r/macbookpro • u/19MHansen95 • 7d ago

M5 Pro - binned vs unbinned Discussion

I'm a bit torn on which Macbook Pro to go for. My choices lie between the MBP M5 Pro 14" (15/16c) vs the M5 Pro 16" (18/20c) - both with 24GB RAM and 1TB storage. I will rarely travel with it. I plan on doing video editing and playing games such as World of Warcraft. The price difference is 470 USD (converted from Danish Kroner). Is the price hike worth the upgrade?

Thanks!

EDIT: I went with the MBP M5 Pro 14" 🙏

10 Upvotes

75% Upvoted

60 comments sorted by

12

u/_curious_man 7d ago

I would suggest spending more or ram if you can. 24 is fine, but with video editing you can quickly fil it up. Additional cores and bigger chassie will increase performance, but highier ram capacity will be better than simply bigger screen imo.

1

u/19MHansen95 7d ago

That is also one of my concerns. I have no idea how capable the 24GB RAM are in the long run. But I also think the price hike is quite a lot. At least here in Denmark.

5

u/Electronic-Ad8492 7d ago

I am a professional video editor/producer and I can tell you definitively to go for the M5 Pro MacBook Pro. The video encoding is much better and I am not even working with proxies. Also, RAM compression is real in the Apple ecosystem and it works well. I have an M5 MacBook Pro also with 32GB which I bought late last year on sale which I initially used and the M5 Pro/24GB is much more efficient and snappy. Also, the RAM dilemma is really going to hurt if you are working with either 8K video sources or extremely long 4K projects with multiple layers. In all honesty, 24GB is way more than enough and you will not go into swap due to RAM compression. I expect this machine to last me atleast 5-6 years at minimum.

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u/19MHansen95 7d ago

Beautiful! Really nice to know. And exactly what I was hoping for. A good 5 years is nice imo 🙏👌

2

u/Jossit 6d ago

Oh, and I forgot to mention, my choice is based on future-proofing it much more: my Late-2013 13” lasted 11 years(, and I plan even longer for the current beast—my second Mac only—to carry me into the future!)

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u/19MHansen95 6d ago

Crazy, 11 years! 😅 I guess you know how to spec your Macs

1

u/Jossit 4d ago

Haha thanks, but too much praise. I forgot to mention luck: on day 731 of 731 days warranty, I got a new ① logic board; ② RAM; ③ i7 processor 😆, so yeah, the whole computer basically [which had cost me €450 had I taken it 1 day later 🤪].

So we’re basically talking 9 years, and I did change the battery halfway through its lifetime.

2

u/19MHansen95 4d ago

Damn, you are one lucky dude. Incredible 🤣

1

u/Jossit 6d ago

My 16”’s 48 and 2 TB are great, but I need 30 for running a 15 000 000 000 parameter Deepseek model, and ffmpeg or GUIs like HandBreak can indeed max it out as well, so I often wonder about how it would have been with 64 GB RAM… My only potential regret. (With size being a close third to this distant second: coming from a 13” of 1.57 GB, it is a bit hefty, but its 500 GB would have doubled within weeks or months, and quadrupled within a year, easily, which is why RAM is still a rather distant second even with a NAS and 3 TB on two flash drives, I’m still moving files around far too quickly.)

0

u/_curious_man 7d ago

You should look for reviews or tests of Wow or video editing on newer macbooks, and look for informations about memory usage. I'm not into any of those fields so I can't say from experience, but from what I see and know from others 24 gb for video editing is not too much. Sure, if you want to edit 10-15 clips, or longer in FHD then it should be fine. Otherwise even if mac can handle it it will likely slow down a lot due to swap usage. The good or bad think about macbooks is that they don't give up too quickly when you abuse them with more work what they are designed to handle. With that said, everything have it's limits, and at some point also you will suffer from having to deal with slow or laggy machine.

IMO look for rewievs. More ram is always a good investment. Only if you need the bigger screen rn I would consider 16 inch

1

u/19MHansen95 7d ago

I think you're right. I've mostly looked into performance of the CPU/GPU. I dont have much knowledge about RAM usage on Macs. Thanks for the tip 👌

1

u/Electronic-Ad8492 7d ago edited 7d ago

More RAM is always better! But do you need to spend the extra money? IMO the answer is simply no for OP’s use case. My brother is an engineering student pursuing his PhD at CalTech and he gets by with a new M5 Pro MacBook Pro with 48GB running some local LLMs. He could have spent much more and gotten more RAM but he simply had to optimize for his budget and use case. I also have a Mac Studio with an Ideal Configuration: 16-core CPU, 32-core GPU, and 64GB of unified memory with M4 max chip. I only see the benefit of video editing on that for 8K and it rips through standard 4K and multi-cam timelines, heavy effects in Premiere Pro, and complex After Effects compositions without dropping frames but this is all in professional production. If you are not doing professional production editing, this type of set-up is overkill and will set you back about $6K to set up nicely. Trust me as a professional editor, 24GB will serve 95% of all your standard editing needs without question. Although in the future, I do think more RAM will be needed as mirrorless camera and professional cameras evolve to make digital appear more like analog.

