Is 8 gigabytes of RAM
enough for video editing
on the new M1 MacBook Air?
Short answer,
actually, yes it is.
But there are a few caveats
which I'll go into more detail on later in the video.
So stay tuned.
I've spent the last few days testing
an eight gigabyte and 16 gigabyte RAM version
of the M1 MacBook Air,
and my findings are,
if you are on a strict budget
or if the editing you plan on doing
is your typical MP4 4K and under stuff,
the eight gigabyte RAM version will be totally fine.
However, if you have the budget for 16 gigabytes
I still do definitely recommend going with that version
as the only downside is increased cost at the beginning.
And to find out why I recommend this,
keep watching the video.
Now I wanted to start off
with the current biggest issue surrounding RAM
on the new M1 Macs,
and that is almost nothing is optimized
even now almost two months after the M1's release.
Even software that is supposedly optimized
in reality often isn't.
It just means it's no longer running off Rosetta 2.
DaVinci Resolve for example
has a 17.1 beta software for the M1,
but I've had many issues with this
including crashing,
and most notably some video codecs
not even able to render
or even be imported onto the timeline.
I do understand that this is a beta version
but it definitely sums up the current situation
for the M1 Macs.
Note, I had none of these issues
when using the 17.0 version of Resolve
running on Rosetta 2.
Adobe Premiere Pro isn't far behind.
It's still running off Rosetta 2,
and to be fair it performs quite well,
but it's nowhere near the level of optimization
it needs to be at.
Let's have a look at some of these test results.
As you can see,
no matter what program or codec you are rendering with
there is almost no difference between eight gigabytes
and 16 gigabytes of RAM.
In some cases
I even found the eight gigabyte version to render faster
than the 16 gigabyte version.
Super, super weird.
Now, it has been proven that the RAM on the M1 Macs
is super fast already
and eight gigabytes is often enough
as you've seen
from some of my previous videos on this topic,
but these results indicate to me
that editing software right now
just has no idea how to take advantage of the additional RAM
on the 16 gigabyte version.
But what about actual editing performance?
Is there a difference when scrubbing the timeline
or adding fusion effects?
Well, I did a test on Resolve
using some 4K dot MP4 footage to find out.
So I just wanted to do some real life testing
on both of these machines.
Now, as you can see here
this is the M1 MacBook Air in space gray.
This is the eight gigabyte RAM version.
And then we have the 16 gigabyte RAM M1 MacBook Air
in the traditional silver color.
Now, we'll be doing some tests on Premiere Pro
and also DaVinci Resolve.
DaVinci Resolve is on the 17.1 beta version
which is optimized for Apple Silicon.
Unfortunately, Adobe Premiere Pro is not.
So that is actually running off Rosetta 2
so we will see a performance drop.
So first things first,
let's open up DaVinci Resolve
and see which one loads the quickest.
So three, two, one, load.
So as you can see there
they are both pretty much the exact same.
Every time I've done it
it's either one or the other one just starts up quicker.
It's pretty random.
But they are pretty much exactly the same
as far as I can test.
Now, if we open up this test project that I put together,
like I mentioned before
I'm not going to be doing any kind of hardcore 8K
or RED footage
in this particular test.
This is going to be more of a real life test.
So the majority of people buying an M1 MacBook Air
are probably only going to be doing some light editing,
and the particular footage they are going to be using
is probably just going to be like a dot MP4 out of their camera
like me.
So I have a Sony A7 III
and I'm just using the 4K dot MP4 codec
to record my videos and edit them in this particular video.
So if I just play this
you can see it plays without any issues.
We are getting the full 25 FPS.
Now this is 4K footage playing on a 4K timeline.
It also has LUTs and color correction added.
You can see I have some fusion titles here and there,
and I also have some fusion transitions.
The fusion transitions don't play back
as well as I would have liked.
So if I skip forward to a transition and then I press play
you can see there it's quite stuttery.
It actually, you know,
I'm only getting about 2FPS,
so it really doesn't like fusion transitions.
But if we go to something like a fusion title
you can see there that works perfectly fine
once it's had a chance to pre render.
If you don't know how to do that
you come here to playback
and you can go fusion memory case
you can turn that to auto.
And that essentially means that
it's things like these fusion titles
you can see the blue bar there,
they will actually render in the background.
So the next time you come to play them
they should play smoothly.
And as you can see here if I zoom in a little bit,
I can scrub
and that works perfectly fine.
