Apple Announces Major Update to Mac Mini with up to 6 Cores, 64GB RAM, and 10GBE.
- Thread starter Gary T
- Start date
puredrifting
Major Contributor
Thanks for the heads up, $10.00 is a lot less extortion than $20.00 per month, I was looking on the Adobe site.
I'm on Lightroom V3 if that gives you any indication of how often I update. I am much more of the "is it reliable and rock solid?" school than the "I gotta have every new weenie feature that is mostly bloatware" school ;-)
I learned this producing hundreds of shows at a medium sized production company for quite a few years. We had 10 edit bays. We purposely kept our AVIDs and FCP bays at least two and sometimes three updates behind, especially if they were solid versions. Delivering content on tight deadlines to the studios means that reliability is about 90% more important than any new features. Many of the biggest post houses in Hollywood hew to the same philosophy. It used to be that when a new update for our AVIDs or other crucial software dropped, some post facilities would update all of their systems at once. Then a few days later, a major bug or issue would become apparent and you'd have the IT people frantically trying to downgrade to previous versions and OSs because crashing editing stations aren't good for business.
It has stuck with me, I rarely like to update any software or OS unless I have to. I updated FCP X to 10.4.3 because I needed Cinema RAW Light support so had to bite the bullet and go from Sierra to High Sierra, but it was kicking and screaming all of the way. I lost almost $2,000.00 worth of software programs and utilities with that stupid "upgrade" because I had some really useful ones that were never updated to run on High Sierra or taken over by new versions that I didn't want to pay hundreds of dollars for. Much like cameras, software companies often push out updates mainly to generate revenue, not because they have anything truly new and innovative to offer. I don't play the game unless I have to. Tie this with Apple's almost constant OS with no backward compatibility axiom and you have a lot of wheel spinning and money for very little tangible benefit. Or worse yet, you become like Adobe and each update of your flagship editing software becomes more bloated and less reliable with each iteration.
Sometimes you need the latest and greatest, but for me, my stills workflow was refined years ago so updating to the new versions will just basically be a huge PITA with no real tangible benefits for me or my workflow. Guess I am of the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" school of thought.
Last edited:
I made the switch from Lightroom to Capture One years ago. Unless you need a specific plug-in that only works for LR, Capture One is a better program that does essentially the same thing. It's designed for studio and medium-format users, so there's zero debate about its "pro credentials". It's $300 one-time purchased. Or you can pay $15/mo if you prefer to do it that way. Sony camera owners can get a full version for $30, but it only opens Sony files. (Which is fine if all you do is shoot Sony system.)
For video editing I switched to Resolve (the new 15 is great) and I'm even getting up to speed on Fusion to replace some of the stuff we'd do previously with After Effects. Fusion is weird, but powerful once you get the hang of it (and built-into Resolve 15 now). We have Resolve running from a server (Mac mini) with three computers (2 iMacs, Mac Pro, MacBook Pro) attached over a 10GB network. Photoshop was easily replaced with Affinity Photo (I used PS since version 1.0). My illustration needs are much less these days then they were years ago and Affinity Designer works to fill what little I need in that department.
We still keep an Adobe CC license around for the times we need to deal with specific clients that require a Premiere project or hand off an AF file. So, it's not like I couldn't use Photoshop/Premiere/AF if I needed them... they're installed and licensed. I just don't find I really need to use any Adobe apps these days.
Last edited:
“Extortion” seems a little... extreme.
I don’t consider the rent on an apartment or lease on a vehicle extortion. Software is no different.
I mostly prefer to buy, but I have to say I much prefer paying $240 per year (or less if I can find it on sale) to $2500 for CS Master Collection. Works out much better for me.
I consider software a depreciating asset... which it is if you have to stay at least relatively current for interoperability (I do) so it makes sense to purchase it SaaS style. But different strokes for different folks. I just think the aversion to SaaS is less about the economics than it is an aversion to a different model in most cases.
