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ralph257

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Mac upgrade ?
« on: April 16, 2021, 01:42:50 pm »

Looking for ideas and reccomendations
Presently running a 2010 mac pro maxed out
With 30 inch cinema
Do I
1. Buy the new mac pro and selecting my own
Monitor that I can calibrate and profile covering
Most of rgb gamut ?
Or
2. Buy the new imac coming out hoping
One of them is a 30 inch monitor ?
Or
3. Just buy a new mac mini to run Photoshop off of ?
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rdonson

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Re: Mac upgrade ?
« Reply #1 on: April 16, 2021, 05:51:01 pm »

The Apple Event is on the 20th.  Maybe they'll share some information that may sway your choice of options.

For me.... I'd be looking for something with the new processors in it - (option 2) - and hang on to it as long at you can

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Eric Brody

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Re: Mac upgrade ?
« Reply #2 on: April 18, 2021, 11:35:32 am »

I was in a similar position last fall. I had a 2013 Mac Pro (trashcan) with 64GB and a 1TB SSD. With the announcement of Apple Silicon, I debated waiting for a more functional M1 chip, more RAM, more speed, and decided that one can wait forever and there always will be something new on the horizon...just out of reach... and one will NEVER upgrade. I am conservative when it comes to computers (not politics) and worried about my aged 3880 printer and all my photo programs and plugins. I decided on a 2020 Intel 27" iMac with a big SSD and lots of RAM (from OWC-saved about $1,000 over Apple's prices). At this point I'm not looking back. In 3-5 years (I hope I'm still around) maybe the Apple Silicon will have matured but for my purposes, mainly photography, the Intel chipped machine seems fine. I'll let others cut themselves on the bleeding edge. And I'm the guy who bought his first Mac on this day, April 18, in 1984! It had 128K single sided floppy disks and 128K of RAM. Things are just a bit different today.
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deanwork

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Re: Mac upgrade ?
« Reply #3 on: April 27, 2021, 01:14:30 pm »

I just started using the new m1 Mac mini with 16 gigs ram and a smaller hard drive that I have hooked up to my NEC 27”. I do large prints and work in photoshop and lightroom. It’s a beautiful device. It has a nice graphic card that can run multiple 4K displays . Applying a Gaussian blurr or sharpening to 40x60 print with layers was instantaneous . I think in total I paid $800.00. I plugged in a 4tb external hard drive. This is the biggest bang for the buck I’ve ever experienced. I’m getting another one for my other display. You could have 6 of these for the price of a Mac Pro.
I’m totally sold. Great job Apple. And all my software seems to work normally on Big Sur.

John



I was in a similar position last fall. I had a 2013 Mac Pro (trashcan) with 64GB and a 1TB SSD. With the announcement of Apple Silicon, I debated waiting for a more functional M1 chip, more RAM, more speed, and decided that one can wait forever and there always will be something new on the horizon...just out of reach... and one will NEVER upgrade. I am conservative when it comes to computers (not politics) and worried about my aged 3880 printer and all my photo programs and plugins. I decided on a 2020 Intel 27" iMac with a big SSD and lots of RAM (from OWC-saved about $1,000 over Apple's prices). At this point I'm not looking back. In 3-5 years (I hope I'm still around) maybe the Apple Silicon will have matured but for my purposes, mainly photography, the Intel chipped machine seems fine. I'll let others cut themselves on the bleeding edge. And I'm the guy who bought his first Mac on this day, April 18, in 1984! It had 128K single sided floppy disks and 128K of RAM. Things are just a bit different today.
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mcbroomf

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Re: Mac upgrade ?
« Reply #4 on: April 27, 2021, 07:51:11 pm »

I just started using the new m1 Mac mini with 16 gigs ram and a smaller hard drive that I have hooked up to my NEC 27”. I do large prints and work in photoshop and lightroom. It’s a beautiful device. It has a nice graphic card that can run multiple 4K displays . Applying a Gaussian blurr or sharpening to 40x60 print with layers was instantaneous . I think in total I paid $800.00. I plugged in a 4tb external hard drive. This is the biggest bang for the buck I’ve ever experienced. I’m getting another one for my other display. You could have 6 of these for the price of a Mac Pro.
I’m totally sold. Great job Apple. And all my software seems to work normally on Big Sur.

John

Good to hear 1st hand experience with photo intensive tasks and the M1.  I see the press is now saying that the next gen is in fabs for production and due out, presumably in time for the next wave of products this fall and next spring.  I'm lucky that neither my desktop or laptop need a refresh now but I'm watching the functionality and performance of the next gen with an eye to switching if Wintel don't up their game.
https://www.engadget.com/apple-m2-mac-processor-production-103824807.html
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deanwork

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Re: Mac upgrade ?
« Reply #5 on: April 29, 2021, 09:06:02 am »


The amazing Apple M1 chip and the even faster M2 chip now being manufactured in Taiwan are going to be facing production issues it seems to me from what I’ve been reading. Not only have they had terrible tropical storms to deal with but the ongoing drought has already effected their production rates for all kinds of chips. China, Europe, and the US are all competing for these latest generation chips. The auto industry is in really short supply right now. It takes a ton of water to produce these chips.

One odd thing is some of these Taiwanese plants are being set up in Arizona. Strange place for an industry that needs tons of water. I do hope the US moves to produce a LOT more of these sensitive critical semi-conductors here in North America. Taiwan pretty much owns this industry and I can’t imagine a more vulnerable country, for a whole lot of reasons. 

