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What am I missing here and what direction to go (Apple and this year has finally broken me and my brain)

arctair

arctair

macrumors member
Original poster
Aug 21, 2020
58
22
I currently have a semi-dying Late-2012 Mini with a 2.3 GHz Quad-Core 3rd-Generation Intel Core i7. The most maxed-out current Mini has a 3.2GHz 6‑core 8th‑generation Intel Core i7.

The onboard video still is weak, so I'm looking at eGPUs, which I 'm seeing you have to play cord switcheroo with every time you boot up your machine.

If I get a maxed-out 2018 iMac, how much of an improvement is it? What does 0.9 GHz and five generations if i7 get me?

I need to be able to edit 6K video if possible. I just returned a 2020 iMac with Nano glass. The Nano just didn't cut it, and after years of having a 7" square on my desk, having to deal with a $3500 screen/computer that's so fragile you need a special cloth and was so heavy my VESA arm couldn't even keep the thing vertical at the tightest setting scared the **** out of me.

The return will be processed soon, I'll have a large chunk of change to reallocate, and I'm not sure if I should get the same iMac minus the Nano glass (with just slightly reduced anxiety, an upgraded VESA arm, etc), max out the current Mini and pickup an eGPU, or just keep my now-reconnected Late-2012 running, go on unemployment, and just drink coffee and stare at the wall for the next six months.

I think on Reddit they call this a s**tpost.

It would be nice if there existed something with the power of the iMac that wasn't stuffed behind glass. Not the Pro; I'm not running a movie studio. Just the 8-core i9 everyone loves in the iMac and a decent graphics card. I guess it's called a Hackintosh, but I no longer have the patience of inclination.

Tl;dr:

Needs: Edit and export 4-6K video, process RAW photos. Most exported video would most-likely be 4K, but would like to edit and keep the master as 6K. Read blogs and write terrible Sunday-morning forum posts.

Resources: $4K (dollars, not pixels) once Nano-glass iMac return is processed.

What to do?
 
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I also have a 2012 quad Mini like yours, although the 2.6ghz version (and mine isn't dying ;) ). I have the maxxed out 2018 i7/64gb/2tb Mini and love it. Geekbench rating is about twice my 2012 quad, so it will be slightly more for yours. The internal SSD is really fast, write speed about 2700MB/sec which is about 5x faster than the original Apple internal SSD on my 2012 quad.

I'm only driving one 32" QHD screen and haven't seen any problems with that. Used to work a lot with video, but not recently. Will eventually get back to that however and hook up my Sony 1080p production monitor as a preview screen for FCP. Sorry, no insight as to how well eGPU's work and I don't do anything more than 1080p video.

But the Mini really fits my needs well, am running Windows 10 under Parallels and it's much faster than my old Windows PC plus rock-solid (no crashes in over 3 months heavy use). I also wish Apple made an iMac without the screen, would have gotten one of those instead. You will certainly be giving up some performance with the Mini, but when I was comparing it surprised me that the iMac Pro only had a geekbench rating 50% higher than the i7 Mini, I assumed it would have been faster. Your $4000 will certainly get you the top spec Mini with plenty left over for peripherals. I got mine as a refurb which saves quite a bit on the high end models.
 
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F23 said:
wait for ARM macs
Click to expand...

This I would do if my current 2012 mini which I just had to set back up again wasn't literally dying. The power supply is failing and the computer will just turn off 1-2 times a day; when I got a good virtual job back in the Spring and had to start using my Chromebook, that's what started this whole process.
 
Boyd01 said:
I also have a 2012 quad Mini like yours, although the 2.6ghz version (and mine isn't dying ;) ). I have the maxxed out 2018 i7/64gb/2tb Mini and love it. Geekbench rating is about twice my 2012 quad, so it will be slightly more for yours. The internal SSD is really fast, write speed about 2700MB/sec which is about 5x faster than the original Apple internal SSD on my 2012 quad.

I'm only driving one 32" QHD screen and haven't seen any problems with that. Used to work a lot with video, but not recently. Will eventually get back to that however and hook up my Sony 1080p production monitor as a preview screen for FCP. Sorry, no insight as to how well eGPU's work and I don't do anything more than 1080p video.

But the Mini really fits my needs well, am running Windows 10 under Parallels and it's much faster than my old Windows PC plus rock-solid (no crashes in over 3 months heavy use). I also wish Apple made an iMac without the screen, would have gotten one of those instead. You will certainly be giving up some performance with the Mini, but when I was comparing it surprised me that the iMac Pro only had a geekbench rating 50% higher than the i7 Mini, I assumed it would have been faster. Your $4000 will certainly get you the top spec Mini with plenty left over for peripherals. I got mine as a refurb which saves quite a bit on the high end models.
Click to expand...

