hey my name is matt johnson and if you
want to buy a mac studio for 4k or 6k or
8k video editing in this video i have
two recommendations for you at two
different price points first we're going
to cover a best bang for your buck
option this is going to give you a
powerful machine that doesn't break the
bank then we're going to cover an
extremely powerful beastly option that
will handle anything you throw at it and
lastly as a bonus we will also cover a
budget alternative non-max studio option
that will help you save a ton of money
and still give you a powerful machine
for 4k video editing sound cool okay to
save you time i've linked in the video
description down below to all three
computers that i recommend because i
respect your time like that let's get
started now with the best bang for your
buck option i would say that this is the
budget option but considering that it's
over two thousand dollars that amount of
money and budget don't really go
together the best bang for your buck
option is the base max studio with the
m1 max 10 core cpu and 24 core gpu the
only upgrade i would make is to add one
terabyte of ssd storage which brings the
total for this computer up to 2 200
bucks also if you have a bit more room
in your budget the upgrade to two
terabytes of ssd storage is a good
choice too because these internal ssds
in the mac studio are just so much
faster than any external ssd that you
can buy today now i'm sure you're
probably wondering why am i saying that
this base model of the mac studio with a
minor ssd upgrade is the best bang for
your buck well if you've watched my
video editing macbook buyers guide video
my recommendation was that if you wanted
an absolutely beastly laptop that could
edit pretty much anything you throw at
it you should invest in a macbook pro
with a 10 core m1 max cpu and a 24 core
gpu and wait a second looking at this
base mac studio you are getting that
same m1 max 10 core cpu and 24 core gpu
except instead of it costing 3 100 on
the macbook pro you're getting it for
only 2 000. do you see what a great bang
for your buck this is of course this
isn't a mobile editing computer in the
sense that it doesn't have a battery and
a screen like a laptop which is why it
is significantly cheaper but what's
great is that if you are not somebody
that travels around a lot and you want a
powerful video editing computer that can
sit on your desk while you edit the base
mac studio is a killer deal next you're
probably wondering why i'm recommending
the base model of the mac studio as the
best bang for your buck option
especially whenever apple offers so many
more upgrades for this computer
shouldn't you consider spending 200 more
to upgrade to a 32 core gpu here's why i
don't think it's worth it and i don't
want you to waste your money with this
base m1 max max studio model you are
already getting 95 of the performance
that you need from the m1 max chip and
that 200 gpu upgrade is going to be very
negligible at best because the base m1
max chip already has two of the most
important features that video editors
are looking for these two features are
hardware encoders and decoders for the
h.264
h.265 prores and prores raw video
formats meaning that this computer can
play back and render the video files
filmed by many cameras today
significantly faster than anything from
intel or amd in addition i would stick
with 32 gigabytes of ram as well because
this is unified memory that is shared
between the cpu and gpu and it is very
well optimized meaning that it is going
to be significantly more efficient than
regular memory that you may be used to
and even if you are a heavy multitasker
i don't think you're going to see any
major difference if you switch from 32
gigabytes to 64 gigs of memory at this
point you have now spent 2 200
and you have a cute little cube that's
gonna sit on your desktop and edit
videos very quickly hopefully without
destroying your wallet but of course
we're not done yet we have one more mac
studio to talk about and this mac studio
is an absolute beast that's going to
give you a crazy amount of power so if
you edit 6k 8k 12k or raw video which to
be clear the cheaper m1 max can handle
but if you're wanting your editing to be
as fast as possible or if you just want
to future proof the crap out of your
investment or you just have a huge
budget this final mac studio is the one
that i would recommend for you first i
know you may be thinking building a
beast max studio is easy matt i just go
down and i select the m1 ultra with the
20 core cpu and 64 core gpu add 128
gigabytes of ram throw in 8 terabytes of
storage and i'm dropping a cool 8 000
bucks on an absolute monster of a
machine i wouldn't do that and i think
that's actually a waste of money instead
i want to recommend to you an option
that is going to give you significantly
more power while also not making you go
broke in the process for this option i
recommend you upgrade to the m1 ultra
processor yes it's time to go ultra
specifically i would get the m1 ultra
with the 20 core cpu and 48 core gpu
this is the entry level m1 ultra model