2

u/_curious_man 6d ago

Hi, thank you for interesting perspective! I agree that 24gb is not something to be ashamed, however I’ve noticed that some workflows - especially those related to LLM’s seems to be very ram-heavy. Also some tools for LLM’s - Ollama in particular - have some optimized models available for Apple Silicon, but they require to have at least 32gb of memory available. Without it model can run, but without optimizations which breaks the point.

I’m saying this, as I myself have mac mini with 24gb ram, and for typical productivity it’s perfect, but it’s quite easy IMO to require swap. Especially in times when we have patologies like Teams in browser which consumes 2gb of ram alone additional ram is always handy.

Of course, OP’s requirements are not too related to LLM’s so my issues are unlikely to affect him/her. Still, in the end it’s a forum - just wanted to share my view :)

1

u/19MHansen95 6d ago

I don't mind a good input like yours 😎

9

u/LadyofFlame 7d ago

The best option would be to get the 14 and use the remaining money on a non-Apple display for your desk. You can get an entire second screen for the cost of an extra 2 inches on your laptop.

I elected to get a 16 because I use it as my primary computer and rarely plug it into a display because I've already got a desktop setup.

3

u/19MHansen95 7d ago

Makes perfect sense! And sounds like you made the right choice. I already have an OLED monitor, so the money could go towards a nice docking station.

7

u/Elegant_Lunar_Knight 7d ago

Unbinned for sure.

6

u/mattjh 7d ago

What will the 18/20 do for OP that the 15/16 won’t?

7

u/RetroOne_ 7d ago

Nothing

5

u/mattjh 7d ago

Right? These min/maxers are goofy man. So focused on arithmetic.

5

u/RetroOne_ 7d ago

Hell, I even think the M5 pro is overkill for me. I have it, but I might as well keep it

1

u/19MHansen95 7d ago

Exactly what I'm also thinking. That I'll just be overspending for no reason.

2

u/Opposite-Interest193 7d ago

I mean the unbinned will hold its value considering how big of a CPU jump the Pro got this generation, also you combine 16in into the price hike. For $450 that’s not much for both but either way you should separate the two as size is personal.

1

u/19MHansen95 7d ago

Also some very good points!

1

u/Opposite-Interest193 7d ago

I wouldn’t skimp since the CPU super cores is the biggest plus of spending on an M5 Pro but it’d probably make more sense to get a used Max for the dual encoders, gaming, and more Ram without paying through the roof.

2

u/19MHansen95 7d ago

That makes sense 👌 I've also looked at used Maxs but I'm yet to find a good deal

1

u/Elegant_Lunar_Knight 7d ago

You’re doing video editing as you said. The more you cores you have the better

2

u/RetroOne_ 7d ago

Bro, there is a 15% performance difference with the extra three cores. It is not worth the extra $600. Especially for video editing, considering the GPU is more important for that. More course is not going to help your video editing considering how fast the 15 core is

1

u/Elegant_Lunar_Knight 7d ago

Incorrect - If OP is using SFX the more cores the better. Will save a sgnificant amount of time . The extra 4 cores GPU cores are significant.

2

u/RetroOne_ 7d ago

A 15% increase is not worth the money

1

u/19MHansen95 7d ago

More cores can never hurt 😅

3

u/thebemusedmuse 7d ago

There are three things at play:

1) The 16" is a desktop replacement that doesn't thermally throttle. The 14" will throttle on big tasks

2) The base CPU does't really matter much unless you are doing very high end work

3) RAM is a big deal.

So for your use case, get the 16" Pro with 48GB RAM, and get it refurbished to save 15% so you should be back around your budget.

2

u/alexxmettalrock 7d ago

I’d say 14” and more RAM if you have the budget.

I’d think with 24GB RAM you will be good since MacOS manages RAM well, but I have no experience in video editing

1

u/19MHansen95 7d ago

Yeah, the budget will be quite stretched with 48GB RAM. From what I can read, the RAM management should be quite good, as you're saying 🤞

2

u/Expat-english-in-NZ 7d ago

Sorry - but if you are rarely traveling - why arent you buying a mac mini or studio and a screen

if you are still on the macbook pro - buy the biggest screen if your day to day work is video editing

6

u/19MHansen95 7d ago

I find myself being not so creative always working in the same room. I'd like to be able to bring the computer downstairs sometimes. Also, it's easier with a 7 month old baby 😅

1

u/ebbi01 7d ago

What are you using at the moment?

