A lot of ppl are making the case for raid 0 ssds in the mac mini. That would increase the ssd speed to mac pro speeds. This may work but I think it also increases the chances of problems. This is one the reasons why I didn't mention it in my counter argument.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Base 4-core sweet spot for Photoshop/Lightoom and light gaming?
- Thread starter wildmac
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
A lot of ppl are making the case for raid 0 ssds in the mac mini. That would increase the ssd speed to mac pro speeds. This may work but I think it also increases the chances of problems. This is one the reasons why I didn't mention it in my counter argument.
you have to compare Apple to Apple and not a Single SSD to a Raid 0 SSD.
Else I could also easily use TB2 connect to PROMISE Pegasus2 R8 with Raid 0 to compare too.
Yes, if the nMP is 10/15% faster than a Mac mini, I'd call that a slight improvement. What would you call it?
Of course I don't think CPU is the only consideration. Do you think I'm a complete fool?
As for your question of whether I think that a 12% speed difference is slight, certainly do. I mean lets see, a one-hour HandBrake encode will only take 53 minutes, fantastic! And that 3 seconds I wait for Lightroom to give me a preview in Develop will only take 2.7 seconds. I can't wait.
And that's just the CPU. Not even considering the GPU.
There's no way the Intel HD4000 graphics are going to keep up with even the D300s.
Now if the MacMini had the option for the high-end iMac graphics (780M), then we might be talking. But HD4000? DOA for me.
Dont' tell me that you'll only encourage me
While I'd love the 6c adding TB/USB3 externals + RAM would push my total over $6k which I just cannot swing this year. (I should have noted that first). I may end up just holding out this year, maybe toss my SSD onto a Sonnet pcie card and pick up a 7950, and keep saving for the rev1 nMP either this fall or spring 2015.
When the specs came out, my the quad was my immediate decision. I mostly do photo, no games - so did not need a big grapics card. My storage is all external and i am only keeping current jobs on the nMp - so that left 2 extra cores for 1000, pass on that. The d300's are actually pretty sweet, bridge and capture one generate previews really fast. Raw prossesing does feel like the geekbench score, modestly faster than my 1,1 with upgraded 8 core x5655's. Yes hopefull some ivy 8 or 12 cores go on sale used. Also curious about people putting the Sandy 8 or 10 core in there - wait and see
Most apps aren't optimized to use the GPU anyway. Also some apps will only use a single core. So short term, you're better off getting the base model since the cores are faster.
I expect Adobe and other companies to catch up in the next 6 months to a year. I love the nMP, but it's kind of early adoption at this point. Kind of like when I bought my rMBP, and barely anything was optimized for it. It took a good 6 months for most apps to catch up, but now it's amazing.
I expect Adobe and other companies to catch up in the next 6 months to a year. I love the nMP, but it's kind of early adoption at this point. Kind of like when I bought my rMBP, and barely anything was optimized for it. It took a good 6 months for most apps to catch up, but now it's amazing.
Of course I don't think CPU is the only consideration. Do you think I'm a complete fool?
As for your question of whether I think that a 12% speed difference is slight, certainly do. I mean lets see, a one-hour HandBrake encode will only take 53 minutes, fantastic! And that 3 seconds I wait for Lightroom to give me a preview in Develop will only take 2.7 seconds. I can't wait.
anyway your calculation it just base on pure number which you forget that your CPU speed will drop due to throttling and that will bring the speed different even further apart.
Anyway most of us who purchase the nMP is not just purely for the CPU which the 4 core could be swap with 8 core 4ghz.
Anyway each got your own needed. If you find mini is gd enough then happy for you..
Last edited:
Sorry, but my Mini runs HandBrake encodes happily at 3.4 GHz for hours without throttling, though it does make a lot of noise doing it.
But I didn't bring the Mini up to try to sell it but rather as a frame of reference to the question of this thread. In my opinion, and that's all it is, an opinion, no the 4-core is not the sweet spot for Photoshop/Lightroom, the six-core is. That's what I'm buying.
Your mini runs at turboboost speeds for hours with no issues? Interesting.
Regarding the cores, I'm not convinced at this point that the hex will really provide enough benefit, but hopefully we'll see more benchmarks soon to provide insight on that. Of course, workflow is still key.
And then the video card picture is even muddier. D300 still looks like it's the safe bet if budget is at all an issue.
Ya, it puzzles me. When I got the Mini to replace an old one in my HTPC setup last year, I discovered that it ran Handbrake significantly faster than my 2009 2.66 4-core Mac Pro. I run the Intel Power Gadget app, and with Handbrake the processor jumps right up to 3.4. When temperature get up and the fan kicks in there's usually a short drop down to about 3.2, but it soon ramps back up and stays steady. It's a little beast. Unfortunately it's a noisy little beast when it works hard, so it has to stay in a closet.