Now, in terms of actual scrubbing,
if we skip forward to a
15 minute vlog I shot
the other day,
if we do some scrubbing on both timelines,
again, this has color correction and a LUT applied,
you can see there is really no issues there
with the scrubbing.
Obviously it is dot MP4,
so it's a very, very compressed codec
so it won't be perfectly smooth in terms of scrubbing.
But again, like this is a full 4K resolution.
The timeline proxy mode is set to off,
so you can obviously see that it's playing back
at the full 4K resolution
without really any issues at all.
And although you will see some dropped frames
here and there,
and because it is a dot MP4 file,
it is very, very compressed.
So what Resolve and the computer is having to do
is it's having to actually essentially unpack each frame
before displaying it on the screen.
So that's why it might be a bit choppy.
But again,
this is totally usable in terms of editing.
I've had no issues
and I really haven't seen any difference between
eight gigabytes and 16 gigabytes here.
Okay, so now what we are going to do is
we are going to actually edit a fusion title.
So you can see this particular title is 2020.
So let's change this to 2021.
And then you can actually see
the blue bar will change to red on both of these,
and it's actually going to start
pre rendering in the background
in this particular title.
So you can see here
the 16 gigabyte version has just the tiniest advantage
but they've both finished
at pretty much the exact same time.
Now, I have done this particular test multiple times
and I've noticed that this 16 giga model
just narrowly beats out the eight gigabyte,
but you are really not going to notice it at all.
But what about Premiere Pro?
Well, I used some of the same footage
and did some rendering and some testing,
and I found that again, just like DaVinci Resolve
I really couldn't find that many differences
between the two,
especially when actually editing the footage.
In terms of rendering,
there were a few minor ones which I'll touch on later.
Moving on to actual RAM usage
looking at the activity monitor results while rendering
we can see that Resolve is using on average
an additional three gigabytes of RAM
on the 16 gigabyte version
compared to the eight gigabyte version during a render.
Yet the render time
was almost exactly the same on both machines.
Doing the same thing when rendering on Adobe Premiere Pro
showed something similar,
but this time it's clear to see
that Premiere was capped at around 4.5 gigabytes of RAM
and wasn't able to use more
likely due to being unoptimized and running on Rosetta 2.
So what does this all mean?
Well, it's simple.
Editing programs almost certainly haven't been optimized
to truly take advantage
of what a 16 gigabyte RAM M1 Mac has to offer.
I said in a previous video
that would likely take a year
to see the full performance of an M1 system
when everything is updated and optimized,
and I still stand by that statement.
This means we won't be able to tell for sure
if the 16 gigabyte version has any big performance increases
over the eight gigabyte version
until this happens.
That being said,
there are some advantages to a 16 gigabyte RAM model
that are available to you right now.
Firstly, you are able to multitask much more
when rendering or editing
compared to the eight gigabyte version.
Looking at these activity monitor screenshots,
you can clearly see that the 16 gigabyte RAM version
has at least five gigabytes of free RAM
for you to web browse or use Photoshop with for example.
Now, if you tend to multitask a lot while rendering
this is going to have a big impact on your render time.
So if you do have that additional eight gigabytes of RAM
on the 16 gigabyte version,
you are going to see a drastically reduced render time
because of that extra RAM able to be used
for those other programs you are using at the same time.
Also, if you are a Final Cut Pro user
Mac's tech has already shown
there is a big difference in render time
between the two RAM models
but only if you are working with really high quality footage
like 6K BRAW or 8K RED RAW footage from a RED camera.
Which to be honest
you almost certainly won't be editing anyway
using an entry level MacBook Air
although you definitely still can.
See my previous video in the top right.
The reality is that most of you guys will be editing GoPro
or standard dot MP4 full frame camera footage
like I am.
So that is it.
My recommendation
is to only buy a 16 gigabyte RAM M1 Mac for editing
if you have the extra cash laying around
or you need extra multitasking capabilities
and plan to edit at a level above standard 4K footage.
Otherwise the eight gigabyte version is totally fine.
If you are a more hardcore editor
and you'll be editing BRAW or RED RAW footage for example,
you likely won't even be considering an entry level MacBook
and you'll be holding out for the new M1X range
which will be released soon.
Anyway guys, that's it for this video.
Thank you for watching.
If you have any questions or comments
please leave them down below.
But apart from that,
I will catch you guys in the next one.
(upbeat music)