Mac Mini or Mac Studio as a photographer

[bradman83]

The unified memory design and how it actively parks things you are not actively working on and pulls it back up from SSD when you jump back in. That works well with a bunch of small apps, but not one or two huge ones.

That has nothing to do with unified memory though, swap to disk has been around since the Classic Mac OS days. The only difference is that modern SSDs are so fast that it doesn't slow your system to a crawl like it would with a spinning disk. Intel Macs work the exact same way; late model Intel Mac SSDs are just as fast as their Apple Silicon counterparts. Same with memory compression; that's been a thing on macOS since 10.9 Mavericks.

Memory speed is certainly faster with unified memory by virtue of the fact that the memory is seated directly on top of the SoC instead of on DIMM/SIMMs accessed via a bus; that's the big advantage of unified memory. An M-Max chip has about 4.5x the memory bandwidth of an Intel 13th Gen i9 K-class desktop chip running DDR5 RAM. (400 Gbps vs 90 Gbps). But that bandwidth is between the memory and the CPU/GPU. That means the CPU/GPU can access assets housed in memory much faster to perform operations, but that doesn't mean less memory is required. If swapped to SSD then the SSD would be the bottleneck on that gloriously fast memory bandwidth.

 

[Doug183]

1) Use Apple credit at 0% to at least ease the payments over 12 months.
2) I work with 4K video and use Topaz Video occasionally. FYI, on an intel7 Mac mini (dark grey one - so one of the last intel machines) 1 frame took ~1 minute. On a Studio Mac Ultra .49 of a second - I think I only have 32 Gigs of RAM.) If I am reading the Cinebench scores correctly, I think the M3 Max gets about the same. But regardless, I think the jump from Intel to M3 Max or M2 Ultra, is enormous.

 

[Basic75]

The unified memory design and how it actively parks things you are not actively working on and pulls it back up from SSD when you jump back in. That works well with a bunch of small apps, but not one or two huge ones.

The unified memory design has absolutely nothing to do with paging and swapping to disk, whether to HDD or SSD, which have been around for decades in just about all desktop and server operating systems.

The only relatively recent change was when Apple, and others, started added memory compression as intermediate step. And that paging and swapping doesn't completely kill your machine when it has a fast SSD.

Unified memory just means that the GPU and CPU share one physical pool of memory of for everything, just like an Amiga with only chip memory all the way back in 1986.

The mass storage is still completely independent, it is not part of the unified memory pool, and paging and swapping in macOS essentially work just like on, say, Linux 30 years ago.

 

[Fishrrman]

Re the original question:
Either one will do, if properly configured.

16gb of RAM (perhaps 32 if one is to do heavy processing).
1tb SSD.

If it's a Mini, get the m2PRO model (not the "non-pro" m2 model).
REASON WHY:
Longevity.

 

[chrfr]

If it's a Mini, get the m2PRO model (not the "non-pro" m2 model).
REASON WHY:
Longevity.

There's no evidence at all that one model would last longer than another at this point in the Apple Silicon era. For most people the M2 Pro model is far more expensive than is needed and the extra performance would offer no actual benefit. Once one starts adding upgrades to the M2 Pro mini the price starts to bump up into (and sometimes exceeding) the price of a Mac Studio while still being significantly less powerful. In this case, the OP has already said that they'll be going with a Studio.

 

[Yebubbleman]

Hi, I'm a photographer and I am in need for a new Mac.
I would like to have your opinion before I choose my next model, I have doubts about the range of some models, don't know what to choose.
Apple has the art to lead you from one model to the next one, always by adding or not adding options on certain models.

I use following software the most:
- Lightroom
- Photoshop
- Topaz Photo AI
- Indesign
- sometimes Illustrator, After Effects, Premiere Pro, Media Encoder
- Apple music (app), is always open, I mention this because this app uses a lot of memory

Here is my current setup:
- Macbook Pro 2019, intel core i9, 32GB RAM, 4TB SSD
- connected to a Studio display.
It's still a fast and very good computer, only the 32GB RAM is not enough.
Especially when I use Photo AI, for more than 10 images in batch, wowww it can take about an hour for denoising and sharpening a batch of 10-15 photos)
I also see when I'm using Lightroom for a long time, my mac starts to slow down.
Photoshop with more than 5-6 layers starts to struggle too (when LR is open too).
As you can imagine, my workflow is under pressure, when more than 1 app is open, which is always the case as a photographer.

I have to be careful about my budget. I can't Afford a macbook pro M3 boosted with 64Gb and 4TB SSD. I configured on the apple site what I would need and I get a price around the 6500€.

I tried out several Mac Mini models and Mac Studio models.
Very soon both models will bring their M3 versions on the market. (I hope so)

The 2 options I'm considering are:
- Mac mini M3 pro, 32 GB RAM, 1 TB SD, external NVMe 4TB SSD
- Mac Studio M3 max, 64 GB RAM, 1 TB SD, external NVMe 4TB SSD
Till now, the mac mini doesn't offer 64GB RAM, the studio does.
This is what I mean, apple won't add the option to the mac mini, so it leads you to a more expensive model.

Even though, it's Intel, the 2019 MacBook Pros (the 15-inch and 16-inch both had the same CPU options, so, in lieu of you clarifying which one you have, I'm going to treat them as being more or less the same machine when it comes to speaking to the machine you currently have.

Also, I'm guessing you are firm about your upgrade being based on the M3 Family. If not, and if Apple Certified Refurbished Macs are sold by Apple in your country, I might consider an M1 Max or M2 Max based 16-inch MacBook Pro (I generally wouldn't recommend 14-inch Mx Max MacBook Pros because the 16-inch will always provide better heat dissipation and cooling [not to mention battery life], but that's way more of a firm recommendation-against on M1 Max 14-inch MacBook Pros specifically).

