New Mac Mini for photo-editing..?

[fpnc]

I know that OpenCL might be implemented on the CPU side. Other than for compatibility, that is useless.

DxO and Capture One can also use OpenCL.

Compatibility is useless? That seems to be a pretty weak argument to support your previous claim that, "All Macs with only Intel graphics are obsolete. They don't have OpenCL."

Furthermore, I'm fairly certain that the new Mac mini will eventually get hardware assisted h.264 support through either Intel's Quick Sync technology or through the HD3000 IGP itself (that may already be implemented in Lion, I don't know). In any case, unless you are a fairly serious "gamer" or 3D user I doubt that you will find the graphics and video capabilities in the new Mac mini that much of an issue.

 

[cube]

When someone says a machine has OpenCL, she means IN THE GPU.

"OpenCL" that is not in the GPU is worthless and a lie.

 

[fpnc]

When someone says a machine has OpenCL, she means IN THE GPU.

"OpenCL" that is not in the GPU is worthless and a lie.

"...a lie"? -- so says you. However, I've never claimed that the Sandy Bridge CPU can run OpenCL as well as a discrete GPU. It's just that you seem to be implying that all Mac without a discrete GPU are "obsolete" and "useless" which I think is a pretty over the top statement.

 

[HBOC]

The iMac is no good for me b/c of the glossy screen; the Mac Pro is too pricy and overkill for my needs.

When I had an early 2011 MBP, I had the Matte screen installed on it. I now have a new iMac base model (which is killer BTW - almost as quick as my MBP was) and I have no problems with the glossy screen. TBH, i actually forgot about it being glossy until I read what you said, lol.

I sold my high-end 15" MBP and bought the 2011 model base 13". I thought I could live with its' "shortcomings", but it simply didn't fit my needs. I think the mini is more or less the same as the base 13" models.

You could always test drive an iMac and see if it meets your needs, or vice versa.

 

[VirtualRain]

I believe that Aperture utilizes old-school OpenGL... Not OpenCL (but I'd love to be proven wrong). And even then, the GPU is inconsequential. The fact is, if the OP is satisfied editing on a MBP, the Mac Mini will perform very similar (depending on the generation of the MBP and Mac Mini being compared). The Mac Mini has the same basic internals as a MBP or iMac for that matter... They all use Intels mobile CPU and chipset platform and the latest Sandy Bridge chips are Rock Star performers regardless of form factor.

Things that I believe can make a huge difference in performance: 8GB+ RAM and/or an SSD for storage (even if it's just for your active project and you archive images to a bigger, slower, HD)

That's my 2-cents

 

[OreoCookie]

I don't know if Aperture uses only OpenGL or OpenCL, but I haven't seen benchmarks specifically aimed at finding out how much Aperture benefits from a more powerful discrete GPU. One way to test this would be to take a machine with both, an integrated and a discrete GPU and run a benchmark twice. Does anyone know where to get Aperture benchmarks or how to make one yourself?

 

[mackmgg]

Am I missing something from this debate? You can order a Mac Mini with a Radeon HD, which does support OpenCL. So what's the problem with ordering a Mac Mini with a discrete graphics card, and using that for editing?

 

[VirtualRain]

I don't know if Aperture uses only OpenGL or OpenCL, but I haven't seen benchmarks specifically aimed at finding out how much Aperture benefits from a more powerful discrete GPU. One way to test this would be to take a machine with both, an integrated and a discrete GPU and run a benchmark twice. Does anyone know where to get Aperture benchmarks or how to make one yourself?

Here's the stuff I've seen indicating that Aperture uses OpenGL...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Core_Image
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1030867/ (see post #3)

I haven't seen anything definitive indicating that CoreImage has been rearchitected to use OpenCL.

