MacBook Pro 16″ (M4 Max)

The Apple MacBook Pro 16″ M4 Max, introduced in 2024, represents a significant leap in performance for Apple’s professional laptop line. It features the powerful M4 Max chip, which boasts up to a 16-core CPU with 12 performance cores and 4 efficiency cores, and a 40-core GPU capable of hardware-accelerated ray tracing.

This powerhouse laptop supports up to 128GB of unified memory and offers an impressive memory bandwidth of 546GB/s, more than double that of its predecessor. The device comes with a stunning 16.2-inch Liquid Retina XDR display with ProMotion technology, supporting adaptive refresh rates up to 120Hz.

For professionals working with demanding applications, the M4 Max includes an enhanced Media Engine with dual video encode engines and dual ProRes encode and decode engines. The MacBook Pro 16″ M4 Max hit stores on November 8, 2024, starting at $3,499 for the base M4 Max configuration.

The 16″ MacBook Pro with the M4 Max chip delivers a substantial performance uplift over its predecessors. Compared to the M1 Max, CPU performance is up to 45–55% faster and GPU performance improves by around 35–40%, depending on the workload. Versus the M3 Max, gains are more incremental—around 10–15% CPU and 10% GPU improvements—primarily due to architectural refinements and increased efficiency cores.

Stepping back to media engines, the M4 Max features upgraded video encoders and decoders with improved throughput and power efficiency. It retains support for hardware-accelerated ProRes, HEVC, and H.264, but boosts simultaneous stream handling and adds better efficiency for high-resolution workflows (e.g., 8K ProRes RAW editing). This makes the M4 Max especially well-suited for professional video production compared to earlier M1/M2 models.

Here’s how the different processing units perform relative to previous Max SoCs…

Here’s a graph of all generation of Maxes. As you can see the M4 Max outpaces the first generation M1 & M2 Ultras. We are using the Normalized Combined Geekbench Scores.

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