Memory V’s a Fan

[Steveh2780]

Hi all,

Im looking to buy an M1 MacBook primarily for Photo editing Raw files in Lightroom and Photoshop.
I’m not looking to spend above £1500 (UK) so my question is would I notice much different between both? Would I gain more having the extra Ram or would having the fan in the Pro be the better upgrade over the fan-less Air?
I work sometimes continuously for 2-3 hours from a lightroom catalogue. It worry’s me that the fanledd Air would struggle for that time frame.
It seems the baseline 8gbRam models are performing well editing 4K or even 8k video, so possibly the M1 chip is that well optimised Ram is not as important now as it previously would of been.

 

[athletejmv]

Here's a response I wrote up and I genuinely mean every word. This is the first system (computer) as a PC gamer, Mac user for many years that I've been impressed with from a hardware perspective (Mac... work; PC... for gaming).

I have the Mac mini with M1, 512Gb storage, and 8Gb of RAM. The machine outperforms my 2019 16" MBP base model. I have had no issues with the M1 Mac mini... I'm truly blown away. I am ALWAYS quick to criticize Apple... for example, Apple increased packaging size on the M1 Mac mini and did not reduce all the unnecessary space in the chassis of the mini... gee Apple, care about the environment much? Seemed you cared enough to take away chargers for it and reduce packaging size on the iPhone12, but I digress when it comes to hypocrisy. So, I expected to return the M1 Mac mini due to the wait time for the 16gb model when that arrived. Well, I'm keeping the 8Gb job memory model. I'm able to run 3 Safari windows with 30+ tabs open... Netflix, YouTube, Facebook, a file converter in the background (since transferring my files from my MBP to Mini), MS Word (full-time student), 5 finder windows... organizing files and transferring them between windows, iTunes playing in the background (or Netflix)... the system doesn't bog down or get warm. Blows my mind... especially only running on 8GB of RAM. Even using Migration Assistant, my MBP 16" sounded like it was about to takeoff from the runway... Mac mini, no heat, and effortlessly plugging away. The M1 chip is insane. Now the I/O on the Mac-mini... thanks for cutting corners on those Apple (sarcasm)... docking station and adapters mitigate this.

So that's my usage scenario. Memory management is observed for multiple apps. However, if you're in an app that requires a heavy load on memory all at one time, then perhaps 16GB may be needed? I'm just astounded this system flies without hiccup running only 8Gb of memory. My MBP 16" stutters, etc running this much... especially if I don't restart it for a while... gets buggy, lock up, etc.

 

[deeddawg]

Hi all,

Im looking to buy an M1 MacBook primarily for Photo editing Raw files in Lightroom and Photoshop.
I’m not looking to spend above £1500 (UK) so my question is would I notice much different between both? Would I gain more having the extra Ram or would having the fan in the Pro be the better upgrade over the fan-less Air?
I work sometimes continuously for 2-3 hours from a lightroom catalogue. It worry’s me that the fanledd Air would struggle for that time frame.
It seems the baseline 8gbRam models are performing well editing 4K or even 8k video, so possibly the M1 chip is that well optimised Ram is not as important now as it previously would of been.

Just LR & PS?

16GB Air.

In my experience, neither LR nor PS create sustained substantial CPU loads except when batch processing stuff such as a large import or export, or recreating a few hundred previews. Otherwise their CPU usage is largely pretty bursty - brief surges of high CPU utilization interspersed with lots of low-utilization time.

So I don't think fan vs fanless on the M1 will make a difference. (FYI - on my 2020 i5 Air, I never hear fan noise in LR or PS unless I'm doing a substantial batch of dozens or hundreds of RAW images as mentioned above)

Memory - Adobe doesn't have a strong history of being efficient with stuff. With complex projects, especially if you're bopping back and forth between LR & PS (and other plugins), I'd suggest memory vs a fan.