Thank you all for the kind words on this video! I know there are plenty of things I'm sure that I left out or missed the mark on, but I hope that this video helps at least a little in your decision making.

Finally someone makes a video for premiere and timeline playback. Thanks bro.

subbed, the genuine buyers remorse zoom clip made me do it lulz, plus the invaluable info for someone looking into buying m1max. Thank you

Thank you so much no one has done this comparison and it’s exactly what I wanted to know.

It was so friendly and fair introduction/ comparison of these machines. It helped me a lot and because I am a professional colorist and editor I picked the ultra till Davinci resolve to update itself (I hope soon) to get more out of the ultra. One thing that I love in this video was practical vs the other technical benchmark stuff that always makes the decision hard than helping.

In a similar position. I only really need the M1 MAX for my edits and exports at this time, but assuming we really start to gain from the ultra in terms of export/rendering etc, it seems like a good investment -- especially since you plan to upgrade the storage and RAM anyway to the base ultra specs. Informative video and great cat hair! Would have liked to see some FCP work as well.

Great real world review! I needed something for a project and the only thing available off the shelf was the base model M1 Max. Anything else was sold out or not available until after my project was supposed to start. Now I am thinking that might be a good thing. I didn't spend that much on the M1 Max and now I can wait and see what else comes down the pipeline in the coming year and as my needs grow.

Thank you very much for this video! I appreciate how you showing what creatives can expect from these machines.

Awesome review brother!!! such a great insight on which one to get

Great review!

Great breakdown and real world use cases. Speaking with Apple, they suggested Max for video and Ultra for 3D. Perhaps video editors will one day take advantage of the additional capabilities of the Ultra, just not sure if it will be in the near term. Best of luck with your decision.

So well covered. Thanks.

Thank you Jordan for your perspective. Since I am a novice to editing videos and audios, I’m choosing the M1 Max so I can grown into a more optimize unit later in life. You gave me a lot to think about. I don’t see a real need for me to have an ultra at the moment.

You got a new sub.... I know it took a lot of time to do all this testing. Much respect.

Thanks. Waiting for delivery on the Ultra.

Great video and really helpful. One thing I would like to confirm is that if using davinci resolve for editing are there any hold ups with transitions or animated titles?

Yes. I'd say you are definitely the best reviewer for my uses - a Premiere Pro editor. I'm ordering the M1 Mac Studio ASAP. Of course, some After EFX testing would be nice as well, but your comments at the end about upgrading the RAM most likely address that. When the MacBook Pro M1 early reviews came out, Resolve and Final Cut out performed Premiere, somewhat dramatically, since Adobe had yet to fully optimize. I am STILL cutting on my 2013 Mac Pro. All 4K projects must be cut using proxies, obviously. I take it the Apple M1 chip requires less RAM, but I am still upgrading the Mac Studio to 64 gig, which I feel confident will be just fine. I often have AE, Premiere, Audition, Photoshop AND Abelton Live all running. Closing Abelton usually solves any issues. And I will be keeping the Mac Pro, dedicating it to audio and music. Thank you very much for your excellent review and assessment. A tremendous help!

I was waiting for this one !!

Excellent commentary with a lot of common sense approach. I have a music studio and so for me with plugins and stuff i think ill go with the base ultra.

After watching this video, I'm happy I went with the upgraded m1 max studio. Thanks for the taking the time make this video! I know the ultra still has room for optimization but I'm hoping the M1 Max also sees a performance boost as well.

This is the first video that actually talks about real performance. For the most part, render times mean practically nothing to me since I hit render and go do something else. What matters the most is playback speed and the ability to drop grading on without having to render every few minutes. Please create this same type of video with After Effects!

Great review, Jordan! Sorry to come back to the noise topic. But I wonder if your Mac Studio really is completely silent for you? When you sit at you desk can you hear it? My Mac Studio has a clearly audible air flow woosh sound. Even when I am standing three meters away from it I can hear it. I'm about to trade in my Mac Studio for a 14" MacBook Pro because those are actually silent. 😕

Thanks for the PP/Resolve specific content! The move for me is Studio MAX 32GPU/64RAM/2TB and trade in for MACPRO M2 whenever that gets released. The 12 week wait is a buzzkill though.

thumbs up for the Custom PC sound effects, hilarious 😆

I got the base model as like you I have a MBP with the Pro and it's been phenomenal so I'm assuming the Max will be more than enough. I think you are the first to note how easily it slides around, glad I'm not the only one. Mine is sitting on my leather desk mat, mines a little larger than yours, and it still slides when plugging in MIDI controllers, DACs etc... great review! My Geekbench are similar, Pro single is 1761 but my Max is 1779. I did watch a review though were their scores on all were MUCH lower so I guess we both did well on the Silcon lottery! :)

