M1 Pro and M1 Max expand the specs well beyond M1, which already didn’t work the same way Intel x86 did. Most typical 14' MBP configurations for Photoshop and Lightroom Classic probably should not exceed $3000 unless you do a lot of work daily with large files. Maxing out all options on just the 14-inch MacBook Pro (M1 Max 10/32/16 cores, 64GB RAM, 8TB SSD) costs US$5899. It has been a long time since it made sense to “max out” a pro Mac. But if money is tight, chances are 16GB RAM will perform well enough on Apple Silicon, and better than 16GB RAM on Intel.

One thing to keep in mind is that because it’s Unified Memory, RAM not needed by applications is probably available to be used by graphics that could be a reason to get 32GB if you frequently use applications that support GPU acceleration. 32GB RAM is probably the safe choice, but that is a guess until more people have a chance to run their jobs on it.īoth Lightroom Classic and Photoshop recommend 16GB RAM, so that is the baseline for good performance.

Cost of 16gb ram memory for macbook pro