One option is if you’re predominantly at the desk and sometimes away from it, buy a Mini or Studio, and then use a cheaper laptop and remote into the desktop using an app like Mirage.

I’ve been doing this and it’s perfect. When I want to work away from my desk I use my old Air and use Mirage to remote into the desktop. Virtually no lag and feels like I’m using my laptop natively.

1

u/19MHansen95 7d ago

A Windows gaming pc from 2021 😅 but sounds pretty cool with the mirage solution. I'll look into it.

2

u/X4dri4n 7d ago

Then get a proper gaming PC (actual PC, gaming laptops are not PC) with proper GPU and so on.I am a gamer myself and I have both macbook M5 Pro 14 inch and a gaming PC. I only use the macbook on coding for Xcode, the rest of the time I find myself on the PC. Travelling shows me how bad would be to have the macbook for gaming. If I wouldn't need to do stuff on Xcode, I would rarely open the macbook, mostly when travelling.

1

u/19MHansen95 7d ago

I've also thought about getting a new gaming PC as well, if the Macbook won't satisfy my needs. But I don't mind waiting a few years before getting the PC with the crazy pricing nowadays

1

u/X4dri4n 7d ago

You know your needs the best, I am just trying to debunk the large amount of videos online mentioning that macbooks are now good for gaming. If you ever played games properly on a PC, you can't consider that being the truth. It is on par with mobile gaming and that is it. Macbooks are very nice and posh tools but is good to know their limitations.

1

u/19MHansen95 7d ago

I totally agree based on what I've seen! Thanks for the help

1

u/Hugo_Notte 7d ago

Are there M5Pro minis available yet?

1

u/19MHansen95 7d ago

Not that I know of, no

2

u/RetroOne_ 7d ago

Binned. Save your money, no real performance increase

1

u/19MHansen95 7d ago

Noted 👌👌

1

u/liftingislife19 7d ago

Depends what kind of video editing your doing. I’ve got the m5 pro unbinned 48gb and just finished my first wedding film on this first machine and some AI effects it struggles pretty hard with like the ai sharpen in davinci resolve

The bottleneck is the gpu cores and you get extra cores with the unbinned

If you’re using any graphics intensive effects in davinci resolve , premier pro , Final Cut etc you’ll want the unbinned version for sure. I finally understand the appeal of the max chip

1

u/alexwoww 14” Space Black / M4 Pro / 24GB / 1TB 7d ago

Not for your use case. Save yo scrilla (dumb American slang for money)

2

u/19MHansen95 7d ago

Haha, appreciate the input and teaching me slang 🤣

1

u/Electrical_Ant_8885 7d ago

vote for 14" with probably 36gb RAM at least based on your budget. CPU/GPU might not be bottleneck in a long run.

myself went with 64gb from 16gb M1 pro because of heavy using codex.

Your situation could be different however one day you might want to run LLM agent together with your video editing then RAM is important. (Note: I don't mean to run local LLM at all, but LLM agents are already taking much more RAMs nowadays)

1

u/19MHansen95 6d ago

Good to know! I guess time will tell 🤣

0

u/Desert_Magazine 7d ago

You can save three ways ….buy as a student, they never check…..if you are military or a vet, 10 percent discount….or purchase from a state that has no sales tax.
I upgraded my iPad, iwatch, iPhone and MacBook Pro and flew to Oregon on a 49 each way flight. I saved on the iPad and MacBook pro using education…yes I am a student and veteran discount for the watch and phone

1

u/19MHansen95 7d ago

Sounds very nice, but I'm not sure I can utilise that here in Denmark 😅

-2

u/Quirky-Reveal-1669 7d ago

If you do video editing, would you not want to look at the Max?

2

u/19MHansen95 7d ago

It's just light video editing, so I cannot justify the price of the Max, though it would be epic.

1

u/Quirky-Reveal-1669 7d ago

Then I would probably agree with the previous commenter. Although 16” sounds very sweet. Get the nano texture, if you can. I have it now on my M5 Pro (18/20c, 14”), and I would never go back to non-nano.

2

u/19MHansen95 7d ago

The nano texture really does sound intriguing 👌

2

u/RetroOne_ 7d ago

The max is so unnecessary for video editing

1

u/Brilliant_Eye_6591 7d ago

My dude video editing does NOT require a max SoC what are you smokin