Well, twice the speed/power is nothing to shake a stick at, but I don't think I need that much power. Thanks for a bit of clarity. I just like modularity, not a computer crammed into a screen — esp one whose warranty you will literaly void if you don't clean it with the official Nano cleaning cloth. I already have two 32 GB memory sticks ready to go, so I think the maxed (8 GB) Mini is the way I'll go — with yes, enough left to play with eGPUs/more memory if needed. If the new ARM versions prove to be something amazing, there will surely be a market for a lightly-used final Intel Mini.
 
arctair said:
This I would do if my current 2012 mini which I just had to set back up again wasn't literally dying. The power supply is failing and the computer will just turn off 1-2 times a day; when I got a good virtual job back in the Spring and had to start using my Chromebook, that's what started this whole process.
Click to expand...
the first ARM mac will be released this year so within the next 1.5 months if you can wait that long
 
That is a toughy. Waiting for the Apple Silicon CPU Mac mini would be ideal, but if you can't the 2018 models aren't bad.

Your mini has benchmark scores of...
- Single-core: 668
- Multi-core: 2630

The 2018 models:

• 3.6GHz Quad-core i3
-- Single-core: 911 (~36% faster)
-- Multi-core: 3258 (~24% faster)

• 3.0GHz Hexa-core i5
-- Single-core: 1016 (~52% faster)
-- Multi-core: 4760 (~81% faster)

• 3.2GHz Hexa-core i7
-- Single-core: 1121 (~68% faster)
-- Multi-core: 5646 (~115% faster)

Additionally, as @Boyd01 pointed out, storage I/O is also significantly faster. At its theoretical best, SATA tops at 750MBps. As evidenced by the reader posted benchmarks, including @Boyd01, Apple's chosen SSDs and implementation in the 2018 Mac minis are anywhere from 3-6x faster than anything we can install in our 2012 models. In fact, those BlackMagic tests also show 2018 Mac minis are capable of 4K video editing I/O. With certain formats, software, you might be okay with 6K though that could be pushing it.

Lastly, as for the GPU... Of course, it's better. And Intel even notes support for many codes, including HEVC 10-bit (H.265) 8K 4:2:0. However, there's no mention of performance, and IGPUs are certainly far more limited e.g. 1.5GB of shared system memory. So, I'll leave it at that and hand it off to anyone with "pro" video editing experience.
 
eGPU “cord switceroo” may be a thing of the past with the latest Catalina update, and is easily avoidable with an HDMI plug. There are posts on the forum about this. I just hooked up a small TV to the HDMI port, replacing a HDMI plug, with two monitors attached to the eGPU and have no startup issues.

I have a 2018 Mini, 32 Gig RAM, 500 Gig drive, Razor Core X with Sapphire Pulse RX580. I upgraded from a 2010 Mac Pro. I’m very happy with the Mini. I don’t do video but photography is a hobby. RAW processing with Adobe. The Mini is noticeably snappier. I bought it last December and have no worries about the Apple Silicon transition.

Good luck with your decision.
 
robotica said:
if the computer is powerful enough for your needs I would look for a replacement psu if you are sure that is the problem.
Click to expand...
I'd be very hesitant that's worth the time, money, and effort. If you do it yourself, the part is $80 and the guide says the process is "difficult." After adding an SSD, I can say the (2012) Mac mini is not the most challenging/annoying machine to perform maintenance, though by no definition a quick swap.
 
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MacCheetah3 said:
I'd be very hesitant that's worth the time, money, and effort. If you do it yourself, the part is $80 and the guide says the process is "difficult." After adding an SSD, I can say the (2012) Mac mini is not the most challenging/annoying machine to perform maintenance, though by no definition a quick swap.
Click to expand...

Yea, she's been good to me, but we're in hospice mode here.
 
Thanks everyone. And I think it's the A2 chip that handles a lot of the HVEC encoding, so not sweating that. So yea, maxed-out Mini it is; we'll be starting with 64 GB memory; if the video editing process is CPU slow I'm prob stuck... but planned on converting to some sort of intermediate format from the raw 6k (or shooting in 4k and save the highest resolution for stills anyway. If I have enough work where I need to render faster, then I can look into an eGPU. Or just start looking around for deals now. But I'm almost positive my 1990s lime green Gen 1 iMac (RIP) was my last.
 
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arctair said:
I currently have a semi-dying Late-2012 Mini with a 2.3 GHz Quad-Core 3rd-Generation Intel Core i7. The most maxed-out current Mini has a 3.2GHz 6‑core 8th‑generation Intel Core i7.

The onboard video still is weak, so I'm looking at eGPUs, which I 'm seeing you have to play cord switcheroo with every time you boot up your machine.

