Real world advice on apple M1 computers

I have a powerful PC with:

12 core CPU (Ryzen 3900x)
64GB RAM
Nvidia 3070 graphic card
SSD for operating system
M.2 NVME drives for editing projects

Basically its no slouch however I am plagued with GPU Memory Full error messages which means that I can not render 4k projects which have a modest amount of Nodes, including Noise Reduction and Sharpness.

I would be grateful for any "First Hand Real World" advice, comments or recomendations for how they get on with the new apple M1 chip.

I have no desire to waste money on another expensive GPU, especially if a apple M1 computer can do the job for me.

Cheers

It depends on which M1 chip we are talking about. The simple M1 in the Air, Mac mini or iMac is just entry-level and can only handle some simple editing and minor color corrections.
The M1 Pro in my MacBook is not having any video memory issues when editing 12K sources in a 4K timeline.
A very strong desktop PC will beat it, but as you already noticed, the GPU alone can be nearly as expensive as the whole machine from Apple.
Head over to the Resolve subform and you'll find two long threads with very detailed discussions about the M1, including test setups, so you can compare to your current machine.
BTW, personally I'd recommend the 16" 24 core model (not the 32 core) as the sweet spot. Unfortunately, it wasn't available when I needed one urgently.

Head over to the Resolve subform and you'll find two long threads with very detailed discussions about the M1, including test setups, so you can compare to your current machine.

Don't suppose you could add a link to the discussions please?

Never tried the search function?
viewtopic.php?f=21&t=149829
viewtopic.php?f=21&t=150120

viewtopic.php?f=21&t=150120

viewtopic.php?f=21&t=149829

you are talking about the memory full error. do you get that error with other software too, or resolve only? Your pc should be fast enough to deliver great products without too much hassle. the memory error is unfortunately not new, it has been around since forever. and i highly doubt a system upgrade will make your editing-life easier.

but it's always tempting to buy new hardware.

Nvidia cards show that error much more frequently than AMD ones. I had to replace the sources for my test project with 8K instead of 12 to make it run on Nvidia.

If you don't need portability or ProRes then you rather going be better of with better GPU instead of M1 machine.
Even if they don't show GPU errors they won't be 'very fast' one complex projects with NR etc.
Problem is availability of a decent GPU (at realistic price)

you are talking about the memory full error. do you get that error with other software too

Only with Resolve and nothing else using my RTX 3070 card
I never had this problem with my older AND 580 card.

So so frustrating and has cost me many many hours trying to fix.

It's just current state with Resolve+Nvidia. GPU quickly runs out of memory. Not much you can do about it, except getting card with "enough" VRAM. Nvidia seems to have very different memory management to AMD.

I second that an M1 is not the solution to everything. Fusion, for example, is still very slow.
But I couldn’t provoke an out of GPU memory error, even with 12K footage. It’ll get slow with that much load, but then mine is the mid-level model. The M1 Max has twice the memory speed.