mac mini and photoshop.

[fyrmedic]

would the new rumored mac mini at 1.5Ghz with the 64mb video card and 1 gig of ram. run photoshop CS2 and a 23" apple display at a usable speed. I am currently using and 15"g4 powerbook at 1.25GHz with1.25gig of ram. I am not sure how fast my hard drive is or what video card is in it. I cannot afford the power workstation at two grand and I would like to free up my laptop for field editing of photos. the power book/display thing is slow but not completely painful. any help or suggestions.

 

[Macky-Mac]

well, the thing about Photoshop is, how big are the files you are planning to work on?

Up until last june I was using a G3 400 iMac at it was just fine running photoshop......with files that were like 10 or 20 meg.....but it really was slow with that 640meg file!!!! it did what i needed to do to it....but whew!!!

so the Mini, a much faster and better machine, will be great with plenty of potential photoshop work......it just depends on what you plan to use it for

 

[joecool85]

Its not going to be better than your current PB. It will be almost exactly the same from what I understand.

 

[fyrmedic]

Its not going to be better than your current PB. It will be almost exactly the same from what I understand.

Thats kinda what I thought. It won't be THAT bad untill I can get a tower in a year or so.

 

[Trout74]

heck,

I play music, and have safari open and run iPhoto all at once and my mini seems very snappy. I only have 512MB ram, I think you will be fine. The mini is very powerful for what it is, heck 2-3 years ago, the mini would be the Top of the line and everyone was fine back then.

 

[jayscheuerle]

The mini is fine.

I use one in a production environment. Just get enough RAM. With the slow laptop hard-drive in it, you want to limit disk access as much as possible.

 

[fyrmedic]

Hey jay what do you mean by limit disk access. the rumored hard drive speed will be 74/7500 rpm. Is that slow?

 

[jayscheuerle]

Hey jay what do you mean by limit disk access. the rumored hard drive speed will be 74/7500 rpm. Is that slow?

The one in my mini is 5400 rpm. I wasn't aware that they upgraded them. If you don't have enough physical memory RAM, the machine uses virtual memory, essentially dumping the information to the hard-drive for later retrieval. Having to access a drive is considerably slower than accessing RAM. If you have to do it often on a slow drive, your performance will suffer. 7500 is better. 10,000 is GREAT.

RAM is your friend.

 

[fyrmedic]

Thanks. I think the mini(if the rumors are true) will have to due for a while. Is it possible to upgrade video cards in the mini?

 

[jayscheuerle]

Thanks. I think the mini(if the rumors are true) will have to due for a while. Is it possible to upgrade video cards in the mini?

Not at the present. The mini is essentially an iBook without the screen.

I have a gig of RAM in this one and routinely have Photoshop, Quark, Illustrator, Safari, Entourage, Suitcase, Acrobat and iTunes running at the same time. Sometimes Classic with Quark 5 are running as well. It seldom bogs down, but with half that much RAM it was unbearable when I had to start up Classic.

 

[fyrmedic]

thanks for all the help I think the new mini will be it. I Just hope it is not two long before it is offical. I have to get one from a mac store becuse it has to be leaked into the house.(wife factor)

 

[bodeh6]

Hey jay what do you mean by limit disk access. the rumored hard drive speed will be 74/7500 rpm. Is that slow?

Actually the mini had 4200RPM harddrives like the iBook and rev C and earlier Powerbooks. The updated one, which is still not on the Apple website, is going to have a 5400RPM HD like the Rev D Powerbooks and part of the Rev E Powerbooks.

BTW: It is not 74/7500 RPM harddrives, it is 7200 RPM harddrives. HD come in these basic speeds that everyone should know
4200/5400/7200/10000/15000. No need for any confusion on the numbers. Now all I need is the 17" Powerbook with 7200 RPM 100GB HD.

 

[slipper]

Its impossible for us to give you an accurate opinion unless you give us more information about how you will be using your computer and photoshop.

 

[jayscheuerle]

A nice workaround with the mini is to have a fast, external firewire hard-drive that photoshop uses for its main scratch disk.

 

[Zaty]

Actually the mini had 4200RPM harddrives like the iBook and rev C and earlier Powerbooks.

Officially, yes. Yet Apple has been using 5400 RPM 40 GB HDs since the mini came out in January. However, 80 GB HDs have usually been 4200 RPM only up until now.