Jordan, this was a very informative video, thanks so much for putting it together for us. After watching what seems like hundreds of videos on the Studio Max vs the Ultra, I think I'm leaning more towards the Max, upgraded to 32c GPU, 64GB ram and the 1TB drive. That takes the price up to $2799, which is still a lot, especially if opting for the $1600 Studio Display taking it up to $4400. I would much rather have a 27" iMac with the Max chip in it, which I think would be even cheaper, but Apple discontinued it. Drat! Anyway, thanks again. :)

After lots of trying to decide between the studio M1 max vs Ultra, I yesterday I ordered the M1 max version. Thanks for confirming my choice! Also, for having a Grace Gusted video I'm becoming a subscriber. She's awesome so you must be ok ;-)

Great content Jordan! I wanted to ask what display are you using for your Mac Studio? thanks!

Hey Jordan - Nice Mac Studio Review. Great presentation style! (Also, nice crib, by the way!) I'll be receiving the Mac Studio with the M1 Max chip in a week or so. I noticed you used the Logitech MX Master Mouse for Mac with your Mac Studio. I use that same mouse. I've read that some people had to set up the Mac Studio with an Apple mouse, then eventually blu tooth it with the Logitech Mouse after the Mac Studio was set up. They said the Logitech Mouse did not work on the initial setup. Did you have this issue?

Thanks you’ve helped me decide M 1Max it is. Watched your other videos on C70 & wanted your opinion on the R5C. I’m a photographer with video needs but interested in what you think about R5C vs C70?

Great review, thanks!! I just cancelled my Mac Studio order...it wasn't shipping until mid June. A lot can be released (or leaked) between now and mid June....I'll wait 😁

Great review! Thank you! I think I'll go with the Ultra.

Great video man! I am really going back and forth about picking up the higher M1 Max w/ 64GB mem and 4TB storage or the Base Ultra with 128GB mem and 4TB storage. I am leaning toward the Max setup.. going to wait and keep researching.

which one did you keep? i am in the same situation not sure what to get. If i get the Max the add on spec will bring the price up to the base Ultral. That makes me think of just getting the ultra.

How is Ultra now almost a year later? Was there enough software updates to utilize its architecture?

Is there any difference in the fan noise at idle between the Max and Ultra? Any difference in coil whine? Sure both are quiet and fan speeds stay low even at high load, but some have said that the two aren't the same at idle. Can you compare for us?

Daniel, great review. Quick Q, If you have both the m1 max mbp and the m1 ultra still.. i believe apple just released their update to Final Cut Pro 6 days ago.. and in the release notes it says they optimized for m1 ultra / Mac studios so was curious if you could go into fcp and do a quick 4k render and is if there is a significant improvement for the m1 ultra?

Hey Jordan, thanks for such a detailed review, especially on Davinci Resolve! One question though, you think that 64GB and 32 GPU cores would make lot of changes on M1 Max? Im considering getting base model or to go with 32cores/64GB?

Hey Jordan. Thanks for the video. I’m geeking out on Mac Studio videos at true moment, as I need a new desktop setup to replace my PC that just upped and died on me! Watching all of them it seems like currently the Max with 64GB ram and a bigger hard drive, is something of a sweet spot performance wise. However, like you, I suspect that in a few months the Ultra will really start to have optimisations that help it out from Adobe and Apple and the like (I mainly do Photoshop work). However, given the current speedy upgrade cycle of Apple with their CPUs, I can’t help thinking that maybe a 32 GPU Max with 64GB ram and a 2tb or 4tb drive might be a sweet spot setup that would keep me perfectly happy for 3 years (probably longer). One fly in the ointment, is that I can get that exact setup in the MacBook Pro. So am thinking to do that instead. I really need a desktop setup. But, by all accounts it is very quiet, so I could see the 16 inch being fine in a clamshell on my desk. The screen is lovely (tried it out in the Apple store the other day). So could see me sometimes using it on the couch as well. Have you found any drawbacks with the MacBook Pro as a desktop unit? Couple of things with it. 1/ No 10gb Ethernet - I see that there are quite a few 1gb dongles available, but the only 10gb ones are super expensive. Are you on Ethernet with yours? Do you reckon there would be much difference if I just got a 1gb Ethernet one? 2/ Movability/Dongles etc - I don’t really want to plug and unplug lots of cables each time I move it. I have 2 x 24 inch monitors. So I guess I need some kind of adapter/dongle, so that the dongle has all the cables attached to it? What dongles are you using with your MacBook Pro on your desk?

