XPS 17 or Macbook Pro M1 upgrade?

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pimvx

New member
My budget is $4500 and please bare in mind the laptop will also be used for some video and photo editing.

I hear the XPS 17 has a lot of overheating and latency issues but somehow the XPS series always makes it onto ''best music production laptop'' listicles. I wonder if they're even testing the laptops or just going by specs.

I'd go for a custom build with Intel i7-11800H, 32GB Ram, NVIDIA RTX 3050, 1TB SSD. Initially I wanted to max it out to i9-11900H, 64GB Ram, NVIDIA RTX 3060 & 4TB SSD but the machine won't be able cool those specs properly.

As for the Macbook Pro, I'd go for the 16'' and I've heard a lot of great things with a few issues on thermal throttling. I'm very heavy handed on my VST's so any one project could have 10+ instances of Omniphere's as an example - is this something the M1 could handle?

What is your experience with either of these models?

Any and all help is appreciated!
 
The M1 has gotten rave reviews. I think it's the best choice in the long run. However, you may want to run through your plugins and see which ones are currently offering M1 support. Many of them are not at this time. I'm sure it's just a matter of time. But, how much time is anyone's guess, at least as of the last time I researched the topic a few weeks ago. I was watching a video on YT that was discussing it, but I'm not sure how old the video was. In any event, if all the plugins you use are supported, I would go that route.

Here's the latest on Omnisphere and other Spectrasonics plugs.

Big Sur Now Officially Supported
We are happy to announce that all four Spectrasonics virtual instruments (Omnisphere, Trilian, Keyscape and Stylus RMX) are now compatible and officially supported for use in macOS 11 Big Sur!

Apple Silicon Compatibility
The current status of Spectrasonics instruments compatibility with the new Apple Silicon ARM/M1 processor-based computers is the following:

• Spectrasonics users that purchase an Apple Silicon computer can continue to run our plugins immediately, using the Rosetta 2 technology from Apple (in conjunction with their current Intel-based DAW, which must be opened using Rosetta 2).

• Native Apple Silicon development for Omnisphere, Keyscape, Trilian and Stylus RMX is in progress and going well. We are expecting to release these native “ARM” versions via a free update very soon!
 
"is this something the M1 could handle?"
A regular M1 from last year would have no issue with that.
The 16" MBP is M1 Max or Pro so it's going to laugh at it.

Based on my experience with fanless M1 (last year) I'd say consider thermal throttling if your job entails several hours of video encoding per day.
If not, forget it.

Given that Max+Pro are much more powerful again, I very much doubt it's a concern.
 
pimvx said:
As for the Macbook Pro, I'd go for the 16'' and I've heard a lot of great things with a few issues on thermal throttling. I'm very heavy handed on my VST's so any one project could have 10+ instances of Omniphere's as an example - is this something the M1 could handle?
Click to expand...
You won't be using your VSTs on the Mac.
pimvx said:
What is your experience with either of these models?
Click to expand...
I would go with 16" M1 - with the Ten Core and 32gb ram. It's a fast clean machine - overheating is not an issue.
 
I doubt 32gb ram is necessary, and with the prices apple charge that's worth considering.
I do everything on an M1 macbook air with 8gb ram and it's got more grunt that I'm likely to need in its lifetime.

If your job is content creation or movie production or something then sure, ok, but 'some video and photo editing' - You won't be needing spec upgrades IMO.
 
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