Also, with a background in software I can tell you that unless your computer is entirely cut off from the Internet, software ages... and not gracefully. There’s pain in being an early adopter, but there’s also pain running Windows XP in 2018 and your computer getting p0wn3d every thirty seconds because you’re no longer getting security or stability upgrades. The sweet spot for stability is staying 1-2 versions behind brand new.
I don’t consider the rent on an apartment or lease on a vehicle extortion. Software is no different.
I mostly prefer to buy, but I have to say I much prefer paying $240 per year (or less if I can find it on sale) to $2500 for CS Master Collection. Works out much better for me.
I consider software a depreciating asset... which it is if you have to stay at least relatively current for interoperability (I do) so it makes sense to purchase it SaaS style. But different strokes for different folks. I just think the aversion to SaaS is less about the economics than it is an aversion to a different model in most cases.
Also, with a background in software I can tell you that unless your computer is entirely cut off from the Internet, software ages... and not gracefully. There’s pain in being an early adopter, but there’s also pain running Windows XP in 2018 and your computer getting p0wn3d every thirty seconds because you’re no longer getting security or stability upgrades. The sweet spot for stability is staying 1-2 versions behind brand new.
alaskacameradude
Veteran
Of course the reason some of us are pointing this out, is the PC users jumping
on this topic to inform us about the so called 'Mac Tax.' If you are using FCP X.....
you pay once.....but guess what? You get to 'stay current' just like Adobe users
only all your updates are free. Same for Motion and Compressor. And
same for the studio version of Resolve as a matter of fact. So it's not
like Saas is the only way you can 'stay current' with software. Use Apple's
software instead of Adobe and you offset this 'Mac Tax' by
getting cheaper software (with updates.)
puredrifting
Major Contributor
For me, it's all about the corporate idea. I simply don't like the idea of an ongoing fee for the rest of my life to pay to a corporation, it rubs me the wrong way. If Adobe gave users a choice, Saas or buy, I would have no problem with it, Saas has it's advantages. But the Adobe/AVID/ProTools "My way or the Highway" business model is a middle finger to millions of loyal users worldwide. It's their business, they can do whatever they want, but as a loud-mouthed consumer, it's also my right to denigrate them and call them out for their dicatator-like business decision. I'm not an outlier in that either, Adobe has lost millions of users and more importantly, unaccountable good will from their user base worldwide since they switched to this model.
Having worked in corporate strategic execution planning as a consultant for years, I can replay the boardroom conversations that took place to arrive at this decision and I disagree with it as it was based purely off of greed (I am an avowed capitalist so I have no problem with making a good profit but it's a deft balancing act between doing that and insulting your customers) and smacks of a way to leverage market dominance into a type if indentured servitude (pay me forever for the privelege of using my tools). I use the term extortion as if you have a huge library of Adobe authored projects, you are stuck having to pay them forever, JUST TO ACCESS YOUR WORK. It would also be different if Adobe had taken the increase in revenues and sunk it back into product development, but they haven't, their product is becoming incrementaly worse, less stable and less reliable with each new release as they pack Premiere CC with what boils down to bloatware that the majority of users don't want or need. Their substandard rendering speed results have also gone over the cliff as both FCP X and Resolve mop the floor compared to Adobe rendering speed, something that is so important to the average editor.
So I am not speaking out of hyperbole or group think, I formulated my own opinion based upon my knowledge and experience in this business for a ridiculously long time. The overall profits on Adobe's model obviously have offset their losses so bravo to them as a business, I just think that they suck as a corporation, even though I, overall, like their products. No different than Apple. I really have major problems with how Apple has ran, evolved and their business strategies that screw over their customers but at least they don't don't ding my credit card monthly for life for the privilege of using their products.
and then some. I haven't read the latest annual report, but previous one's were glowing at quite some incredible increases in revenue and profits due to the subscription service. The loses in customers who like to purchase is of no consequence. It is an enormous success for them.
filmguy123
Veteran
The subscription model bothers me as well and when things slow down and as options expand I am seriously considering the switch to Resolve. I'm just not quite ready, because of the full suite integration.
