Looking to get a Mac Mini to run latest Photoshop..... not really wanting to spend a fortune..whats the earliest model I can get that will run Big Sur or Monterey?
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Bob
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Mac Mini-What Models For Photoshop
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OCLP76
macrumors member
If you want native support, anything after 2018 will run Big Sur or Monterey.
If you can do a bit of software modification to your system to get around Apple’s draconian hardware requirements, you can go as far back as 2009 to run either OS listed.
The latest photoshop will require plenty of power under the hood, so either way, the general recommendation is to max out the RAM and get an SSD/nVME.
If you can do a bit of software modification to your system to get around Apple’s draconian hardware requirements, you can go as far back as 2009 to run either OS listed.
The latest photoshop will require plenty of power under the hood, so either way, the general recommendation is to max out the RAM and get an SSD/nVME.
The 2014 Mini is also compatible.
Here Are All the Macs Compatible With macOS Monterey
macOS Monterey is compatible with many of the Macs that were able to run macOS Big Sur, but it drops support for some older MacBook Air and iMac models from 2013 and 2014. macOS Monterey is compatible with many of the Macs that were able to run macOS Big Sur, but it drops support for some older...
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I wouldn't really recommend it, unless you can find one with 16gb RAM perhaps because the memory is not upgradeable. The base 2018 Mini is going to be much, much faster and better all-around than the top spec 2014 Mini. Nevertheless, it is still supported by the current version of MacOS.
opeter
macrumors 68030
Another vote for the base 2018, if you can find one for a solid price. You can upgrade the RAM yourself.
The M1 would be good too, but I wouldn't recommend the versions with 8 GB RAM tho', if you do heavier work in PS... and the RAM in these is non-upgradable.
The M1 would be good too, but I wouldn't recommend the versions with 8 GB RAM tho', if you do heavier work in PS... and the RAM in these is non-upgradable.
I totally agree about an SSD and a decent amount of memory, but for Photoshop and any other applications that involve some heavy lifting, think about the processor and the number of cores too. I use Photoshop and Affinity among others; I have a 2015 iMac 4Ghz quad core i7 with 32GB RAM, a 2019 MBP 2.3GHz 8-core i9 with 32GB RAM, and I upgraded a 2012 Mini with a dual-core processor to an SSD and 16GB RAM for my daughter. Running the same focus-stacking job on all of these, it took 4 minutes for the iMac, 3 minutes for the MBP, and 11 minutes for the dual-core Mini. I also ran it on my wife's M1 MBA with 16GB RAM, and it comfortably beat the lot with 1 minute 20 seconds. Perhaps I'm wrong, but this makes me think up-to-date multi-core processors, coupled with at least 16GB RAM, may be the way to go if heavy processing is involved.
The top spec Mac that professionals used to use for photoshop for creating posters and highway billboards and all professional printing… in 1997 (25 years ago) was a computer with single core 604e processor clocked at 200mhz and 16MB of RAM and mechanical spinning hard drives of course.
opeter
macrumors 68030
Yeah, I do remember... But today's Photoshop is just a bit more hardware intensive, than the Photoshop version 25 years ago.
Modern applications/programs/operating system are much more complex.
Look, here is an interesting video from 7 years ago, but is shows what I mean:
bradman83
macrumors 68000
You can get a current M1-based model in the $500-ish dollar range right now on Amazon, where it's biggest drawback is only 8GB of RAM. But even then for light Photoshop work it will be fine. If you can stretch your budget to accommodate I would go with an M1 mini. You'll get superb performance and a solid 5-7 years of future-proofing.
profcutter
macrumors 68000
Yeah, and Adobe’s had 25 years to add features which is good, and bloat which isn’t good. That 25 year old copy of Photoshop was much more efficient than the new versions. Additionally, people waited around for a long time for those large files to load because they had no choice. The machines were often stripped of other software as well, to increase efficiency. I used to do Tech Support at Adobe.