Apple M3 Max MacBook Pro: Benchmarks, Comparison & Specs!

Apple’s silicon is its own beast. Luckily, Scott is here to test out how the Apple M3 Max chip performs against its predecessors by exporting video through Adobe Media Encoder, DaVinci Resolve and After Effects.
Order the Apple 16" MacBook Pro with M3 Max Chip (Space Black) at B&H: bit.ly/422WdGN
0:00 Intro
0:34 Specs
1:50 M3 Max vs. M2 Max vs. M1 Max
5:04 Today's Tests
6:01 Media Encoder Benchmarks
7:11 DaVinci Resolve Benchmarks
8:07 After Effects Benchmarks
8:28 How Much Has the M3 Improved from Its Predecessor?
9:30 Handbrake Benchmarks
10:13 Processing
11:28 Scott's Thoughts
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#AppleM3 #MacBookProM3 #M3Max

[@BandH]

What do you think of the M3 Max chip?

[@Logan5Greye]

Working very well. Doing what my RTX3080Ti does in 1hr in 13-17 minutes. If I have to re-export something again I can do it several times over and I don't lose much time.

[@fred.studioninja]

​@@Logan5Greye you mean the desktop rtx3080ti?

[@Logan5Greye]

@@fred.studioninja that is correct. RTX3080Ti TUF from ASUS

[@CheqkoO95]

What type of projects are you exporting? And which program? I do explainer videos in AE and would love to do more on a laptop than my asus rtx3080 rig main deterrent is AE need all of the ram and thats a steep upgrade from apple

[@jarrodbarker]

I will never understand why export tests are the gold standard. Let’s see if the M3 Max can run denoise FX smoothly in 4K without having to use proxies, how about optical flow? These are the kinds of things that actually matter.

[@krishnansrinivasan830]

I am happy that we are able to perform these heavy tasks using a laptop on battery power. It's awesome, thank you! :)

[@mauscuba]

Export and rendering times are just a small part of the equation and certainly not the only one part. It would be great is you post about the EXPERIENCE of creating the edit while adding all the different elements like titles, animation, music and all the other complex effects you mentioned into the time line and if you ran into any stability issues like lags during analyzing or crashes... At least to me, one or two minutes here or there on render times is not that significant and not what I'm interested on. I want to know about any of the issues encountered DURING the work of editing a video.

[@MikeBizanovich]

Thanks, Scott. Great overview!

[@ScottOwsley-BH]

Thanks!

[@Acura1NSX]

M1 is an awesome machine and processor. I see no reason to waste money on small percentage improvements. There's always something new coming down the road but doesn't necessarily mean you need to buy it LOL

[@bomac10]

Amazing

[@ShinilPayamal]

Thanks Scott for this awesome comparison video.👍 I am looking at moving to Apple Silicon for the following: 1. Editing 4K KZbin and CapCut like videos using FCPX and/or Resolve 2. Playing 'in browser' or standalone Web3 games, occasionally. 3. Editing audio for my Podcasts. I am looking at the entry level MacBook M3 Pro with the following configuration: 11-core CPU 14-core GPU 18GB Unified Memory 512GB SSD Do you think the above configuration should be enough for the tasks I intend to do? Thanks in advance for the reply.😊🙏

[@ScottOwsley-BH]

I'm glad you liked the video! Hopefully I can help with your question. Here are my thoughts, caveats included: 1) I have not personally tested the lower end machines. I have been keeping an eye on forums and reviews for years though and have heard nothing but positive things about the capabilities of even the lower-tier Apple silicon Macs. I also did another quick/ more-specific google search while typing this comment and feel safe saying that seems to still be the case. As long as you aren't using any super-intensive effects or using too many video layers at once I think you should be good. And if you do wind up with some heavier work than you expected, there are always work arounds like proxies 2) I have not personally used FCPX on Apple silicon yet. I have a few friends who have though, ranging from an Emmy winning video producer to a friend who cuts videos together for his band. The professional told me that Final Cut with Apple silicon handles footage exceptionally well. My friend with the band basically said "dude this works so much better than my old computer". Both of those were with M1s so I imagine that holds true for the M3! And I since I helped the band-friend buy his, I know that it was a regular M1 MacMini with 16gb of unified memory for context. It's worth mentioning that FCPX is Apple software so it is very well optimized for the hardware. And the folks over at Black Magic have been doing incredible work optimizing the way Resolve handles footage on all platforms. Both/ either are strong choices 3) I do not have any experience with Web3 games. If they are in-web browser games I imagine they should be fine, but definitely check to see if the website has any spec guidelines. If the game(s) have any online communities and/or forums check to see if anyone has mentioned any troubles or incompatibilities. 4) You probably already know, but 512GB is a on the small side for an internal drive. Should not be a problem as long as you are keeping your media on an external SSD drive with a fast connection If you have more questions or want clarification on anything I said here or in the video, let me know!

[@ShinilPayamal]

@@ScottOwsley-BH Thanks Scott for such a detailed and helpful reply. Really grateful.

[@ScottOwsley-BH]

@@ShinilPayamal Happy to help!

[@chrisbogart687]

I grabbed a M1 Studio with 5 mins of the announcement . I use Resolve and since the iPhone now gives you ProRes, I am doing a lot more of that footage. Seeing your numbers I am definitely going to upgrade when the M3 studio is announced which looks like in June. Thanks for your testing which makes my decision easy.

[@ScottOwsley-BH]

Happy to help!

[@MrVrob8]

Keep the computer reviews coming!

[@omidpakbin]

Hi. Great video, but the charts are awfully wrong. Literally none of the charts show the correct difference. Example: 10:09 - M3 is 48% faster than M1, all the numbers are right, but the bar for M3 is absolutely not where it should be. It should be close to the center point, a bit towards the right.

[@Vandueren5]

Also the wording "an x% improvement" when measuring timebased performance is ambiguous. If the M1 max does it in 37:02 and the M3 has a 48% improvement. What does that mean? I would think it is 148% as fast as the M2 -> it would finish in ±25 minutes. But they measure it finishes in 52% of the time of the M1, subtract that from 100% and call it the improvement. I would rather say it is an improvement of 92% or it performs at 192% the rate of the M1. In their Logic someone who does a job in 1 minute instead of 100 minutes is 99% better. While actually they perform 100x better (10,000%)

[@simoneaves9941]

So sorry, but export tests are such a small part of the picture... well produced content though.