Now, as for benchmarks, Barefeats has attempted some benchmarking of Aperture on a few occasions but the results have always been somewhat perplexing...

http://www.barefeats.com/mbpp23.html

4. Aperture ran our export test 24% faster than on the iMac Core i7 than on the MacBook Pro Core i7. Surprisingly, the Mac Pro not any faster than the iMac.
5. Using an SSD for boot drive and output drive speeds up the Aperture export process on the Mac Pro by 20%.
6. Lift and Stamp ran just as fast on the MacBook Pros as it did on the iMac and Mac Pro. We're scratching our heads on that one.
7. Another puzzle: Aperture 2 does the Lift and Stamp twice as fast as Aperture 3. More testing and head scratching is required before we post that graph.

http://www.barefeats.com/wst10c4.html

As for the GPU, according to Hardware Monitor, none of the four tests put more than a 4% load on it.

http://www.barefeats.com/wst10c2.html

Difference between a 4 core iMac and a 6 core Mac Pro is only 2 seconds.

The conclusion I draw from all this... to get the most out of Aperture, you don't want to starve it for RAM, store your images on an SSD if at all possible, and don't stress over the GPU (since the difference, if any, is hard to quantify).

 

[OreoCookie]

The conclusion I draw from all this... to get the most out of Aperture, you don't want to starve it for RAM, store your images on an SSD if at all possible, and don't stress over the GPU (since the difference, if any, is hard to quantify).

I agree with the conclusion, but barefeat's benchmarks are not very useful. I'll spare you the rant, though
Personally, I'd like to find out exactly how much of a difference a powerful GPU makes. The simplest way to gauge the benefits is to keep the rest of the configuration fixed.

 

[VirtualRain]

I agree with the conclusion, but barefeat's benchmarks are not very useful. I'll spare you the rant, though
Personally, I'd like to find out exactly how much of a difference a powerful GPU makes. The simplest way to gauge the benefits is to keep the rest of the configuration fixed.

Agreed that Barefeats leaves a bit to be desired sometimes. They rarely explore any anomalies they uncover to any satisfying extent. (so no rant was forthecoming )

It would be great for someone to dig deeper. However, I don't have a very capable GPU (Nvidia GT120) in my Quad Core Mac Pro and Aperture just flies on my machine. I really don't think that Aperture relies heavily on the GPU or the capability of the GPU is of little consequence.

 

[srf4real]

It would be great for someone to dig deeper.

If the question is which Mac is best suited for photo editing, answer would be Mac Pro.

If the question is whether the mini is capable and efficient, I have been digging through a hundred folders with tens of thousands of files culling out rejects and spot retouching some that catch my eye for about a week straight now, with Aperture 3, Adobe Bridge, and Photoshop CS5 running simultaneously on two 1920x1080 ips panels while listening to iTunes and answering Mail on and off.. a few quick breaks for Safari browsing.

No beachball. Hyperfast rendering. Hell I'm having to cut back on smoking because things are happening too fast that I used to have to wait long enough to puff one.. or two.. surprisingly iTunes is the huge processor and ram hog.??????

I chose the mini server for its i7 quad option and bto with the solid state in bay one and 7200rpm hdd in bay two. 8 gigs ram for now, until 16 is reasonably priced. And it cost far less than a Pro, or an iMac with similar configuration (admittedly lower frequency processor) or a MBP with similar configuration. I feel smart, and lucky to have something here that does not bring my work flow to a bottleneck at the processor.

By the way, no dedicated gpu. fwiw....

 

[OreoCookie]

If the question is which Mac is best suited for photo editing, answer would be Mac Pro.

The question is not `which machine is the fastest one I can buy today?' That'd be very easy, fill the 4 bays of a Mac Pro with 500 MB/s read/write SSDs, put in 16+ GB or RAM, several fast graphics cards and the machine will be faster than a Mac mini or a MacBook Air

The question is how much of a return you get on your investment. In your case, the question could have been `will Aperture run faster on a quad core CPU with slower graphics or a dual core CPU with faster graphics?' In my case, the question was whether I should get a more portable 13" MacBook Pro with a Core 2 Duo or a less portable 15" MacBook Pro with a Core i5? Some people have forgone a 13" MacBook Pro in the past, because of the discrete GPU and the (suspected) impact on performance of apps such as Aperture.

