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Computer upgrade but which one?
Hello. I thought I was going to buy a refurbished M1 or M2 Studio Max, or even an older Ultra but then I was told that the new M4 Mac mini was so good it would do what I needed. Essentially I make short films using lots of photos that are scanned in. Therefor I use Photoshop and Final Cut but I think the main strain is that I often have a few things going on at once! ie, scanning takes a while so while the scanner is doing its thing I am dragging images into photoshop to deal with them. In an ideal world I will also have final cut open and be dragging jpegs onto various time lines. I have been using a 2019 iMac with extra memory and bigger ssd but it can’t cope any more and I need to upgrade. So say a 2023 M2 Max 32GB with 2TB SSD for around £1500 or a brand new M4 Mac mini for around (apparently) £1000! Many thanks for any wisdom that can help me decide.
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7 Replies
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I have an M2 Max MacBook Pro with 32GB of RAM and a 2 TB SSD. It works great and will do everything you need, but I’d have gotten 64GB of RAM if I had to do it again. There are times with Final Cut, Photoshop, and other apps open that the available RAM drops to 3 or 4 GB, and Final Cut becomes unhappy. If I run Memory Clean and free up 8 to 10GB of RAM, all is well.
If you choose the M4 Mac Mini, I suggest you max out the RAM with 32GB and get a 1TB SSD. It’s less than $1500.
If you haven’t checked out Apple’s refurbished gear, take a look. Occasionally, there are very good deals.
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Hi,
Personally, I don’t recommend the M4 Mac mini unless it is the M4 Pro.
You will regret it very quickly if you buy a regular M4. If you can upgrade the RAM of M2 Max to 64GB, it will be a good machine for a long time.
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Many thanks for your replies. Very helpful.
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Sorry I’m back! So I was all ready to buy a refurbed M2 Max from a good trusted place, they had 3 with 64GB but when I went to buy they only had 32GB with less storage too. I am now agonising about older models with higher specs or new models. So basically what do people think about buying a 2022 Studio Ultra M1. It’s expensive but is 48 core, 128GB with a 2 TB SSD. One thing I do is have a lot of programs open and work a<font face=”inherit”>cross them, photoshop, Final Cut and also scanning stuff and perhaps doing a bit of admin </font>in between<font face=”inherit”> so maybe a word doc of 2. This makes me think that prioritising memory is a factor, however I’m a little </font>nervous<font face=”inherit”> about buying an expensive bit of kit from 2022! For about the same price I can buy a brand new Mac mini M4, with less spec 64GB/1TB less core etc but not older, with </font>guarantee<font face=”inherit”> etc. I </font>trust<font face=”inherit”> where I would get the M1 Ultra but how much of a risk is buying it? I’m thinking it could of </font>been heavily<font face=”inherit”> worked etc. Plus it has the older chip so perhaps the M4 starts to match up? ( although I think that might be dreaming??)</font>
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No doubt price is always the determining factor. I’d lean towards the newer hardware. I don’t know about the mini’s. I’ve got a M2 Ultra 64 GB Studio and it runs FCP & Affinity Photo and scanners w/o a sweat. Get more RAM and less storage, which can be external, if that helps with the price.
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just a heads up. Make your existing machine has at least one fifth free space on the startup drive and adding an external ssd and try setting that as your scratch disk in photoshop. Unless you’re scanning your images at a very high resolution, these 2 things might improve your performance sufficient to your needs.
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Thank you for your help, much appreciated.
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