How do you feel about it now that more programs are optimized.

AWESOME VIDEO! really beautiful ;put together bru! Still dont know what to do with my workflow! ha ha!

Hi Jordan, I think the key is to consider if you will really benefit from multi-core performance and additional RAM in the applications you use if you switch to the Ultra. Sure it's nice to have that additional headroom but if it's not really giving you a massive performance boost, then I would just stick with the Max. I work as a composer for Film and Multimedia so realtime performance with lots of RAM, multicore performance, and very fast disk speeds are very important for running lots of plugins and V.I. (virtual software instruments) tracks - so specs similar to the Ultra really makes a difference and might be more justified cost wise... otherwise I wouldn't pay close to double (or even more) for a marginal performance boost.

Thank you for creating this video. You did a really great job. I am a newbie with video editing and with using a Mac I ended up buying the M1 studio and bumped up some of the features like the RAM and the size of the SSD. I use Davinci Resolve and find it to be phenomenal coupled with the Mac Studio Max. I cost me about $3800. Based on everything you showed in this video, I don’t see the advantage of an Ultra. Apple doesn’t do anything without good reason so I wonder what their reasoning is for developing the Ultra.

Great Job, doing all that comparisons without the geeky scores. Takes a lot of time doing all those tests rather than just using benchmarks! Your efforts to prove this is much appreciated. Now Ill just go for the MAX but with the 32 core GPU which really NOBODY tests...haha. I'm assuming its just a snail's toenail faster than the base model MAX.

Question: Please tell us when using the Photoshop Magic Brush, is there any difference in performance between the Mac Studio Max Vs Ultra? The Magic brush uses GPU power so it should be much better on the Ultra. Thanks

I just got the Studio M1 Max. It's plenty powerful for my work. To your point I never wished I had more while using it. There is definitely a place for Ultra and maybe someday I'll need that power when things are optimized. But for now this is a great system!

I bought two of each. (One for each monitor, and two for my cats) Will probably upgrade next month if they release them in Rose Gold. I absolutely cant live with these stock colors!

The way that u don't want to waste our time even though u get less watch hours that's great of u never seen a KZfaqr like u God bless u to reach maximum subscribes❤️

hey :) could you compare / record the fan noise of the M1MAX Mac Studio ? there are rumours on the internet saying that it is disturbingly noisy on the Max - do you agree ? Thanks in advance

I special ordered my Studio M1 Max the day after the announcement. I paid the extra $200 for the 1TB hard drive so it took about three weeks to arrive from China. I use mine for mostly media. My entire video collection is converted to H 265 HDR10 with MKV wrappers. I have been an Audiophile geek since the early 1960s. I was building amplifiers back in junior high school. At one time I owned two JBL C55 083 speakers. I was going to purchase a JBL Range Paragon but upgraded to this JBL theatre system instead. I had a Marantz 7C preamp with upgraded 5761 preamp tubes. My power amp was a Marantz Model 15 (the first NPN PNP Symmetrical Output Amp ever made). I had a Thorens TD 124 turn table with a Shure SME tone arm and a Sure V15 3 cartridge. I have always had high end audio and video. So I do not take it lightly when I say my Mac Studio has the best audio and video I have ever heard of seen... I think too may you tube channels are emphasizing benchmarks. The decoders in the Studio are truly professional. Color and Gamma are perfect. 5.1 surround is perfect. Crosstalk and phase shifts are non existent. I purchased the Studio for it's I/O. I have 32 TB of hard drive connected directly to the Studio with ample expansion to add another 50 TB. It has ben exciting over the last 3 months to discover the Audio and Video quality the M1 Max Studio is capable of. Its August tomorrow so I don't know if you will ever read this comment.

Very nice down-to-earth review. A minor issue, you (and most people) refer to the comparison as M1 Pro -vs M1 Max- M1 Ultra, but in reality memory amount is likely different, the Studio Max comes standard with 32gb, and the Studio Ultra come standard with the 64gb. I don't remember how much RAM you have in your laptop.

Perfect .thanks

Thank you

Your test results reflect what other users have reported. I have also heard that there is a “bottleneck” in the Ultra chip design that effects how fast the GPU can pump & dump to the rest of the chip components. Something in the hardware that effects some types of projects. Video editing is affected by this “bottleneck”, while other tasks (like 3D modeling work) is not effected. I can dig up the details if you like. I think your conclusion about the Max version is spot on.