Bottom line is, unless the best chips are produced  in stable countries besides Taiwan, were going to see price increases in the Mac products over the next year. The mini is going to become very popular for people wanting their own displays. They are a powerhouse. Unless you are juggling massive amounts of 8k video data I can’t imagine spending 6k for a Mac Pro, which will probably be obsolete in 3 years the way things are going with Apple making its own chips.


https://www.npr.org/2021/04/28/991270369/taiwan-races-to-remedy-car-chip-shortage-but-no-end-in-sight-says-economy-minist

John




GGood to hear 1st hand experience with photo intensive tasks and the M1.  I see the press is now saying that the next gen is in fabs for production and due out, presumably in time for the next wave of products this fall and next spring.  I'm lucky that neither my desktop or laptop need a refresh now but I'm watching the functionality and performance of the next gen with an eye to switching if Wintel don't up their game.
https://www.engadget.com/apple-m2-mac-processor-production-103824807.html
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Joe Towner

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Re: Mac upgrade ?
« Reply #6 on: April 30, 2021, 12:24:55 am »

One odd thing is some of these Taiwanese plants are being set up in Arizona. Strange place for an industry that needs tons of water. I do hope the US moves to produce a LOT more of these sensitive critical semi-conductors here in North America. Taiwan pretty much owns this industry and I can’t imagine a more vulnerable country, for a whole lot of reasons. 

Bottom line is, unless the best chips are produced in stable countries besides Taiwan, we're going to see price increases in the Mac products over the next year.

You'd be shocked how many semiconductor plants are already in the US, Japan, Germany, Isreal & Singapore.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_semiconductor_fabrication_plants

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deanwork

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Re: Mac upgrade ?
« Reply #7 on: April 30, 2021, 10:03:17 am »

That’s really interesting, Texas Instruments and the big one Intel in US. But Apple is in Taiwan and China, and so are a lot of these auto companies apparently. I didn’t realize how much water it takes to produce them. With AI and quantum computing rapidly coming down the line we will have to make a lot more in North America.





You'd be shocked how many semiconductor plants are already in the US, Japan, Germany, Isreal & Singapore.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_semiconductor_fabrication_plants
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Benny Profane

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Re: Mac upgrade ?
« Reply #8 on: April 30, 2021, 10:13:25 am »


One odd thing is some of these Taiwanese plants are being set up in Arizona. Strange place for an industry that needs tons of water.



I'm always astounded that some think the southwest is the future of the United States, when a ton of it is basically in a desert. Don't even get me going about Las Vegas. The East may be scorned right now, but, at least it rains here, and it's green.
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Benny Profane

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Re: Mac upgrade ?
« Reply #9 on: April 30, 2021, 10:17:26 am »

I just started using the new m1 Mac mini with 16 gigs ram and a smaller hard drive that I have hooked up to my NEC 27”. I do large prints and work in photoshop and lightroom. It’s a beautiful device. It has a nice graphic card that can run multiple 4K displays . Applying a Gaussian blurr or sharpening to 40x60 print with layers was instantaneous . I think in total I paid $800.00. I plugged in a 4tb external hard drive. This is the biggest bang for the buck I’ve ever experienced. I’m getting another one for my other display. You could have 6 of these for the price of a Mac Pro.
I’m totally sold. Great job Apple. And all my software seems to work normally on Big Sur.

John

This is very good news. Thank you. I just bought a Trashcan from OWC in the Spring of 2020, before the M1 announcement, and fear that it won't have much of a life because Apple and especially Adobe will be forgetting about the old chip computers when releasing new operating systems and versions of Photoshop/Lightroom in a few years. That's the only reason I upgraded this time, and before.
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pschefz

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Re: Mac upgrade ?
« Reply #10 on: May 03, 2021, 01:31:42 pm »

Looking for ideas and reccomendations
Presently running a 2010 mac pro maxed out
With 30 inch cinema
Do I
1. Buy the new mac pro and selecting my own
Monitor that I can calibrate and profile covering
Most of rgb gamut ?
Or
2. Buy the new imac coming out hoping
One of them is a 30 inch monitor ?
Or
3. Just buy a new mac mini to run Photoshop off of ?

anything with the M1 will run circles around it. if you can live with a 24" monitor, get an iMac, otherwise I would always take MacBook Air over mini because you can still run it like a mini with external monitor but always have the option to grab it and take it with you.
the M2 will mostly improve background operations, rendering and such. PS is pretty much instant on M1 now.
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deanwork

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Re: Mac upgrade ?
« Reply #11 on: May 04, 2021, 01:39:32 pm »

Don’t buy an IMac or MacBook Pro that doesn’t have the M1 or M2 chips. It looks like they are waiting to put the M2 chips in them that are in production now. M chips are a whole new ball game.

Biggest bang for the buck now is the Mini M1.


quote author=pschefz link=topic=138120.msg1216742#msg1216742 date=1620063102]
anything with the M1 will run circles around it. if you can live with a 24" monitor, get an iMac, otherwise I would always take MacBook Air over mini because you can still run it like a mini with external monitor but always have the option to grab it and take it with you.
the M2 will mostly improve background operations, rendering and such. PS is pretty much instant on M1 now.
[/quote]
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roseha

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Re: Mac upgrade ?
« Reply #12 on: May 17, 2021, 03:46:33 pm »

I am looking at the Mac Mini M1 right now because my present Mini, a late 2012 version, appears to be on its last legs.  I've had to run First Aid on it after some strange, hours long freezes on the apple login and now I'm afraid to turn it off for fear that will happen again.
I'm wondering though, has anyone had issues with the new M1 Mini working with Epson printers?  I have the P600 and thought I read somewhere that Epson has not yet upgraded its software to work with the M1. 
Any other issues with monitors (I have a Benq SW240) etc?  Thanks
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