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HELP: Apple Mac MINI and Photoshop!
Hi all, I would like to buy a replacement for my laptop and I'm considering a MacMINI (Quad core i7 2.6GHz, 16 GB RAM)... any experience with it when used with Photoshop? I saw the graphic card is not really good... anyone who has a direct experience with it? or some nice alternative to suggest? Note: I need something small I can travel with... NEW EDIT !!! I think I will rather go for this one: http://usa.asus.com/Notebooks/Multimedi … ifications with i7 quad core @2.4 GHz, 8GB RAM, and an additional 256GB SSD HD... any comment about this idea? Jan 11 13 09:35 am Link I do all of my work on my MacBook Pro, 2008 llama. If you go with the mini, you'll still have to drag around a monitor and keyboard, a powerful laptop is the way to go for traveling around. Jan 11 13 09:48 am Link i agree, apple laptop is the way to go. why was you thinking about using a mini? I have both, I love apple stuff. maybe i can tell you the pros and cons Jan 11 13 10:10 am Link I use a MacBook Pro and link to my camera Cannon 5d and it keeps up really well. It is a I7 and works great and very portable and small. Nice part models can see the photos as they are produced. Jan 11 13 10:13 am Link Forgot to say it works really well with photoshop!!! Jan 11 13 10:14 am Link I used a mini back in the day (photoshop out grew its max RAM) and never noticed the video card holding it back. This isn't a computer game that needs 60FPS, it's photoshop. The slow hard drive and RAM were my limitations back then. Jan 11 13 10:21 am Link B A Y L E Y wrote: thanks! Jan 11 13 11:15 am Link Howard B wrote: thanks! Jan 11 13 11:16 am Link AJScalzitti wrote: thanks... Isee your point... I think now I wouldn't be limited by the processor (I would buy the quad core i7 and 16 GB of ram)... Jan 11 13 11:16 am Link I still have a G4 Mac Mini, never a problem, but cannot run modern apps. Photoshop can use the power of a fast GPU since CS6. Yet it is not an obligation. Gaming or 3D is where you need the fast cards Photoshop is a 2D image program. Although when traveling I do use a MacBook Pro, the screens are running at 6 bit per channel, not a good idea for editing on. A decent NEC screen and the MAcMini would be a good choice if you cannot go for an iMac. What ever you do calibrate your monitor with a hardware calibrator. Even if you borrow one, that is better than running native. Jan 11 13 11:24 am Link Helyos Photography wrote: True, the CPUs we have now are truly impressive. 16GB of RAM is also plenty for today, but is the hard drive any good? I have not looked at those models but previously they were a little low end. Jan 11 13 11:27 am Link AJScalzitti wrote: thanks for the input... I actually didn't look much at the hard drive... what to you mean with slow? if I need to copy or delete files, I wouldn't mind much... I'm more concerned about performance when using e.g. photoshop for editing... would it be a problem? ehm... what do you mean with D&B? Jan 11 13 11:42 am Link Helyos Photography wrote: The Mac mini is small. But you have to assume that you'll have a monitor, keyboard, and the mouse or pad also available to you where you go. Or else you'll be lugging those things around with you also. Jan 11 13 11:45 am Link Good Egg Productions wrote: thanks for the comment... I would like to be able to bring home when I go on holiday... 21.5 I think would be a trouble to bring with me on the airplaine... Jan 11 13 01:40 pm Link I have a mid 2011 mac mini with 8GB of RAM and it works like a charm. I have absolutely no problems with it and although it is easy to carry around, you indeed need a display, so that'd be the only drawback. You get incredible equipment for that price! I would have liked a nice 17" macbook pro but hey, I just have to accept that it's a little overpriced, even being the apple fanboy I am! Jan 11 13 06:20 pm Link Helyos Photography wrote: Remembe the computer is swapping files and memory to the hard drive all the time, not just when you do file operations. Look to see if it's at