Can you try a Multicam setup in DaVinci like 4 layers of 6k or 8k as I do this and want to see if I'll be ok with just the max studio?

If I am buying a Mac Studio, I also want the same configuration as you have. M1 Ultra is really only for niche professional uses.

Another video editor review.. great.

Keep both ,i'm waiting for my studio to arrive . I do a lot of photoshop rendering

It looks to me that at this point in time it makes more sense to buy a Max boosted with more RAM and SSD than getting an Ultra. It feels like if one needs enough extra performance that the Max doesn't feel the right choice, the Ultra won't be enough either and they might want to either wait for the next M series to be released, or get a Max/Ultra knowing they are not going to be 100% satisfied with it. In which case the Max would make more sense, unless money is no issue at all. Good video even though I don't use these programs and I have no money to buy even a M1 Mac Mini. I don't know what you will end up keeping, but good luck no matter what.

Q .. I just order the m1 max with 64 g & 2 tb .. how long you think it would last before being outdated ?

Hi Jordan, I have an LG 27 inch monitor with HDMI cable. Will this work in the M1 Max? If so will there be a performance difference in the HDMI monitor connected to Mac Studio?

Many thanks for the reassurance I did the right thing. I was surprised to find that when I configure a Mac mini like I wanted it, the price was only slightly less than the base Mac Studio with it far better cooling system. When it came time to buy, I opted for an Apple refurb Mac Studio that was actually less than I'd pay for that Mac mini. Apple needs to back off from their inflated prices for going beyond the stock model.

Great video. I am still on the fence between M1 Max and M1 Ultra. Also looking for wide screen. Probably LG. Was so looking forward to 30"-32" iMac 5K M2. I would have settled for M1/27" but not going to happen. Maybe Mac Studio M2....🙏🏼

I copped an upgraded M1 MAX so found this video super useful. Also.. the floating cat hair haha..

great review I ordered higher spec on the Studio M1 max {32c GPU} 64gb ram 1 TB SSD for future use being honest the display will be my LG ultra HD OLED HDR tv i like watching my footage to a much larger screen format

MacBook Pro M1 pro vs MacBook Pro M1 max is there really a big difference i’m editing music videos with luts and effects honestly is it worth a couple thousand dollars or should I just buy the base model M1 Pro

Still absolutely loving my iMac Pro, workhorse for professional video editing on a daily basis.

that PC bit with the car revs made me laugh so hard, idk why :p my kind of humor x,D

I also well be getting one

Lol’d at the PC fan curve joke. These machines are incredible and the Max and Ultra chips are modern marvels but let’s be real. 80% of creators out there could get by easily on a base M1 with 16gb of ram. Great video!

It seems we are getting diminishing returns on the Ultra which is a pity because Apple promised in their keynote that no changes need to be made for existing software to take advantage of the Ultra's extra power. The question is how long will it take developers like Adobe to optimize their App for the Ultra?

Which spec of the max your testing ?

Great video I use Premiere Pro as well and have the same MBP M1 Pro.

Your right Premier Pro has yet to be optimised for AS especially the Ultra..one thing was the projects on external storage? I’ve seen a few reviews doing this, for a real performance test they need to be on the internal storage.

For those working with both stills and video, there could be some big gains on the stills side if you regularly work with importing lots of high MP stills, as the ultra is nearly twice as fast as the Max for importing and building 1:1 previews in LrC. 20 cpu cores vs 10 makes a big difference. Also, those media encoders/decoders on the ultra appear to not be doing much, which Apple must address. My order for the ultra won’t ship until july, so I will be ready to cancel if things don’t change by then. Apple 🍎 must make good on its promises.

I am a bit skeptical about whether is the software that has to be optimized. I mean when the move was from x86 to M1 ARM then it was clear software would benefit from being rewritten. But the whole point of the Ultra is that the software perceives it as one chip, why would then premiere or resolve or else has to be changed? my money is that MacOS "kernel" is not doing a good job with all those cores. That is, I think the optimization pending is from the operating system side.

1 question: how much time to create a 1: 1 preview in lightroom = 100 raw photos / in Mac Studnio Ultra vs Macbook Max ?

Good job!

Silicon canning ring is what I put under mine and works great

64gb or 128gb… How much ram would it require to run Lr, PS, PP, and Media Encoder at the same time? Not trying to do this, but would be nice to know if I could.

