iMac or Mac Mini M4?

If you would like to post, you'll need to register. Note that if you have a BCG store account, you'll need a new, separate account here (we keep the two sites separate for security purposes).

Member's gallery
Whiskeyman said:
Why is the TB connectivity a deal breaker for you? And can you tell us more about the components of the system you built? (I'm assuming that you constructed yourself, and didn't spec it out to a custom builder.)

If the M1 Ultra is that good, maybe I should have purchased the M2 Ultra Studio I saw on sale on Friday.
Click to expand...
for one, you only get so much performance. but more importantly, there's only so much you can connect to a couple of thunderbolt ports, and i expect the more things you have chained off there things might get funky.

yah, i built a system myself. it was expensive and building your own system isn't for the faint of heart, but it's how i've been doing it for probably three decades.

i have a build thread over here if you want to take a peek: https://forum.level1techs.com/t/feedback-req-on-proposed-threadripper-7000-build/

happy to answer any questions, but basically it's a threadripper (not threadripper PRO) and an expensive motherboard so i could get as many pci lanes as possible without going to threadripper pro, which doesn't perform as well as threadripper on adobe products. threadripper itself isn't the best performance, but you really can't get many pci lanes with the options that perform optimally with adobe. so it's a compromise system, despite its high price. but it did get me where i wanted to go with regard to storage.

all that said, this system performs... maybe... _similar_ to a mac mini with an m4 pro. probably a bit worse. but my storage situation will be much better.

i'm happy to go into whatever detail you want about the build and why i did this or that. just let me know.

with regard to the m1 ultra and m2 ultra, i'd check out the youtube channel, ArtIsRight. he does some straight up photo workflow benchmarks, so you can see how the ultras hold up vs the m4 pro and m4 max. that might better help you decide about the value of the units on sale vs a mac mini m4 pro for example.

3x pci boards, capable of supporting 4x m.2 drives each, plus the motherboard supporting another 3 for 15 possible m.2 drives
IMG_4456.jpeg
You can only see EXIF info for this image if you are logged in.


completed build
IMG_4510.jpeg
You can only see EXIF info for this image if you are logged in.


i already have a tb going to a tb hub, then 20 sata hard drives daisy chained on one tb port, and the other connected to a u.2 ssd
IMG_4545.jpeg
You can only see EXIF info for this image if you are logged in.



the thing is, every little thing you want to plug in, that keyboard, mouse, webcam, cfe-b reader, that loupedeck, that external audio dohicky... everything needs a place to plug in. hubs help, but even then....
 
Last edited:
Member's gallery
Whiskeyman said:
2027 iMac? Patrick, what kinds of inside pull do you have with Apple!? ;)

I'm also looking at the M4 Pro Mac Mini with the HD upgraded to 1 TB. My only remaining unanswered question is whether to upgrade the RAM to 48 GB or 64 GB. How much RAM did you order with yours?
Click to expand...
I’ve the Mac mini pro m4 with 24Gb RAM and 1Tb SSD . I don’t do video work so I didn’t feel I needed any more RAM
I got the T4 external SSD enclosure and a 4T external SSD which can run at higher T5 speeds when I upgrade the enclosure. The enclosure was £70 while a T5 enclosure is £270 so I’ll wait a bit for those to cheapen. Black magic speed tests are impressive write /read internally about 6500/6200 externally about 1/2 that.

I have bought a tiny £10 usb fan as the mini and drive can feel quite hot under heavy use.
 
Last edited:
Member's gallery
With Apple computers what one buys is what one has until the computer is replaced as their is no ability to upgrade and existing computer. Apple has announced plans to upgrade the I/O port of the studio and mini computers in the "srping" of 2025. I would wait until the new models are released which should be by May or June of 2025.
 
Member's gallery
Calson said:
With Apple computers what one buys is what one has until the computer is replaced as their is no ability to upgrade and existing computer. Apple has announced plans to upgrade the I/O port of the studio and mini computers in the "srping" of 2025. I would wait until the new models are released which should be by May or June of 2025.
Click to expand...
The studio max and the studio ultra will be upgraded probably in September of 2025 but you will not see any upgrades in the mini this year or next. . The new m4 minis have the thunderbolt 5 ports , the fastest available.
 
Member's gallery
Calson said:
With Apple computers what one buys is what one has until the computer is replaced as their is no ability to upgrade and existing computer. Apple has announced plans to upgrade the I/O port of the studio and mini computers in the "srping" of 2025. I would wait until the new models are released which should be by May or June of 2025.
Click to expand...
The importance of non upgrade ability is overblown IMO. Even Windows laptops and small form factor machines are largely soldered chips these days anyway…and while a chip socket does provide some upgrade capability few users have either the interest or skills to order and install a proper chip upgrade…and even then sticking a new chip on a 3 year old motherboard doesn’t necessarily mean better performance due to other motherboard, RAM, drive, or port limitations…meaning most Windows boxes are replaced, not upgraded…which means they’re treated exactly the same by most users as Apple hardware. Like the other reply…I agree that a mini upgrade is unlikely this year and while a Studio one is possible that’s a pretty high end machine. If I was starting over today…I would get a max 14 inch laptop, TB dock, and external display simply to simplify my overall computer and processing life.

