What is the absolute best laptop for professional video editing in 2024 because I am honestly lost looking at all these specs. I am currently using an old Dell XPS that sounds like a jet engine and basically freezes every time I try to color grade in Premiere or DaVinci. I live in Chicago and I've got a massive wedding film project starting next month so I need to pull the trigger on a new machine like yesterday. My budget is sticking around $3000 to $3500 max.

I have been doing a ton of research and everyone keeps pointing towards the M3 Max MacBook Pro 14 or 16 inch models. People say the unified memory is magic but then I read other threads where people say for the same price I could get a Razer Blade or a high-end ASUS ProArt with an RTX 4080 that would crush it in rendering speeds. The thing that confuses me is the RAM... Apple makes it sound like 36GB of their memory is like 64GB on a PC but I dont know if that is just marketing hype or if I actually need to shell out for the 64GB or 96GB versions to handle 4K 10-bit footage without lag. It is kida overwhelming trying to compare apples to oranges and I dont want to make a huge mistake.

I usually work with:

• 4K 60fps footage from a Sony A7SIII
• Lots of heavy color grading and some After Effects motion graphics
• Long timelines sometimes 30-40 minutes

Is the Mac really that much smoother for the actual editing process or should I stick with a Windows machine for the raw power? I've heard the thermal throttling on the thinner laptops is a nightmare too so I'm worried about spending $3k on something that slows down after an hour of work. Does anyone have real-world experience with the new chips this year or am I just gonna be disappointed either way?