The catch is Final Cut isn’t even using the i9 if your model has a GPU in it. The old Radeon GPUs in the 2019 Intel series macbooks are light years ahead in video processing than SoCs are.

With that considered, you’d likely see a 200-500% slowdown if you go from dedicated GPU to CPU only.

He needs to consider GPU. GPU is what matters with rendering not video. If his system is using CUDA than the M…17 doesn’t matter, he needs to consider this.

His system is likely not even using the i9 for his task…

I’m not sure that’s true. The i9 in the 2019 model outperformed the M2. And the M2 is only ~minimum 20% faster than the M3, maximum ~50% faster (on very specific workloads).

The M series chips can only support two displays so depending on what he’s doing this usually isn’t an issue.

The M1 could only support 8gb to the GPU with low memory bandwidth. Depending on the GPU in his 2019, we could be talking a 300-500% slowdown if he upgraded.

If his laptop has a GPU (not even sure if it does), he likely shouldn’t upgrade unless he does that comparison because even though M series chips are good, 5 year old GPUs are LIGHTYEARS ahead in video editing/rendering than even $2000 SoCs.