 

[srf4real]

The question is not `which machine is the fastest one I can buy today?' That'd be very easy, fill the 4 bays of a Mac Pro with 500 MB/s read/write SSDs, put in 16+ GB or RAM, several fast graphics cards and the machine will be faster than a Mac mini or a MacBook Air

The question is how much of a return you get on your investment. In your case, the question could have been `will Aperture run faster on a quad core CPU with slower graphics or a dual core CPU with faster graphics?' In my case, the question was whether I should get a more portable 13" MacBook Pro with a Core 2 Duo or a less portable 15" MacBook Pro with a Core i5? Some people have forgone a 13" MacBook Pro in the past, because of the discrete GPU and the (suspected) impact on performance of apps such as Aperture.

Sorry, thought the question was in thread title.. Read OP and didn't see reference to another ded gpu debate, just a simple question.

My experience is shared, good luck to all!

 

[radek42]

This is very interesting post. I am currently weighting the same decision. I'd love to use that computer (iMac or mini) mostly for photoshop stuff (advanced amateur stuff). Here are some of my thoughts:

1. I like compact and self-contained appearance of iMac including camera for Facetime.

2. I don't like fact, that you'd have to take the screen apart to change/upgrade HHD.

3. I like(ed) mini with dedicated graphics until I read this post I might not need it which would make it cheaper.

4. After reading the post the server seems more and more compelling despite the price tag.

5. I assumed that mini (even server version) will have lower power consumption which I like to file sharing and video/photo streaming. (I thought that iMacs are now using desktop components, which might be false).

Before I read this post I was leaning towards iMac despite some draw backs just because it seemed overall cheaper solution if you plan on buying keyboard, mouse/trackpad, and cd/dvd drive from Apple. I am nor crazy about glossy screen, but I think it should not be too big problem considering light conditions in the study.

I do have couple question for current mini owners here:
1. Did you get SSD from Apple or did you install it yourself.

2. Did anybody try fitting the second drive into non-server version? According to iFixit teardown there should be enough room to do that.

3. Can base mini handle full HD video (.mkv files)?

Thanks.

Cheers,
R>

Edit: Can you put 16GB ram into mini?

If the question is which Mac is best suited for photo editing, answer would be Mac Pro.

If the question is whether the mini is capable and efficient, I have been digging through a hundred folders with tens of thousands of files culling out rejects and spot retouching some that catch my eye for about a week straight now, with Aperture 3, Adobe Bridge, and Photoshop CS5 running simultaneously on two 1920x1080 ips panels while listening to iTunes and answering Mail on and off.. a few quick breaks for Safari browsing.

No beachball. Hyperfast rendering. Hell I'm having to cut back on smoking because things are happening too fast that I used to have to wait long enough to puff one.. or two.. surprisingly iTunes is the huge processor and ram hog.??????

I chose the mini server for its i7 quad option and bto with the solid state in bay one and 7200rpm hdd in bay two. 8 gigs ram for now, until 16 is reasonably priced. And it cost far less than a Pro, or an iMac with similar configuration (admittedly lower frequency processor) or a MBP with similar configuration. I feel smart, and lucky to have something here that does not bring my work flow to a bottleneck at the processor.

By the way, no dedicated gpu. fwiw....

 

[VirtualRain]

Before I read this post I was leaning towards iMac despite some draw backs just because it seemed overall cheaper solution if you plan on buying keyboard, mouse/trackpad, and cd/dvd drive from Apple. I am nor crazy about glossy screen, but I think it should not be too big problem considering light conditions in the study.

I think the key consideration in any iMac vs. Mac Mini debate must be your disposition towards the Apple 27" display. If you like that display, the iMac is a great value. If you don't, well, the solution is kinda obvious. Otherwise, in terms of performance, expansion (via ThunderBolt), etc. the Mac Mini and the iMac are nearly identical and based on the same core components and I believe perfectly capable of being great Aperture machines.

I do have couple question for current mini owners here:
1. Did you get SSD from Apple or did you install it yourself.

2. Did anybody try fitting the second drive into non-server version? According to iFixit teardown there should be enough room to do that.

3. Can base mini handle full HD video (.mkv files)?

Thanks.

Cheers,
R>

Edit: Can you put 16GB ram into mini?

You may want to ask some of your questions in the Mac Mini forum but I'm sure the answer to all your questions is YES. (I use mine for 1080p video all the time)

 

[radek42]

Thanks for your reply.