If I get a maxed-out 2018 iMac, how much of an improvement is it? What does 0.9 GHz and five generations if i7 get me?

I need to be able to edit 6K video if possible. I just returned a 2020 iMac with Nano glass. The Nano just didn't cut it, and after years of having a 7" square on my desk, having to deal with a $3500 screen/computer that's so fragile you need a special cloth and was so heavy my VESA arm couldn't even keep the thing vertical at the tightest setting scared the **** out of me.

The return will be processed soon, I'll have a large chunk of change to reallocate, and I'm not sure if I should get the same iMac minus the Nano glass (with just slightly reduced anxiety, an upgraded VESA arm, etc), max out the current Mini and pickup an eGPU, or just keep my now-reconnected Late-2012 running, go on unemployment, and just drink coffee and stare at the wall for the next six months.

I think on Reddit they call this a s**tpost.

It would be nice if there existed something with the power of the iMac that wasn't stuffed behind glass. Not the Pro; I'm not running a movie studio. Just the 8-core i9 everyone loves in the iMac and a decent graphics card. I guess it's called a Hackintosh, but I no longer have the patience of inclination.

Tl;dr:

Needs: Edit and export 4-6K video, process RAW photos. Most exported video would most-likely be 4K, but would like to edit and keep the master as 6K. Read blogs and write terrible Sunday-morning forum posts.

Resources: $4K (dollars, not pixels) once Nano-glass iMac return is processed.

What to do?
Click to expand...
Build a computer based on AMD -the benefit will soon be on sale 5000 line.
RTX3090 is enough for comfortable work with real-time RAW video processing in 4-6-8K resolution (I had the last ONE on tests for about a month with beta drivers),and it is not powerful enough for this purpose. Moreover, it has disabled NVIDIA RTX IO technology, which you will hardly use.
Photoshop, Lightroom, and Topaz plugins can load the video card at 100%, so the more powerful the better.
Building a Hackintosh - what's so complicated about it? A 30 - minute case.
 
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FWIW this is what a 2018 i7 Mini w/32GB looks like running HandBrake. Details are in the HandBrake sidebar…

Bench4a.png
GetRealBro
 
If OP needs to edit 6K video, I don't think a Mac Mini is going to cut it.

I would get a non-nano-glass iMac, or maybe even an iMac Pro.

Edit: Oh, an eGPU isn't a terrible idea though. I don't have much (any) experience with them, so I won't pretend I know what I'm talking about. :)
 
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Video in 6K in RAW format in real-time video processing mode with superimposed effects is difficult to master the iMac Pro. Or it will,but the budget will be over $ 4000. Only there you need powerful iron. For example i9 10900 series.
Therefore,I strongly recommend topicaster to build a custom computer on AMD, even on Windows, even on a Hackintosh. And in the near future, do not worry about performance for the tasks described above.
 
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normanfox said:
don't be too excite with ARM mac since nothing will be upgradable, even RAM. Apple TV is currently the ARM mac.
Click to expand...

Apple TV is an iOS device just like your phone or your iPad.
Just because they are all using an ARM processor, it doesn’t mean they have any similarity to a future ARM based, MacOS running, Mac computer.
You might well be right about lack of upgradeability simply because that’s the way it is already, but a guess is only a guess.
 
arctair said:
I already have two 32 GB memory sticks ready to go, so I think the maxed (8 GB) Mini is the way I'll go — with yes, enough left to play with eGPUs/more memory if needed.
Click to expand...

Not quite clear on what you are saying here, but just in case you didn't know, 64gb is as much memory as you can put in the 2018 Mini.
 
Boyd01 said:
Not quite clear on what you are saying here, but just in case you didn't know, 64gb is as much memory as you can put in the 2018 Mini.
Click to expand...

You're right. Well I'm maxed out then, and that probably won't be the bottleneck anyways.
 
Mr.Fox said:
Video in 6K in RAW format in real-time video processing mode with superimposed effects is difficult to master the iMac Pro. Or it will,but the budget will be over $ 4000. Only there you need powerful iron. For example i9 10900 series.
Therefore,I strongly recommend topicaster to build a custom computer on AMD, even on Windows, even on a Hackintosh. And in the near future, do not worry about performance for the tasks described above.
Click to expand...

No familiarity with Topicaster; Googled and got nothing. Typo? I'm curious.
 
arctair said:
This I would do if my current 2012 mini which I just had to set back up again wasn't literally dying. The power supply is failing and the computer will just turn off 1-2 times a day; when I got a good virtual job back in the Spring and had to start using my Chromebook, that's what started this whole process.
Click to expand...
I personally am waiting for my “big upgrade” which will be to Apple Silicon.

In the meantime I am considering upgrading to the “new” Mac Mini until the Apple Silicon migration happens, both in software and hardware. My iMac is on its last legs.
 
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