Need help to choose a mac. Planning on having a dual laptop setup.

TL;DR:

Architecture student moving from Dell XPS to Mac. Torn between M4 Pro and M4 Max for SketchUp, AutoCAD, and Adobe Suite-heavy workflow. Also use Rhino/Grasshopper occasionally. Keeping Windows laptop for compatibility. Is the Pro enough or is the Max worth it?

Hey everyone!

I’m currently using a Dell XPS 9520 with an RTX 3050 Ti, 12th Gen i7, and 2TB SSD. It’s been a reliable workhorse, but I’m planning to switch to a Mac soon. I’m already deep in the Apple ecosystem and really love the battery life and performance efficiency Macs offer — especially for someone always on the move.

I’m an architecture student and my day-to-day workflow mainly revolves around SketchUp, AutoCAD, and the Adobe Suite (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, and some After Effects work). These are the tools I rely on most for design, documentation, and presentation. I also use Rhino with Grasshopper, but more occasionally — mostly for specific modeling tasks, not as my daily driver.

I’m trying to decide between the new M4 Pro and M4 Max chips. I’m leaning toward the M4 Pro since it feels like a great balance of power and efficiency, but I’m not sure if it will handle my workflow smoothly in the long run — especially when working with larger files in Adobe apps or more complex SketchUp models.

I’ll be keeping my Windows laptop for any compatibility issues (mainly Rhino/Grasshopper), so the Mac doesn’t need to do everything, but I want it to be my main machine for most tasks.

If anyone here has used Apple Silicon for architecture or design-heavy workflows — especially with SketchUp, AutoCAD, and Adobe — I’d really appreciate your input! Also, if you’ve run any benchmarks or have firsthand comparisons between the M4 Pro and M4 Max, please share!

Thanks so much in advance — I’m super excited to finally be joining the Mac side! 😄