I think the key consideration in any iMac vs. Mac Mini debate must be your disposition towards the Apple 27" display. If you like that display, the iMac is a great value. If you don't, well, the solution is kinda obvious. Otherwise, in terms of performance, expansion (via ThunderBolt), etc. the Mac Mini and the iMac are nearly identical and based on the same core components and I believe perfectly capable of being great Aperture machines.

Actually I was considering 22in version ...

You may want to ask some of your questions in the Mac Mini forum but I'm sure the answer to all your questions is YES. (I use mine for 1080p video all the time)

Funny, there is similar thread in the mini forum and they suggest posting in photography I do realize that my questions were more-less hardware related.

Cheers, R>

 

[TheReef]

2. Did anybody try fitting the second drive into non-server version? According to iFixit teardown there should be enough room to do that.

And there's a spare port for it, the question is can you find the right kind of cable?

I'd be inclined to go for the quad i7 server myself, Aperture is CPU intensive and will happily max out both CPUs on my '09 mini, and you won't have to worry about finding the right cable.



FWIW on A2 (see my specs at bottom of post), from what I can see, Core Image (therefore the GPU) is used for "live adjustments" on the display, whereas CPU is for rendering the image.

When scrubbing adjustment bars back and forth, I notice a spike in GPU usage (Up to 60%)

When you are done and click on the next photo, you will see the "rendering previews" circular indicator appear, and you'll observe your CPU bars rising (in my case maxing out). GPU usage remains around 0% during this time.


Similarly huge GPU spikes while dodging and burning, when you click save and return to Aperture's main interface you'll notice CPU spike to render the image, whilst GPU remains low, around 0%.


You can look for yourself:

/Developer/Applications/Graphics Tools/OpenGL Driver Monitor.app



2009 Mac Mini, Aperture 2, Snow Leopard, FWIW.

This may or may not be of use to you - as I can't speak for A3, OpenCL, Lion etc, but this is my general observation.


I'd be interested to see what people running A3 on SL/Lion (with an OpenCL compatible GPU) achieve, specifically if a notable increase in GPU usage is observable in scenarios other than "live" manipulation.

 

[whiteyanderson]

You guys are way overthinking this. I am a professional retoucher and work exclusively in PS CS5, dropped down a couple years ago from Pro to a 2009 2.53, core 2 duo mini and did not miss a beat. Awesome little machine and that was with the stock 4GB of RAM. I recently cracked the case open (this weekend as a matter of fact) and installed 8GB finally, and it's even more impressive now.

The OP is referring to photo editing and I haven't even tried a 2011 mini yet, it will serve your purposes just fine. I work on massive RAW images 8-16 hours a day, 6-7 days a week and have never had an issue. And I do full on pixel by pixel, published retouching.

Get a mini and a nice 26" display like a Lacie or NEC or Eizo (if you wanna go whole hog) and be happy. Apple displays are no longer worthy of correct calibration for photo retouching or editing. Imac displays are even worse. How can you retouch or edit without accurate color calibration?

You do not need a dedicated graphics card for photo editing.

Only "upgrades" on my 2009 mini are the above mentioned 8GB RAM and 2 external FW800 drives.

 

[Ruahrc]

Thanks for the fresh perspective. I too agree that people are overthinking it here. And also I like your point about monitors. Don't underestimate how important a quality monitor (or two) is to good photo editing. A slow computer with a good monitor will produce better results than a fast computer with a crappy monitor, every time.

Not to mention 2 important facts that are being overlooked:

1) OpenCL implementation is not some magic fairy-dust that all of a sudden makes a 5-yr-old computer fly through processing. Be realistic about how much faster it really goes. VirtualRain's post above sheds light on this- it's not like Aperture is written to take massive advantage of OpenCL anyways.

2) Don't forget that even though it is discrete graphics, the 6630M is still a pretty low-end GPU. In my research I estimated that it is only about 50-100% faster than the Radeon X1950GT GPU in my 6-7 year old gaming PC. And back then, the X1950GT was only a upper midrange GPU. Even if things do get sped up by OpenCL, how much faster is it gonna go with such a weak GPU, compared to having an additional CPU core? Don't overestimate the gains afforded by an OpenCL-implemented program.

