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Mac Mini M1 or Intel?

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17 comments

  • Brian Lawson Community moderator

    Get the M1. You will not be disappointed. I run Photo RAW on mine and it flies. Also, the Intel path is a dead end road with Apple.

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  • John Kinchin

    There are rumours on some mac forums that Apple will stop supporting the Intel based units around 2025…The M1 chip is significantly faster than the Intel one. I have had to build an eGPU for my 2018 Intel mac mini to get the best out of some software (but not ON1 ☹️). If you have the money the new mac studio is a significantly better bet.

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  • Charles J Taft

    I agree with Brian, I am quite pleased with my MacMini. I did get the 16GB RAM, however, and I'm sure that helps some. The downer for the new version of the Mini is the loss of some of the ports, like SD chips and so few ports you have to spend money getting some kind of expansion device. 

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  • David Tillett
    Great answers

    Very happy with my M1 iMac, 16 Gbytes & 1Tbyte. Shares the same problem as the mini with lack of ports so you may need to factor in some expansion capability if you have extra storage and devices, including SD slot.

    Studio was not an option last year and you might find that this is a better option since has more ports out of the box as well as the extra power giving even more future proofing.

    Rosetta makes using any remaining Intel only applications seamless. Only issue that might be a concern is if you run Photoshop and have any Intel only plugins (Topaz Studio 2 for example), these can't be called unless you run Photoshop itself under Rosetta and take the performance hit. On1 can run these plugins even it is running native because it runs a separate process for the plugins. Also the Apple Silicon version of Photoshop only supports UXP panels but most of the main ones have been converted to UXP.

    As others have said, Apple Silicon is the future. I suspect the only reason that the Intel Mac mini remains available is for developers who need to test that their applications run on Intel machines given that the long lifespan of Apple systems these could be around for a while.

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  • Ric Carter

    I have yet to get any of the new features of PR2023 to work on my MBP M1. 2022 was fine. All I get from Tech is upgrading from Big Sur.

     

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  • Gordon Cato

    I have a Mac mini M1 and a MacBook Pro M1 and ON1 runs great on both. Both machines have 16 Gig of memory and 1 TB of storage.

     

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  • Ric Carter

    Thanks. What MacOS version are you running?

    I'm running Big Sur.

     

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  • Gordon Cato

    I am running Ventura 13.0.1

     

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  • David Tillett
    Great answers

    The recommended minimum MacOS is Monterey, so it is possible that the new features in 2023 are based on functionality that was released in Monterey.

    Any reason why you are staying on Big Sur? That was the first system to support Apple Silicon so it is possible that Monterery and Ventura have changes that have improved MacOS performance on Apple Silicon.

    I am running an M1 iMac on Ventura 13.0.1 and am not seeing any basic problems with PhotoRAW or any of the other software that I am running, this excludes the issues with AI masking not producing good masks in some cases and Tack Sharp being a bit too agressive but these are not OS related.

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  • Ric Carter

    Thanks, that's a good idea. I've been trying to protect Drobo access until I get a Synology install and data transfer. I'll probably upgrade the MBP to Monterey as that seems safe. Not so Ventura yet.

    BTW: 2023 is running fine (except keyboard shortcuts) on my Intel iMac 27 running Catalina.

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  • Brian Lawson Community moderator

    Which keyboard shortcuts are you having trouble with?

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  • Ric Carter

    D, C, ratings, labels, G, bracket for brush size. Some of the ones that use modifier keys seem to be there  (paste last settings).

     

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  • Brian Lawson Community moderator

    Those are all working for me. The only one I have trouble with is Command-2 to expand/collapse the Catalogs panel. That one isn't there any more. I reported it to support.

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  • Ric Carter

    Thanks. I've thought of reinstalling, but...

    Will my backup file restore albums and all those things reinstalls usually waste?

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  • Brian Lawson Community moderator

    Yes. However, if the problem is corruption in the database and your backup contains that corruption, a clean install followed by restoring the corrupt database won't change anything.

    The .onbackup file is actually just a .zip file of ~/Library/Application Support/ON1/2023 folders.

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  • Ric Carter

    and what do I lose to replace database if corrupt

    BTW 2022 on the same machine is without problems

     

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  • Ric Carter

    @David Tilliett
    I updated to Monterey on your recommendation, and it fixed the ON1 PR2023 problems I was having on my M1 MBP with Bug Sur. It started working immediately without a reinstall.

    I did notice that the published system requirements have changed over time, originally including Catalina and Big Sur. They seem to have been dropped now. 

    Maybe Tech Support changed them as a response to me and others having the problems I shared with them. What I got from them was a a vague "maybe you could update your system." An "Oops, you're right it won't work on that system version," would have been more helpful.

    BTW, 2023 is running well on my iMac 27in 5K Intel running latest Catalina (except for keyboard shortcuts that do not use modifier keys).

    Thanks again.

     

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