but it offers a big jump over the m1 max
in one specific area for video editing
remember those dedicated hardware
encoders and decoders for h.264 h.265
prores and prores raw in the m1 max that
dramatically speed up your video editing
and rendering well of course the m1
ultra has those too but it has
twice as many as the m1 max this is
going to increase your editing and
playback speed even more and especially
going to be helpful if you are editing
very high resolution 6k 8k or 12k
footage or raw footage if you have a red
camera or a blackmagic cinema camera
recording in raw i would definitely go
with the m1 ultra looking at the price
i'm sure you've probably noticed that
the cost for the mac studio has doubled
whenever you upgrade to the m1 ultra and
this is due to not only the cpu being
significantly larger and more powerful
but also because apple's going to
require you to upgrade to a minimum of
64 gigabytes of ram and a one terabyte
ssd instead of spending twenty two
hundred dollars with the best bang for
your buck model you are now looking at
spending four 000 but the good news is i
think that this cpu upgrade to the m1
ultra is really the only upgrade that
you need to make to have a very powerful
video editing computer remember if you
upgrade the gpu to 64 cores you're
spending an extra thousand bucks but you
aren't getting any more video encoders
or decoders so i don't really think that
it's worth it for video editing in
addition that upgrade to 64 gigabytes of
ram should be plenty for the vast
majority of video editing projects that
said though if you are editing 8k or
higher resolution footage especially if
it is raw footage considering that you
can't upgrade the ram after the fact i
would probably go with the 128 gigabytes
for future proofing lastly you have the
ssd space and while i think that one
terabyte is a good minimum that four
hundred dollar upgrade to two terabyte
isn't looking as bad whenever you're
already spending four thousand dollars
so if you can afford that upgrade i
would go for it too so there you have it
get the m1 ultra with the base 64
gigabytes of ram and upgrade the ssd to
2 terabytes if you can swing it that
brings you to 4 400 bucks which is
definitely an eye watering amount of
money but if you consider how powerful
the mac studio is for video editing i
think you're going to be really happy
with your investment wrapping up this
video now we have one more computer to
talk about because remember at the start
i said that i wanted to give you a
budget alternative option to the mac
studio considering that even the base
model comes in at two thousand bucks so
here's my final recommendation to you if
you are on a budget and you are wanting
a significantly more affordable desktop
computer for video editing and
especially if you are only editing 4k
video that isn't in raw in that case i
would seriously consider it the m1 mac
mini this is an even smaller computer
that you can put on your desk and more
importantly even the m1 mac mini comes
with those video encoders and decoders
that we've been talking about with the
mac studio the main difference is that
the mac mini has a less powerful cpu and
less ram
and includes less of those encoders and
decoders than even the base max studio
and it also doesn't have prores encoders
and decoders just the h.264 and h.265
versions of course if you were editing
prores a lot i would go with the mac
studio but if you choose the m1 mac mini
with the 8 core cpu 8 core gpu and you
upgrade the ram to 16 gigabytes you're
still only looking at spending 900 bucks
for a very powerful 4k video editing
machine this is less than half the cost
of the base max studio and i still think
you're getting a great amount of
performance for this dramatically
cheaper price in addition i've also seen
apple sell refurbished versions of the
mem1 mac mini for as cheap as 760 bucks
which is a great way to save even more
money so if you're watching this video
and you're thinking dang that mac studio
looks cool but the price is out of your
budget don't ignore the m1 mac mini it's
a great budget friendly option lastly
because i want to help you out i will
also link down in the video description
to some video editing monitors that i
recommend because neither the mac studio
or the mac mini come with a monitor and
you're definitely going to need a screen
to use these computers these monitors
are incredibly color accurate and all of
them are under 500 bucks so that should
definitely help you save some money if
you aren't interested in buying one of
apple's displays for thousands of
dollars also if you are a video editor
and considering this is a video about
video editing you probably are i want to
help you out even more i've put together
a free guide called edit videos like a
pro and this guide will walk you through
some of the most important editing
techniques that took me
years to learn it's a completely free
gift to you you can download at the link
down in the video description thanks so
much for watching and have a great day
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