My recommendation is that if you don't intend do do 3D gaming, go with the quad cores. They will benefit you more and more often for processing-intensive tasks than the rare application that uses OpenCL would. If you do want to game, look carefully at how powerful the 6630M is really going to be for the games you want to play, and decide if it will cut it. If yes, then get the discrete GPU- if not go with the quad core again and figure out another solution for your gaming needs (build a gaming PC, get a console, etc).

Personally, I recently ordered the quad-core mini after coming to these realizations. I will upgrade it to 8GB RAM and replace one of the 750GB internal HDDs with a fast SSD.

Ruahrc

 

[critmoney]

It sounds like the consensus from people working with the Mini's is that PS and other photo-editing software will do just fine in either 2011 Mini when retouching, editing, importing, etc.

My question is this:

As a professional photographer and digital tech to other shooters, is a 2011 Mac Mini (probably Quad server model) capable of handling 1500+ images a day being pumped through via tethered capture in Capture One Pro? I'm primarily concerned with previews being rendered in a timely manner as captures continue to be imported simultaneously. I've noticed a huge improvement in this on a 2011 Macbook Pro (SSD, 16GB Ram) that I rented.

I'm planning on putting in a SATA 3.0 SSD and at least 8 GB of RAM in the Mini.

Ideally I'd love a new Mac Pro for pure processing power of high volume shoots, but I can't justify spending $5k for "old" technology when the Sandy Bridge Xeon processors are potentially due out 1Q 2012. So this is an in between that can then become an office machine eventually.

I would go for iMac but the glossy screen is very frustrating in brightly lit environments.

Thanks!

Any input would be extremely helpful.

 

[srf4real]

Yep. Four 2.0 GHz cores eight threads, eight gigs ram, ssd.. no worries. Previews render fast even in the thousands on my mini server with above specs.

 

[thekev]

It sounds like the consensus from people working with the Mini's is that PS and other photo-editing software will do just fine in either 2011 Mini when retouching, editing, importing, etc.

My question is this:

As a professional photographer and digital tech to other shooters, is a 2011 Mac Mini (probably Quad server model) capable of handling 1500+ images a day being pumped through via tethered capture in Capture One Pro? I'm primarily concerned with previews being rendered in a timely manner as captures continue to be imported simultaneously. I've noticed a huge improvement in this on a 2011 Macbook Pro (SSD, 16GB Ram) that I rented.

I'm planning on putting in a SATA 3.0 SSD and at least 8 GB of RAM in the Mini.

Why not check out what the other digi techs are using these days although their setups might be a bit biased. The thing about the digi techs that have survived is they basically did so (or it seems the case with most of them) by offering motion capture support as well, thus requiring a heavier rig especially in terms of storage throughput.

Regarding Capture One in recent versions it does seem to scale pretty well with core count, and it depends what kind of camera they're shooting. They go up to 80 megapixels these days although I haven't seen much from those but the files would take longer to process. I'd like to see manufacturers actually move away from the whole bayer RGBG array design rather than continually pump up the pixel count. At least they enlarged the sensor on that one. You'd want some kind of storage solution if you're using a mini including backup on site.

----------

Get a mini and a nice 26" display like a Lacie or NEC or Eizo (if you wanna go whole hog) and be happy. Apple displays are no longer worthy of correct calibration for photo retouching or editing. Imac displays are even worse. How can you retouch or edit without accurate color calibration?

You do not need a dedicated graphics card for photo editing.

Only "upgrades" on my 2009 mini are the above mentioned 8GB RAM and 2 external FW800 drives.

I'm with you on this (and in the same line of work). Really even integrated graphics won't choke on simple openGL editing. With Lion 8GB is starting to feel like a minimum if you work with really large files. Getting too low on ram is pretty noticeable especially if it's not scratching to an SSD. Apple displays were never that great. If you look at when the 23" cinema display came out and put it against a CG210, there was literally no comparison. It was the same with the newer cinema displays and the CG211. The Apple displays had inferior stability, terrible clipping, and they were too bright when new, but looked like crap when dialed down.

Imacs are ok for a secondary display. It's just if you need a quality display for editing photos or video, it'll never be your primary display there. If you own one, you keep the expensive display turned off when you're not working on stuff and just use the imac (or in my case an older display) to check email and post on macrumors