But of it all, this is what bothers me the most - it's bred complacency. Massive revenues with very little consumer demand for improvements or motive to get the company to produce worthy updates. The annual incremental updates are so lackluster as to feel like minor patch releases. Ironically, I am guessing that sans subscription model and less revenue, Adobe products would actually be substantially bet today had they been forced to claw for each user upgrade against competitors.
Thomas Smet
Veteran
I own FCPX, Motion, Compressor, Affinity Photo, Affinity Design and soon Affinity Publish. Thats about $500 investment I made years ago and haven't paid a single penny since. From a video editor perspective Affinity does anything and everything they would use Photoshop or Illustrator for. I can even export PSD from Affinity to load as multiple layers into Motion. About the only two things I really miss from Illustrator is the ability to turn a crappy bitmap image into a vector drawing quickly wit the trace tools and the ability to save in the AI format if a client even needs that format. Even from a graphic design perspective there is nothing really missing or lacking in Affinity.
When it comes to Audition I don't have much need for a stand alone audio editor anymore. Any audio editing I need can be done right in FCPX.
Never used Lightroom and I mostly use Apples own Photos app to keep all my raw photos. When I need some fancy raw image editing I open the raw files in Affinity Photo and go to town.
I also own Logic but rarely get a chance to use it anymore to experiment with music.
When it comes to Audition I don't have much need for a stand alone audio editor anymore. Any audio editing I need can be done right in FCPX.
Never used Lightroom and I mostly use Apples own Photos app to keep all my raw photos. When I need some fancy raw image editing I open the raw files in Affinity Photo and go to town.
I also own Logic but rarely get a chance to use it anymore to experiment with music.
Thomas Smet
Veteran
Can't recall if this was mentioned or not but the Mac mini has user upgradable ram. So there is no need to buy the expensive Apple ram. One should be able to get the 8GB model and look for more affordable ram. I would look for confirmation of this and make sure there you purchase the exact required type of ram but this should cut the cost greatly.
Geekbench also has a preliminary benchmark that beats the 8 core Mac Pro trashcan and the top 6 core MBP. A 6 core Mac mini combined with a Vega 64 eGPU, and after market 64GB of ram is basically a mini Mac Pro. All for a very low cost of $1,100 for the Mac and another $1,000 for the eGPU. I would also just get the base model with the 128GB SSD. Buy after market storage as well since its a desktop. Takes seconds to plug it in and you never have to worry about it again.
If I didn't need portability I would buy one of these right now.
Geekbench also has a preliminary benchmark that beats the 8 core Mac Pro trashcan and the top 6 core MBP. A 6 core Mac mini combined with a Vega 64 eGPU, and after market 64GB of ram is basically a mini Mac Pro. All for a very low cost of $1,100 for the Mac and another $1,000 for the eGPU. I would also just get the base model with the 128GB SSD. Buy after market storage as well since its a desktop. Takes seconds to plug it in and you never have to worry about it again.
If I didn't need portability I would buy one of these right now.
puredrifting
Major Contributor
I saw the same thing and it is intriguing. I have a 1TB SSD in an OWC Thunderbolt dock that would run the OS and apps. But aren't really good 5K displays still pretty expensive? The ones Apple shows on their website are $1,299.00? I have not shopped for 5K displays but I love the one on this iMac I am typing this on. 64GB of RAM will be $500.00 to $600.00, OWC is shipping their RAM kit momentarily for it. You would want the e-GPU Pro which is $1,200.00 and you'd want the six core which is $1,300.00. So Ram is say $600.00, $2,500.00 for the Mac Mini and eGPU Pro, $3,100.00, plus if you didn't already own a good 1TB SSD and dock or housing like I do, figure at least another $500.00 for that, now you are at $3,600.00 plus you need a 5K monitor, at least what? $800.00 to $1,000.00? $4,600.00 isn't small investment. You'd have a nice system but my iMac that ended up at $2,400.00 is a better value for me although the Mac Mini would be faster. There are still no fast cheap Macs, even the Mac Minis because of all of the stuff you need to make it a workable system.
