Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Ill stick to my 2018 mac mini with 16GB RAM + Sonnet eGPU (Radeon RX 480 8GB). Those two things combined are better than the 2020 ARM model. Also, no bootcamp support with the newer model, so that sucks.
 
  • Like
  • Angry
Reactions: NetMage and opeter
Understood. But since (obviously) Big Sur has Intel drivers for eGPU, it just seems weird they'd exclude Apple Silicon drivers from the same OS.
What we do not know is will they have Intel/AMD driver for Apple Silicon Big Sur or not.
I bet most likely no Intel driver. And 50-50 chance for AMD drivers.
 
Ill stick to my 2018 mac mini with 16GB RAM + Sonnet eGPU (Radeon RX 480 8GB). Those two things combined are better than the 2020 ARM model. Also, no bootcamp support with the newer model, so that sucks.
I'd bet the the 2020 with 16GB RAM will outperform your 2018 + your particular eGPU setup, in every respect.

Obviously no getting around the bootcamp, so I get why you'd stick tight.
 
Depending on your line of work / the timing of when you absolutely needed a new computer - then you prob did what you had to do which is fair. Why did you get an iMac Pro though ? (to me its the least flexible / value for dollar / thermal constrained desktop - could be wrong / generalizing here though)

After seeing the whole event, the M1 is way too underpowered for my needs. I guess I‘ll have to wait for next year to go silicon.

I do a lot of audio work, a lot of composing, mixing, recording, etc. And for me the iMac was way too loud and unfortunately underpowered for my needs.
For the instrumental libraries I use, the 10 core iMac Pro was at least enough to work on. I didn‘t want to invest in a Mac Pro now, since an upgrade should be coming next year, and the iMac Pro already has a great screen that comes with the device.

I had a Macbook Pro 16, with the most powerful i9 cpu, 64gb ram, and 8gb 5500m (I don‘t even use the gpu), and it still wasn‘t enough, and I see a huge improvement in Logic Pro while using the 10 core iMac Pro, especially in the number of instruments I can add and use. It was a great investement, just kinda poorly timed.
 
  • Like
Reactions: nathansz and ktecac
Then these systems are not for you. This is like complaining about a $200 Dell laptop not having 128GB of RAM when you need it. Get an iMac, Macbook Pro 16", or Mac Pro for that much more RAM. These are the entry level systems.
You realize that the options you mention are a laptops a all-in-one and a astronomically more expensive workstation, i.e. a completely different type of computers. The point is the previous model WAS for me, the new one, being crippled memory-wise, no longer is.
I foresee dark future for Mac users not in the typical consumer / photography / video editing markets. If Apple decides to put RAM on the SOC for all their product lines, it is clear that only mediocre configurations (RAM-wise) will be available. It's not cheap to manufacture a new version of a chip - with more RAM - for a small market (a small subset of customers of the already small set of customers who prefer Macs to PCs). That is why RAM is normally put into slots, even for the much bigger PC market (even for such a market producing chips with all sizes of memory would not be profitable).
Sad...
 
Last edited:
  • Angry
Reactions: NetMage
With 16GB max I'm not ready to use it for a desktop. Probably too many bugs using AS for a media box at this time. So ordered an Air to try things. Same CPU just missing 2 USB ports.

Yep talked myself out of mini and just ordered a base Air instead. Seemed to make more sense. 899 vs 600 something. Not much difference.
 
A bit disappointed with the 16Gb ram limit. In a laptop like the air, 16Gb is plenty for the kind of workload you can expect to do on the go with a 13in screen. But in a desktop computer that you can hook up several monitors, I would've liked to see 32 for little future proofing.
 
  • Like
Reactions: MacCheetah3
You realize that the options you mention are laptops, i.e. a completely different type of computers. The point is the previous model WAS for me, the new one, being crippled memory-wise, no longer is.
I foresee dark future for Mac users not in the typical consumer / photography / video editing markets. If Apple decides to put RAM on the SOC for all their product lines, it is clear that only mediocre configurations (RAM-wise) will be available. It's not cheap to manufacture a new version of a chip - with more RAM - for a small market (a small subset of customers of the already small set of customers who prefer Macs to PCs). That is why RAM is normally put into slots, even for the much bigger PC market (even for such a market producing chips with all sizes of memory would not be profitable).
Sad...
I’m wondering how they’ll deal with that on the Mac Pro line.
 
Actually, I think that is a good sign. Apple SoCs are vastly more efficient than Intel chips and have an entirely different memory architecture. Maybe the M1 chip simply does not need as much RAM to run smoothly. After all, iPhones are the fastest phones in the industry and have much less RAM than Android flagships.
May be true on the application code side but lots of what fills up memory today is graphics and video. The AS compression hardware might be more efficient?
 
Apple said it’s up to 3x faster than an i3 quad core 3.6ghz. Converting a 55sec 4k video or something.
Yes, I know, but most all comparisons on the Keynote (and in the product page now) are while using Apple apps, which is not a good benchmarks as we should expect that they are very well optimized. I was thinking about more synthetic tests or general usage tests
 
  • Like
Reactions: opeter
Was excited but 2 less USB-C/Thunderbolt ports is a no-no considering I have the ports in my 2018 all being used. Non-user upgradable RAM also a downer but was totally expected with an SoC (that being said, SoC's are completely capable of supporting SODIMMS). Doesnt help that it's limited to 16GB. Hoping this gets addressed with M1x/M2.

And with all that empty space in the chasis, there's literally no excuse for them to not include their rumored dGPU inside a future Mac mini. But for now, yeah this just feels like a beta product :/
 
May be true on the application code side but lots of what fills up memory today is graphics and video. The AS compression hardware might be more efficient?
Perhaps. We will find out I guess. Apple isn't stupid so I wouldn't worry too much.
 
I’m wondering how they’ll deal with that on the Mac Pro line.
I wonder about more cores / threads or multiple chips (is that possible)? This is the first chip so I bet something like a M1X or M1Pro will have more to support "pro" features. This will only continue to evolve just like I've seen Microsoft working on their SQ1 chip. :) I definitely feel this is the public beta part of the process as the Surface Pro X definitely feels like a foundational / beta device as well. It'll be cool to see where this goes / evolves. But for a first iteration it's pretty dang speedy!
 
After seeing the whole event, the M1 is way too underpowered for my needs. I guess I‘ll have to wait for next year to go silicon.

I do a lot of audio work, a lot of composing, mixing, recording, etc. And for me the iMac was way too loud and unfortunately underpowered for my needs.
For the instrumental libraries I use, the 10 core iMac Pro was at least enough to work on. I didn‘t want to invest in a Mac Pro now, since an upgrade should be coming next year, and the iMac Pro already has a great screen that comes with the device.

I had a Macbook Pro 16, with the most powerful i9 cpu, 64gb ram, and 8gb 5500m (I don‘t even use the gpu), and it still wasn‘t enough, and I see a huge improvement in Logic Pro while using the 10 core iMac Pro, especially in the number of instruments I can add and use. It was a great investement, just kinda poorly timed.
Look I sometimes have to manage on 2017 12" MacBook which barely run one instance of VPS Avenger Synth (badly written but great sounding synth) and made full 40 track songs on it. I also have i9 Hackintosh in the studio with 64GB ram only shows what mess x86 architecture is that you think you'll need best computer in the world to make a song.
 
If they iterate on this chip like they do on the ios chips, we will see an M2 and M3 chip in the next few years. All sorts of things could change, from more memory to faster gpu, and no more waiting around for Intel to drip-feed the industry with it's meager offerings.
 
  • Like
Reactions: NetMage
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.