Apple M3 Air vs Pro for Video Editing

[More Spencer]

Hey,

 

I edit 4K footage in Premiere. Currently I have an M1 MacBook Air and a big specced out workstation.

 

Ideally, I'd like to edit exclusively on my laptop, and leave my workstation for gaming/chilling, but even with 720p proxies and playback in 1/4, it's at the point where it's almost unbareable now, so I'm finding myself editing on my workstation instead (I can't even open the Essential Graphics panel without Premiere crashing haha)

 

I'm planning on buying a new laptop soon, and trying to decide between either buying the M3 Air or Pro for editing:

• The M3 Air in the configuration I want (512GB Storage, 16GB Memory) is $2,399.00AUD
• The M3 Pro in the configuration I want (512GB Storage, 16GB Memory) is $2,999.00AUD

 

Do you guys think it's worth the extra $600 for the build quality, fans, and extra IO? Or is the M3 MBA not too bottlenecked by thermal throttling?

 

Appreciate the help!