I need a bit of configuration advice. I’m thinking about a new mini for some photo editing chores. I make photos, edit them in Lightroom and print to medium-large format epson printers. I do not do video, HDR, panoramas, etc.
I’m currently using a 2013 quad-core Mac Pro w. 16gb ram and 512 SSD. It is sufficient. I will likely continue to use that in my studio for some time. At home, I’m thinking about a new mini, and would like configuration advice.
First, will the on-board GPU be sufficient for the uses projected above? If so, what’s your advice for CPU? (I’ve never really understood how the processor and gpu relate to my work, specifically). I’ll likely spec 32GB ram as much to future-proof as anything. My photos are stored externally so will likely spec a 256GB SSD. Any thoughts?
From 2013-2017 I used a 2012 quad-core i7 Mac Mini with 16Gb RAM for Photoshop and Lightroom. It too was sufficient, and I regularly outputted to my 13x17" photo printer. (In mid-2017 I upgraded to a new 27" i5 iMac and threw in extra RAM totaling 40Gb, which made for a big improvement.) So you should be more than fine with a new Mini.
My six-year-old Mini had garbage graphics - an Intel HD 4000 card which shared system memory - yet it handled Lightroom, Photoshop and Ableton Live (the power apps I used on it) respectably. More info and GeekBench scores on that particular model here.
(I still have the thing, and it’s still connected to my 24" Dell monitor, but it’s been gathering dust on a table ever since I got my iMac 18 months ago. I kept it thinking it could be a backup unit in case something happened to the iMac, and then I more recently thought I might turn it into a Plex server, but now I think I’ll give it to a relative who’s got high ebay feedbacks and have her sell it for me.)