least a 7,200RPM drive. Jan 11 13 06:24 pm Link I have a Mac mini here at the office, along with the other macs and pc's. The Mac mini has CS4 Design Premium on it, and PS works fine, even with 50-100mb files (it takes time converting some files - ie: a 10ft x 10ft banner sent as a PDF that needs to be converted to a tif), but it gets the job done. Just looked at the About This Mac on it: Model Name: Mac mini Model Identifier: Macmini3,1 Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo Processor Speed: 2.53 GHz Number Of Processors: 1 Total Number Of Cores: 2 L2 Cache: 3 MB Memory: 4 GB Bus Speed: 1.07 GHz Boot ROM Version: MM31.00AD.B00 SMC Version (system): 1.35f1 Here is some of the hardware info: NVidia MCP79 AHCI: Vendor: NVidia Product: MCP79 AHCI Link Speed: 3 Gigabit Negotiated Link Speed: 1.5 Gigabit Description: AHCI Version 1.20 Supported Hitachi HTS543232L9SA02: Capacity: 320.07 GB (320,072,933,376 bytes) Model: Hitachi HTS543232L9SA02 Revision: FB4AC52F Native Command Queuing: Yes Queue Depth: 32 Removable Media: No Detachable Drive: No BSD Name: disk0 Rotational Rate: 5400 Medium Type: Rotational Bay Name: Lower Partition Map Type: GPT (GUID Partition Table) S.M.A.R.T. status: Verified Volumes: Capacity: 209.7 MB (209,715,200 bytes) Writable: Yes BSD Name: disk0s1 Macintosh HD: Capacity: 319.73 GB (319,728,959,488 bytes) Available: 247.63 GB (247,630,811,136 bytes) Writable: Yes File System: Journaled HFS+ BSD Name: disk0s2 Mount Point: / That will give you some info on the specs. This one was a basic one I used to pack with me on my cross country road trips, and it has held up well. Hope this helps a little. Jan 11 13 06:42 pm Link Helyos Photography wrote: The Intel HD4000 integrated GPU has been tested and approved by Adobe for Photoshop CS6. 16GB of RAM on the Mini should get you 768MB of VRAM. Jan 11 13 06:50 pm Link I have the latest mini; got the upper end of the two versions. I love it. Of course, there are the 4 options: Macbook, MiniMac, iMac and Mac Pro Tower. If I had the money, I would go for the tower. I know that a lot of people like doing their editing on their laptops but for me, there's too much in the way of variables for me to make that a viable option. Angle of the screen, for one. Lighting conditions for two. You're constantly using a portable device in variable conditions as opposed to a workstation where the conditions are constant. That helps with image consistency. Plus, I still have my older G5 tower, so I already had all of the hardware (I have multiple monitors/screens, keyboards, Wacom tablets, etc). I have no issues with my Mini. It's small, sleek and does everything I need. In a couple of years, I hope to be in a position to purchase new tower (I'm hedging on Apple releasing the next generation soon) and my Mini will move into another room of the house as a nice media center computing device which will still be able to do all these other things I need. And I love the size. I can easily tuck it out of the way. Jan 11 13 07:03 pm Link That's really quite a bit of horse power when ya look at it. A quad core i7 will have two processing cores per CPU. So you will in effect have an 8 way SMP machine with gobs of memory. I run windows 7 with a core i7 (16gb of RAM) as well. The one recommendation I would make is to look at an SSD rather than traditional disk. Jan 11 13 08:31 pm Link Kincaid Blackwood wrote: Apple hasn't made a G5 tower in more than six years. If you want a tower Mac then you'll get a Mac Pro with in quad-core or 12-core Xeon configuration. Jan 11 13 11:10 pm Link Helyos Photography wrote: That may have been true "back then" but the last couple versions of Photoshop make heavy use of a good graphic card, it's processor and RAM. So yes, a crappy video card WILL hold you back. But what you've never had you can't miss. And you're not getting a great video "card" in the laptop either. You need the tower to take advantage of that. But again, the mini or mack book pro will run CS6 just fine. It's when you see it on the tower (or a desktop PC) you will see what you are not getting power