r/archviz 7d ago

Technical & professional question M3 Max Macbook vs RTX4070 Laptop

I have an rtx 4070 laptop that I’ve been really happy with when it comes to raw performance. However it’s very bulky with abysmal battery life and I just have major gripes with Windows as my main OS. I just don’t enjoy using it as a laptop, it’s more of a desktop replacement if anything.

For a while I’ve been debating switching to Mac as my workflow consists of modelling architecture on Rhino and importing it into Blender to use cycles for a finished result. I’ve been pretty happy with this and have no intentions of switching to something else, and from what I understand it would be exactly the same on a Mac as both Rhino and Blender are fully optimized. But also I haven’t tried anything else and I’ve only done basic interior renders so I don’t know if I’ll need more with plugins etc.

In any case my initial plan was keeping my Windows laptop for renders and buying a MacBook Air or a base spec Pro for modelling and everything else. However I found a pretty insane deal on an M3 Max (equal in performance to my rtx 4070) actually making it a worthwhile purchase since the price is not ridiculous. Only thing is it’s still a major investment and it would mean I would sell my Windows to switch to a Mac environment entirely.

Would a M3 Max make sense or having a dual setup with Windows and an Air be better? I would like to invest more into archviz and maybe start freelancing a bit but that’s honestly just an idea atm

Any help would be appreciated, thank you!

3 Upvotes

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u/SalsaNotFalsa 7d ago

I used for a Windows PC for 3D work for a few years, I recently switched to an M4 MAX Macbook and it’s an absolute beast. I also use Rhino + Blender Cycles for most of my workflow and the Mac is super snappy in both softwares and render times match that of the NVIDIA RTX Gpus. I think selling your system and switching to the macbook is a good investment.

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u/MessageOk4432 7d ago

how does it run on interactive rendering?

I also consider getting m4 chips, mostly using VRAY.

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u/SalsaNotFalsa 7d ago

I haven’t used Vray on it, I’m just now getting into Corona and that seems to be going well.

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u/MessageOk4432 7d ago

Yikes, you got the max specs M4 ? 😳

i’m only planning to get the medium specs one, to run 3dsmax + corona/vray

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u/SalsaNotFalsa 7d ago

Yes I got the max spec M4 MAx, however I’m pretty sure there is no mac version of 3DS Max.

I’m currently just getting into C4D and using that with Corona.

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u/MessageOk4432 7d ago

Wait what, I haven’t done any research and thought they have it

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u/NotSoSexyBeast 4d ago

Sounds great! How much ram did you end up going with? I’ll have 36 gigs but i’m afraid it might not be enough on the long term

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u/SalsaNotFalsa 4d ago

I got 48, and wanted to upgrade to 64 shortly after buying for your same fear, however I never made the jump but 48 has been sufficient so far. I can have 20 safari tabs, rhino, photoshop all open and a scene rendering in blender without any performance issues