Last edited:
Thomas Smet
Veteran
You need to compare apples to apples however. If the mini is adding 64GB then the iMac has to as well. Plus you need to also factor in the same GPU to have equal value. A $500 RX580 eGPU is a better match to the top iMac. plus the base Mac mini is only $1,100 with the top CPU, 128 SSD and 8GB of ram. Thats $1,600 minus the ram and not every needs 64GB right away. As to the 5k monitor not every needs that either. Many are perfectly ok with a 4k monitor which is vastly cheaper. Thats really what the Mac mini is all about. Not forcing users into specific hardware. You can choose the monitors you want, choose the ram you want, choose the external storage you want and choose the eGPU you want. The iMac locks you into that screen and that GPU. Although a eGPU can also be added to the 2017 iMac any user is not going to notice any advantage with a RX580 and will only have the Vega GPUs as an option to make it worth the cost.
I also tend to prefer two 24" 4k monitors vs one 5k monitor. Same amount of pixels really but the two monitors distribute those pixels in a way that makes more sense to view and distribute applications. Not saying the 5k display isn't amazing but that sometimes I still prefer a wider setup with two monitors. Plus with two monitors you can use one as a full video output when editing.
puredrifting
Major Contributor
Well, to be fair, I did outfit my iMac with 64GB of RAM. I am still learning about the apparent speed differences between different GPUs. All I know is when we hooked up the e-GPU (not the Pro) to a new i9 top of the line MBP, the rendering speed differences were almost negligible, I was surprised. I used to like two monitor setups but now that I am on FCP X, I do fine with the one 5K monitor and I would need a wider desk to accomdate two monitors nowdays, although I do sometimes miss it, it's nice to have two for hardcore editing.
Thomas Smet
Veteran
The Mac mini is definitely not for everybody. Its really about choices and for the first time those that prefer a headless setup actually have a decent alternative. The Mini was always plagued by vastly inferior GPU but now with TB3 that is no longer as big of an issue. With 6 cores, user upgradable ram, TB3 for video storage and eGPU the Mini can pretty much do it all. The other really important factor of the TB3 ports on the Mac mini is that there are four ports. There are typically 2 TB ports per bus so you can attach video storage to one pair on TB3 ports and a eGPU with full TB3 bandwidth on the second set of ports. This is another key advantage over the iMac which only has 2 TB3 ports and a single TB bus. On the iMac if one was to attach a eGPU that would have to share bandwidth with external storage. The Mini represents a completely level of choice for the user which is something we no longer typically see on Mac computers.
eGPU is also not just about increasing performance but also a new way of selecting what GPU a system has. If one wants a Vega 64 why pay more for a system with a RX580 inside? Perhaps we will eventually have a top iMac where the dedicated GPU could be excluded entirely for those that want to pick and choose their own GPU. On laptops it still makes sense to have a built in decent GPU since the eGPU may not always be around.
dmitrizigany
Veteran
Yes, I have a Hackintosh built in what is supposed to be a silent case. Still I can't stand the sound the spinning drives are making in it
However, for a Mac Pro, I feel it would have to have at least one user changeable M.2/NVMe drive and space for one or two regular SSDs. Having ample space for libraries etc without having to connect an external drive is essential. And being to upgrade that internal storage as you need more without having to add external drives.
TB3/USB-C is the tipping point... TB2 and earlier was always too expensive, you paid a too high premium for the Thunderbolt. Now I can buy a €20 usb-c chassi and have a 520mb/s drive!
That's not been a common impression lately.
Resolve runs quite well with modern GPUs and otherwise modest hardware -- unless you're dealing with 8K Redcode.
Of course, if they were genuinely smart, they'd be using Resolve for even less...
For a dose of reality though, I color graded a feature film shot in 8K Redcode on a $1500 HP laptop with an external nVidia GPU. For the most part, that $1500 HP laptop outperformed a $3000 MacBook Pro (purchased later than the HP). There were a few mainly CPU bound applications that I found that performed better on the mac, because it had a 45 watt processor in it compared to my HP's 15 watt processor. But most of what I work with is pretty GPU heavy, and the nVidia GPU even though it only had 2GB and is limited to 20 watts usually outperformed the 4GB Radeon Pro in the macbook pro. With straight OpenGL it was close.
