Mac mini for photo editing?

[Miguel Palaviccini]

I'm looking to upgrade my four year old Macbook pro for something a little better to edit with. I'm shooting with a Nikon D800 and processing files is painfully slow.

My current laptop specs are:
Processor: 2.26 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
RAM: 8 GB 1067 MHz DDR3
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce 9400M 256 MB
Hard Drive: Intel SSD 180 GB SATA II

I'm looking at buying a mac mini, but wanted to know what specs to watch out for. I can upgrade the hard drive to a SSD and max out the ram to 16 GB - no problem. My questions are:

1) Will the 2.3 GHz quad-core (i7) give me a large performance boost over the 2.5 GHz dual-core (i5)? The price difference is $200 ($599 vs $799).

2) Should I be worried about the Intel 4000 HD graphics card? Is that "enough" to handle D800 files and LR/CS smoothly?

3) In a more broad sense, what will give me more bang for my buck? The graphics card? The processor?

If I'm only going to see marginal gains from the mac mini over my current set-up, I'd rather save my money and keep saving to get a 27" iMac.

Thanks for the help!

Miguel

[arash_hazeghi]

yes the i7 CPU makes a big difference when working with large files.

You don't need a super high end Video card since it doesn't make much of a difference 2D stuff like LR/PS etc. It matters for video editing and 3D applications. But the cheap ones may not drive 30" monitors, you should get something with at least 1-2GB dedicated Video RAM and a separate GPU. The Intel HD integrated graphics is very poor, it gets miserably slow if you drive a big monitor. it's made for laptops/mobile devices with small screens.



Mac minin is overall low end and rather weak system with cheap/slow components, it is not really spec'ed to handle D800 RAW files and serious image processing. IMO you will be wasting your money. A high end iMac or the upcoming Mac pro is a much better choice.

[LinzRiverBalmer]

Hi Miguel,

Since you are here in ABQ with me, give my Father a call, he's a master know it all for Macintosh and fixes them and builds them from scratch.

He does a lot for Robert Reck and also has a small video production going for jazz musicians with Steve and Mary Elkins. So I know he has the macs rigged for some major editing. He deals with the new and old but actually has his old macs rigged for it and has stopped upgrading PS at CS4.

He also has a Mac Mini he lets people try out, but he can maximize your system.

He's easy to reach by email, just be warned his replies are not as good as over the phone or in person.

Email is Olrivrrat@comcast.net, phone is 217-9496 or 263-6643, I will let him know otherwise he won't pick up the phone on caller ID. His name is Dean Balmer. If you email first just email your questions above with your name and info, I will put in an email to him tonight to give him a heads up.

[Miguel Palaviccini]

yes the i7 CPU makes a big difference when working with large files.

You don't need a super high end Video card since it doesn't make much of a difference 2D stuff like LR/PS etc. It matters for video editing and 3D applications. But the cheap ones may not drive 30" monitors, you should get something with at least 1-2GB dedicated Video RAM and a separate GPU. The Intel HD integrated graphics is very poor, it gets miserably slow if you drive a big monitor. it's made for laptops/mobile devices with small screens.

Mac minin is overall low end and rather weak system with cheap/slow components, it is not really spec'ed to handle D800 RAW files and serious image processing. IMO you will be wasting your money. A high end iMac or the upcoming Mac pro is a much better choice.

Thanks for the response Arash. I understand that the mac mini isn't my best option, but I wanted to know if it was a viable one. I currently can't justify a high end iMac or Mac Pro (saving for a house), so I wanted to know if the mac mini would be a large improvement over my current computer. I might post a video of a D800 file edit, just to give the community an idea of how long it takes to edit from start to finish.

I've seen that the Macbook air (with the Intel HD 5000, 8 GB RAM) does a pretty good job of handling D800 files in photoshop and lightroom. It wasn't connected to an external display, so that may be why - but it was a heck of a lot faster than my current setup.

[Miguel Palaviccini]

Thanks Linz, I'm not worried about maximizing my system, just wanted to know the tradeoffs between i5 and i7 and the reasoning for getting a better video card.

Thanks for the contact info, I'll be sure to use it.


Hi Miguel,

Since you are here in ABQ with me, give my Father a call, he's a master know it all for Macintosh and fixes them and builds them from scratch.

He does a lot for Robert Reck and also has a small video production going for jazz musicians with Steve and Mary Elkins. So I know he has the macs rigged for some major editing. He deals with the new and old but actually has his old macs rigged for it and has stopped upgrading PS at CS4.

He also has a Mac Mini he lets people try out, but he can maximize your system.

He's easy to reach by email, just be warned his replies are not as good as over the phone or in person.

Email is Olrivrrat@comcast.net, phone is 217-9496 or 263-6643, I will let him know otherwise he won't pick up the phone on caller ID. His name is Dean Balmer. If you email first just email your questions above with your name and info, I will put in an email to him tonight to give him a heads up.

[LinzRiverBalmer]

Sure thing and I already let him know.

he will know the answers to processors and video card as I know he had to add and upgrade things when he started video.

dont hesitate to ask him for help or questions, he works on the old day barter system.... Talk costs nothing and the rest is always negotiable.

he built a computer for a car part once.... Lol

[arash_hazeghi]

I've seen that the Macbook air (with the Intel HD 5000, 8 GB RAM) does a pretty good job of handling D800 files in photoshop and lightroom. It wasn't connected to an external display, so that may be why - but it was a heck of a lot faster than my current setup.

I have an i7 MBA with 8GB RAM and 256GB SSD (2013 edition). It's a nice portable system for travel, it can handle a few 1DX (18Mpixel) files at a time but it becomes frustrating if you want to process many files with it. I can imagine it gets worse with 36 Mpixel files....and yes forget about connecting to a 30". BTW you can put together a windows machine for the price of a mac mini with 5X times more horsepower, if you know how to build a system and are OK with windows : quad core i7 3.6GHz , 24GB DDR3 RAM, 512 GB SSD on an Asus high-end motherboard and an Nvidia GTX 670 graphics card (can handle dual 30") for less than $900!



Good luck

[Miguel Palaviccini]

Thanks Arash, I may have to look into a Windows option. I've never built a machine before, but I'm fairly sure I can figure it out.

Sounds like my money may be better spent that way, although I hesitate to go the windows route after I've had a mac (and loved it) for so long.


I have an i7 MBA with 8GB RAM and 256GB SSD (2013 edition). It's a nice portable system for travel, it can handle a few 1DX (18Mpixel) files at a time but it becomes frustrating if you want to process many files with it. I can imagine it gets worse with 36 Mpixel files....and yes forget about connecting to a 30". BTW you can put together a windows machine for the price of a mac mini with 5X times more horsepower, if you know how to build a system and are OK with windows : quad core i7 3.6GHz , 24GB DDR3 RAM, 512 GB SSD on an Asus high-end motherboard and an Nvidia GTX 670 graphics card (can handle dual 30") for less than $900!



Good luck