Installation & update
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M4 Max or M4 Pro

psmith
Booster

If you had to choose between the following - what would you choose:

M4 Max with 14 core CPU and 32 core GPU with 36GB ram  w/- 410GB/s memory bandwidth
M4 Pro with 14 core CPU and 20 core GPU with 48GB ram w/- 273GB/s memory bandwidth

 

Both are roughly the same price.  (its another $750 to get the Max with 48GB...

 

My current 5yr old PC laptop has 64GB Ram - it appears to be rarely all used.  It rarely pops over 50% - even with 4 archicad models open, one large revit file a dozen Chrome windows (that seem to take up the most RAM)...

Will the faster bandwidth and faster GPU be more useful  / better than the RAM?

 

My daily work is probably 30% archicad use using teamwork files that are >1G... large apartment buildings, complex houses and urban projects... don't do much twinmotion rendering... spend lots of time cutting 2d and 3d sections... viewing different parts of the model to check and make quick amendments.

 

Operating system used: Mac Apple Silicon

Director - Smith & Tzannes
Archicad 26

Windows 11
ipadOS
6 REPLIES 6
Laszlo Nagy
Community Admin
Community Admin

Memory in an Apple silicon cannot be compared apples-to-apples to memory in a pc because an Apple silicon is a SoC (System on a chip), meaning it is not only the CPU, but other components as well, like the GPU, memory, etc. So, the CPU, GPU, and memory are all on a single chip, and what is important is that the CPU and the GPU are using the same 36 GB or 48 GB of memory (it is called Unified Memory).

So, if you say you need 32 GB RAM for the CPU, and maybe another 8 GB for the GPU, that is already 40 GB. Plus, you would want to future-proof it so the memory is enough 3 or 4 years from now when you may still be using this machine and newer Apple macOS versions and applications need more memory for both the CPU and GPU.

In conclusion, I would go for more memory, in this case, the 48 GB.

Loving Archicad since 1995 - Find Archicad Tips at x.com/laszlonagy
AMD Ryzen9 5900X CPU, 64 GB RAM 3600 MHz, Nvidia GTX 1060 6GB, 500 GB NVMe SSD
2x28" (2560x1440), Windows 10 PRO ENG, Ac20-Ac28
M4tt
Participant

Hello,

 

I’m facing the same choice. 
I use a first gen intel mbp16 with 32gb of ram. I’ve always felt that CPU was more of a limiting factor than Ram as I can work on large files (more than 1gb) and it works fine, it’s just slow to open files and rebuild 2D sections and elevections. 
I tend to think that the faster the cpu, the faster I’ll work on large files. 

Anyone has any insight?

Laszlo Nagy
Community Admin
Community Admin

If the CPU is the most important factor in your work, you should look at the CPU's single-core performance. That is the more important metric for a BIM application, not multi-core performance, which is important for certain areas like rendering.

Loving Archicad since 1995 - Find Archicad Tips at x.com/laszlonagy
AMD Ryzen9 5900X CPU, 64 GB RAM 3600 MHz, Nvidia GTX 1060 6GB, 500 GB NVMe SSD
2x28" (2560x1440), Windows 10 PRO ENG, Ac20-Ac28
Karl Ottenstein
Moderator

Memory speed will have the biggest impact comparing the two.  I wouldn’t hesitate to get the max for that reason (and why we have both an M2 max and M4 max) Also, the additional GPU cores help support multiple monitors while keeping the Mac cool.   We’ve never had the fan come on for either the M2 Max or M4 max MacBook Pros, each with 2 external monitors … yet the previously highest end Intel Mac was blasting heat (and noise) most of the time.

 

The additional cores will better support the multiple Archicad you are running.  I presume you’ll still use the older PC for Revit,  But, you can run Intel apps via a virtual machine (Parallels Desktop is what we use) running Windows 11 ARM on your Apple Silicon Mac.  Windows 11 ARM (installed by PD) has its own emulator for Intel apps.  Might check around to be sure nobody reports issues with Revit in that environment.

One of the forum moderators
AC 28 USA and earlier   •   macOS Sequoia 15.2, MacBook Pro M2 Max 12CPU/30GPU cores, 32GB

Thank you Karl!

Your return is a great help. 
Following your experience, the base m4 max (highest I can afford) could run smoothly? 

  • Apple M4 Max with CPU 14 cores, GPU 32 cors and Neural Engine 16 cores
  • 36 Go unified ram

I mainly draw houses, small schools and occasionally residential buildings of 50units. 

Yes, it is an amazing machine and should perform well for you.

One of the forum moderators
AC 28 USA and earlier   •   macOS Sequoia 15.2, MacBook Pro M2 Max 12CPU/30GPU cores, 32GB

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