That's precisely why I stopped using macs though... they just don't get the job done. I like the OS better than I like windows, but I really just want it to do what I need done, and the macbook pro didn't cut it. The far less expensive HP does.
That little thing looks promising -- now if only Apple would get its booty in gear with nVidia support... six to eight cores + a 2080Ti (yeah, once the failure problems are solved) might actually do for even 8K Redcode with the upcoming Red SDK that offloads wavelet decoding to some of the dedicated hardware that nVidia built into the Turing line.
Several. I'm currently using On1's suite, but I'm also keeping an eye on Luminar in case SkyLum's file management module turns out to be enough of a reason to bounce. They're both quite inexpensive, and I quite enjoy editing photos in Luminar, but detest the broken workflow of using it as a plugin instead of built into the DAM. Hence the On1 part. That has both, and both work well. It's turning into a great editor also... and when I need more sophistication in painting and image manipulation and that sort of thing, I move the image over to Affinity.
puredrifting
Major Contributor
Definitely, when I tested the eGPU with my friends new top of the line i9 MBP, I was kind of surprised by how large and heavy the eGPU was. Not portable at all really, AC powered only, big and weighs almost 10lbs. It depends on your workflow and what you do but I abhor cutting on a laptop, I really prefer to edit in my bay with my Genelecs, mixer, subwoofer, RAIDs and 27" iMac. Even prefer it for writing documents, even though I write a lot on my laptop just because I am in work meetings. But typing in an Aeron chair in a quiet office beats typing on a laptop in an uncomfortable chair in a noisy Starbucks for me.
Thomas Smet
Veteran
That's not been a common impression lately.
Resolve runs quite well with modern GPUs and otherwise modest hardware -- unless you're dealing with 8K Redcode.
Of course, if they were genuinely smart, they'd be using Resolve for even less...
For a dose of reality though, I color graded a feature film shot in 8K Redcode on a $1500 HP laptop with an external nVidia GPU. For the most part, that $1500 HP laptop outperformed a $3000 MacBook Pro (purchased later than the HP). There were a few mainly CPU bound applications that I found that performed better on the mac, because it had a 45 watt processor in it compared to my HP's 15 watt processor. But most of what I work with is pretty GPU heavy, and the nVidia GPU even though it only had 2GB and is limited to 20 watts usually outperformed the 4GB Radeon Pro in the macbook pro. With straight OpenGL it was close.
That's precisely why I stopped using macs though... they just don't get the job done. I like the OS better than I like windows, but I really just want it to do what I need done, and the macbook pro didn't cut it. The far less expensive HP does.
It really depends on the software used. I use a Mac so I can use FCPX. It’s FCPX combined with the hardware that makes a big difference. Spec for spec if using software like Premiere or Resolve then yes of course a PC can give you more for the money. The point of using a Mac however is to use the OS and the user experience around that OS and software optimized for that OS. Work is about getting tasks done and not a specific set of tools. When measuring the tools themselves then there will be an advantage to a PC. When measuring a set of tasks however it’s important to factor in all variables. The reality and fact is that a modest spec Mac with FCPX can do a lot. I have run Resolve and FCPX on a wide range of macs and FCPX still performs better. From a task perspective I can ingest, organize, edit, grade, render and export on less hardware and with less time dedicated per project. Rendering speed is great but I spend 10x more time actually arranging and cutting together a story than I do rendering. FCPX represents a streamlined workflow that allows me to edit much faster than a faster rendering PC could ever provide due to overall user experience and workflow. I don’t shop for an editing system based on specs but what kind of experience it provides.
If I ever switch to Blackmagic Raw and find the camera choices and that format to provide an overall better user experience then I will switch to Resolve and may even leave the Mac in the process. Right now I’m totally fine with ProRes422 HQ and hopefully ProRes raw expands to more devices soon. I have also found ProRes raw performs much better in FCPX than BRAW does in Resolve across all my Macs. If ProRes raw doesn’t get a wider range of device support it will be a moot point since the cameras I would likely have access to will be shooting BRAW.