wise. Have you considered the iMac? More portable than the mini and a monitor I think. Most of my Mac friends have these now days..and the Mac book pro. Jan 11 13 11:21 pm Link One of the best things you can do for speed, over and above lots of RAM is put an SSD drive (solid state drive) in your machine. Makes a huge difference in performance and doesn't cost loads if you're realistic about what you actually need to take with you (ie, you may not actually need your entire iTunes library on your working computer). The factory option for SSD is 256Gb and costs around 300 Euros by the look of things (I looked on the French Apple Store). You could do it cheaper with a 3rd party option, but (in my opinion) its not worth the hassle and you may as well get it factory fit. If you, go to a shop that has a machine with an SSD side by side with one with an HDD and you'll see they are like night and day. Alex. Jan 12 13 12:01 am Link I have also been weighing this option. It seems if you add the ssd, an external optical drive, carry a mouse and keyboard with hdtv cables you will be fine. Most hotels have hdtv's in the rooms and the new mini has hdtv output. The downside is the tv is not going to give you a true color unless you get a calibrater and calibrate ever tv you use. If you are using it for minor adjustment you should be ok without though. I plan on leaving mine hooked up at home as a main computer and carrying my current laptop(pc) until I can afford the $3000 for getting a laptop and another copy of adobe software for os. Jan 12 13 12:23 am Link I got the mini I pad, Now I use my Desktop for the final product the rest I do with the mini. I got equivalent apps of MS Office, also a transceiver for food photography Projects .So far everyone has been happy because while I shot any dislikes can be instantly corrected. For me to travel every where the Mini Appear to be the most useful device I ever had. I'm very minimalistic but most Practical. Of course I got large collection of food props because in many cases I 'm the stylist but that easy out the game:) Jan 12 13 01:17 am Link My mini has a DVI port, to which I've attached a very nice MultiSync monitor with color calibration. The mini gives you the ability to add any monitor which strikes your fancy, as large as you like, without paying top $$ dollar. It's also cheap enough so you can buy a laptop in addition to the mini. Jan 12 13 06:28 am Link HarryL wrote: The OP is referring to a Mac Mini, not an iPad mini. Jan 12 13 06:31 am Link AJScalzitti wrote: thanks! I had some more thinking, and I think the best suited option for me is this: Jan 12 13 11:35 am Link Helyos Photography wrote: I have the older version of that, and yes sometimes with LR and PS open the RAM is full-ish but not a big deal. I am very pleased with it; oh and my version holds more RAM, one open slot actually, but I have not upgraded it yet. Jan 12 13 11:43 am Link AJScalzitti wrote: RAM and hard drives are easily user upgradable on the current versions of the MacBook Pro. It's only the Retina Display models and MacBook Air that have the RAM soldered to the motherboard and use proprietary fixed Flash storage. Jan 12 13 12:20 pm Link AJScalzitti wrote: thanks! the guy at the shop told me that 8GB is the maximum there ... do you think there's any chance to upgrade to 16? Jan 12 13 12:50 pm Link Let There Be Light wrote: I misspoke. I've always called them G5s because its more or less the same outward appearance. Jan 12 13 05:19 pm Link Helyos Photography wrote: I don't know, I read about it online when looking at reviews on mine (a year or so ago) and it appears that this was an minor internal difference based on retailer. Mine was listed at 6GB at the time but can actually handle 12GB. Jan 12 13 05:28 pm Link Let There Be Light wrote: My earlier post was incorrect. It's only the RAM on the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro Retina Display models that can't be upgraded. The Flash memory can be upgraded with a simple plug-in memory card, just like replacing RAM on other systems. Jan 13 13 06:45 pm Link |