Did you compare the sound differences from the fans?

Nice review, I think for Music Producers the Max would be fine, just maybe add 64gb and the 1TB SSD. The GPU wound't get used anywhere near the base model level working in a DAW.

Hey Jordan, love the video here helped me decide what to get. I saw that you are located in California and I am from SoCal. Lets network sometime.

SELL THEM BOTH AN SAVE UP FOR THE NEW MAC PRO M1 VERSION :P It will be here soon i think.. Or go for the Intel i9 12900 KS CPU PC build. Love you video.. love that you actually talked about scrubbing the timeline and explaining that a small difference here is a big difference when working with video day in and day out. And love the fact that you use the noisereduction, flicker free, stabelizer on the timeline.. makes it an actual real world review and not just.. Look at this... it can handle 10 tracks of 8K wow go buy it :P

Fuck man, 2:10 was unexpected and has me rolling! The first PC I built many years ago was actually not too far from that, haha.

Hi! Did you find any difference in the noise between the Ultra and Max Studios?

Finally someone working in Premiere. Every single KZfaqr seems to edit on FCP, which I'm not knocking, but most of the clients and studios that I work with use Premiere, so it's good to finally see some Premiere numbers between the max and ultra. I'm kind of in the same boat as you, freelancer who works with lots of different types of camera material, does editing, but I also do a lot of After Effects and occasional C4D stuff. I have an order on the Ultra base model right now, mainly because there was a $400 off sale. So, if I took the model you talked about custom configuring for the Max, which is pretty similar to what I was thinking if I got a max, It would run around $2799 and I did see one site offering $200 off for a a day or two, but not anymore. That said, if I compare the $3599 to the $2799.... is the Ultra worth that extra cost... and I'm starting to lean toward thinking that it is. A bit more future proof, and I don't have to upgrade anything to make it the right configuration. Waiting on Max Tech to post their video editors review to see some more numbers.

Hello and thanks for the video. I have a mac studio ultra 48 and, even without doing anything, I hear the fans spinning. They are about 1340rpm. Does your ultra do this too or do I have a problem with mine? Thank you

Can we connect Samsung tab s8 ultra as a monitor with Apple Mac studio M1 ultra 🙏🏼 If yes then how we can connect please tell me 🙏🏼

Better get a filter on those intakes or that Cat hair will sieze up those fans pretty fast.

I think both the max and the ultra studio will have updated optimization soon. Both system fans are barely working

If you're predominately an editor or colourist perhaps that main reason for buying an Ultra is future proofing.

Good video. Can i request you give your videos timecode chapters so we can find the bits most relevant to us? Thanks

Seems like I’ve always bought the lower end Mac and later regretted it. Maybe a couple thousand more for the “ultra” spread over a few years may not seem like such a big deal. 🤔

Good

So I’m currently on that boat.. I have the Ultra at home but the Max is coming in April… one will definitely go back to Apple lol but my big dilema is the same keep the Ultra hoping that Resolve will get a Ultra optimized update and then the performance would be insane or keep the Max with the configuration I ordered that is 1,700 cheaper!

Exporting will not show a big difference between the Ultra and the Max and it is normal. The Ultra has a second set of encoders but they aren't used. At the moment only one encoder is used for H264 or H265 in both CPU when exporting a file from applications like FCP. In theory the Ultra would be able to encode two streams but for a single stream it will not have an advantage. I still love my Ultra, the extra memory, the ability to add twice the power when doing timeline rendering and it's longevity are amazing extras over the Max and they worth the extra cost to me.

Ultra better in the long run as now 8k in Nikon Z9 and Canon Mirrorless and Cineline camera capabilities. The memory cards are doubling in size with clients wanting to get more for their buck would makes sense to get the more capable machine. If one has ever decided to renovate a home it costs between 100 to 120% more budgeting than expected.

is the Mac Studio M1 Max any good, coming from M1 Mini, and Macbook pro 16 M1 Max, for video and photography point of view.

thank you, your comparison is useful as it involves real examples and scrubbing or playback comparisons on the video editor. It is puzzling that the performance on these computers are so unpredictable, and that Apple gives very imprecise and unsubstantiated measurements of the performance on video editing and processing. In fact, we are all looking at videos like yours to understand the usefulness of each configuration .... and all the reviewers are uncertain and puzzled by the results ... and maybe the software will get optimised to get full advantage of the ultra, or maybe not, who knows? as far as I know, the software companies have said nothing about optimising for the Ultra (Davinci nor Final Cut) .... and everything seems so hazy and obscure.