Otherwise, as others have said, if 32GB of RAM isn't doing it on your current Mac (and is [as it sounds like] the main limitation prompting you to consider upgrading), then you definitely should not get the Mac mini (which tops at 32GB on an M2 Pro and, assuming they upgrade the Mac mini line in exactly the same fashion with M3 and M3 Pro, that'll still only give you a ceiling of 36GB).

The other thing to consider about the M2 Pro Mac mini and the M2 Max Mac Studio, at least as those models are with the M2 family, is that the higher-end variant of M2 Pro configured to match all other possible specs of the base model M2 Max Mac Studio (e.g. RAM to 32GB, SSD to 512GB, 10 Gb Ethernet) is actually $100 more. The only reason to consider that kind of machine at that point is if you prefer the Mac mini's form factor. There is SOME merit to that, given that the Mac Studio form factor will cake up dust like it's no one's business (but regularly dust your Mac Studio and that becomes a non-issue.

Here is my main question. Knowing that I can't compare how RAM works on 'Intel based chips' and the more recent 'Silicon M chips'.
I saw several youtube videos explaining that it doesn't work the same way.

What many of the videos and especially the Apple fanbase are ignoring is that while the RAM is very different on an Apple Silicon Mac, those differences have nothing to do with the effect of RAM CAPACITY. RAM is still RAM. What's different is that data doesn't have to travel between RAM and every other component of your computer on an Apple Silicon Mac when compared to PowerPC and Intel Macs as well as Intel and AMD PCs. All of the places that the data stored in RAM would want to go to are already on the chip and have just as easy of access as the CPU. So, data transfer rates between RAM and other components are where RAM on Apple Silicon is night and day different to RAM on any x86 machine (whether Apple or not, whether Intel or AMD).

But, 32GB of RAM will still only be able to accomodate 32GB of data (give or take whatever macOS's memory compression technology is able to compress [though that technology isn't exclusive to Apple Silicon Macs; that's been around on macOS for several years now). So, if you're struggling with 32GB of RAM on an Intel Mac because you are literally running out of RAM, you will do so on an Apple Silicon Mac with 32GB of RAM as well.

Would a mac mini with 32GB RAM be enough for my type of workflow, or is it recommended to go to a mac studio with 64GB RAM.

You can't upgrade the RAM on any Apple Silicon Mac. So, I'd buy as much RAM as you can reasonably afford. Something to keep in mind; while it's probably overkill today, you can bump any M2 Max based Mac to 96GB of RAM.

Also knowing that in the first 5-6 years, I won't look for a new model.

We'll have to see how Apple Silicon Macs age. Apple did a fantastic job of allowing 2012 Macs to get 8 years of running the latest OS and then two thereafter of security update support. They're now clearly getting more aggressive in only supporting Macs that are up to 5 years old, though, that could just be the push to finally ditch Intel Mac support.

It'll be very interesting to see how much longer base M1 Macs are supported for, following the discontinuation of all Intel Mac support. I just hope Rosetta 2 sticks around well after that point.

 

[Dutch60]

Very informative thread! I learn a lot from it and will check again when the Studio M3 is announced.
In about the same situation as poster, except that I' m still on a 2019 27" Intel iMac (i9 / Pro Vega 48 / 64GB ram). This still works, but now, with my new camera, I do notice slower rendering speed on image files (more mp files). Editing multiple files also slower than I guess it could be (that was a lot faster with my earlier camera).
I also like to be somehow future proof (if possible). Doubts between Mini and Studio, but I need ports and beside that I think the Studio is better for heavier loads.
So, got my mind set on that Studio M3 (well "mind set" is not completely true...depending on situation around that time and test results and user reports...and....etc. etc.etc.)

 

[zarathu]

Photo software requires GPU. Keeping all apps running at all times requires RAM. Inefficient coding makes RAM loads heavier than needed but the software you’re using is pretty decent.

Not necessarily. The most processor intensive activity I have on Affinity Photo on my M1Pro is tone mapping a very large file---say 750 MB. Doing this on Affinity, which is optimized for silicon macs, only uses 2% of one of the cores in the GPU, and between one and three cores in the CPU. I have to assume that its using the neural engine. In Topaz, hardly much more than 90% of the CPU cores and zero of the GPU cores are used. It has to be the cores of the Neural chip.

 

[ewitte]

There's no evidence at all that one model would last longer than another at this point in the Apple Silicon era. For most people the M2 Pro model is far more expensive than is needed and the extra performance would offer no actual benefit. Once one starts adding upgrades to the M2 Pro mini the price starts to bump up into (and sometimes exceeding) the price of a Mac Studio while still being significantly less powerful. In this case, the OP has already said that they'll be going with a Studio.

There is more chance you will be dissatisfied with it faster. I would put that at a very high likelihood MUCH faster if it were the base M2 with 8GB. I've tried m2 mini, m2 pro mini and m2 Studio (all base). Returned the m2 mini after a week. Kept the m2 pro but upgraded 3 months later (putting on eBay at some point) due to having to constantly micromanage RAM. Really that was all down to using it more than I was thinking. It was originally conceived as a test box. I can't even stand 8GB on a test box lol.

 

[leifp]

Not necessarily. The most processor intensive activity I have on Affinity Photo on my M1Pro is tone mapping a very large file---say 750 MB. Doing this on Affinity, which is optimized for silicon macs, only uses 2% of one of the cores in the GPU, and between one and three cores in the CPU. I have to assume that it’s using the neural engine. In Topaz, hardly much more than 90% of the CPU cores and zero of the GPU cores are used. It has to be the cores of the Neural chip.

That is likely correct. I’m still living a bit in the past and photography has leapt into ML with both feet and a friend…