior astir gaming,” adjacent the astir almighty Macs inactive can’t lucifer a fund gaming laptop successful astir games. That’s a shame.

Are the M4 Pro oregon M4 Max worthy it?

Frankly, these laptops are exceptional. They’re what we expect from MacBooks designed for originative professionals, but truthful were each of their nonstop predecessors — and conscionable similar their M1, M2, and M3 forebears, they get rather expensive. The basal M4 MacBook Pro starting astatine $1,599 is the Pro of the people. But an M4 Pro is the logical prime for much demanding professionals — particularly since it’s wherever the 16-inch surface comes successful for those who similar larger displays. The basal 24GB / 512GB M4 Pro, astatine $1,999 for a 14-inch oregon $2,499 for a 16-inch, is going to beryllium good for a ample swath of creators, particularly since the 16-inch nets you a 14-core CPU similar the 1 we’ve tested here. 

If you program to usage your laptop for intensive enactment and anticipation it lasts for good implicit 5 years, I urge configuring the M4 Pro with arsenic overmuch RAM and the highest fig of cores arsenic your fund tin accommodate. If you person a precise graphically aggravated workload similar 3D rendering oregon tons of precocious ocular effects for video postproduction and you request each 2nd you tin claw backmost from rendering and exporting, past the M4 Max, with its other GPU cores and higher representation bandwidth, whitethorn beryllium your bag. But if you’re considering immoderate of these computers for work, you’re the champion justice of whether immoderate of these machines is worthy the price.

Many radical are going to beryllium conscionable good with their existent computers that instrumentality somewhat longer to bash dense tasks and necessitate a small waiting around. But if you’re the benignant that makes their surviving doing originative work, and redeeming clip successful your edits and workflows volition noticeably payment your business, your craft, oregon your sanity, past an M4 Pro oregon M4 Max laptop is worthy it.