TB 5 ports are nice…but there really few peripherals that use it and they’re more expensive…plus the extra speed makes no real difference for image processing…so the need for them is not really there for the near to mid future. Realistically…even with 45MP Z8 files…my 14 M1 Pro laptop is still plenty fast enough…and while the M4s are technically faster…there is a difference between technically faster and usefully faster. Dropping the time for say LR AI DeNoise on an image from 30 seconds to 20 isn’t actually very useful. The videos we seed that show minutes of improvement…while technically correct…are for things like exporting 1,000 images at a time and how often do we do that. Even building 100% previews…yeah, 2 minutes is better than 3m or 3.5…but I’ve walked away to get a cocktail and either way it’s done when I come back. Heck, even my bride’s base M1 Air is more than fast enough for LR…the display isn’t adequate but it’s the lightweight Air.
 
Last edited:
Member's gallery
Patrick M said:
I’ve the Mac mini pro m4 with 24Gb RAM and 1Tb SSD . I don’t do video work so I didn’t feel I needed any more RAM
I got the T4 external SSD enclosure and a 4T external SSD which can run at higher T5 speeds when I upgrade the enclosure. The enclosure was £70 while a T5 enclosure is £270 so I’ll wait a bit for those to cheapen. Black magic speed tests are impressive write /read internally about 6500/6200 externally about 1/2 that.

I have bought a tiny £10 usb fan as the mini and drive can feel quite hot under heavy use.
Click to expand...

update. My iMac 5k 27” has the 3Tb Fusion drive. I had to quite a bit of moving stuff to an external SSD to enable the Migration Assistant to migrate from there to the mini with 1Tb.
Now it’s a couple of weeks later and frankly, quite a lot of my time has been tidying up the files etc etc and my conclusion:

returning the mac mini pro to replace it with bigger internal memory. By going for 1Tb an external 4Tb SSD I “saved” £900 BUT I’ve spent a while setting it up and frankly if I’d spent the money in the first place….
Obviously a personal choice. I’d rather spend the money and have the tech working instead of saving and spending my time…
 
Member's gallery
Patrick M said:
update. My iMac 5k 27” has the 3Tb Fusion drive. I had to quite a bit of moving stuff to an external SSD to enable the Migration Assistant to migrate from there to the mini with 1Tb.
Now it’s a couple of weeks later and frankly, quite a lot of my time has been tidying up the files etc etc and my conclusion:

returning the mac mini pro to replace it with bigger internal memory. By going for 1Tb an external 4Tb SSD I “saved” £900 BUT I’ve spent a while setting it up and frankly if I’d spent the money in the first place….
Obviously a personal choice. I’d rather spend the money and have the tech working instead of saving and spending my time…
Click to expand...
I would personally go with 4TB…yeah, it costs but keeping catalog and current year images on the internal makes a lot less to carry on a trip. Still need a backup SSD of course…but an overall lighter kit.
 
Member's gallery
Anjin San said:
I would personally go with 4TB…yeah, it costs but keeping catalog and current year images on the internal makes a lot less to carry on a trip. Still need a backup SSD of course…but an overall lighter kit.
Click to expand...
Thanks. the external ssd can be my backup. As it’s usb-c I can connnect to my iPad and download from my z8 straight to it via files app. … and my usb-c hub
 
Member's gallery
Well, I did it: I ordered the M4 Pro Mac Mini with the upgraded processor, 64 GB of RAM and 1 TB SSD directly from Apple yesterday.

And now, I wait! And I also look for an older 27-inch iMac that's around here somewhere; to see if it's a Retina display and if it is one of the versions that can be configured as a monitor. If not, my next purchase is a 5k monitor!
 
Member's gallery
Whiskeyman said:
Well, I did it: I ordered the M4 Pro Mac Mini with the upgraded processor, 64 GB of RAM and 1 TB SSD directly from Apple yesterday.

And now, I wait! And I also look for an older 27-inch iMac that's around here somewhere; to see if it's a Retina display and if it is one of the versions that can be configured as a monitor. If not, my next purchase is a 5k monitor!
Click to expand...
GRRRRR, Apple! :mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:

Sorry for this diatribe, in advance.

I ordered a new M4 Mac Mini from the online Apple Store on February 2nd, and have patiently waited for processing to be finished and the computer to be shipped to me. I dutifully checked the status of my order frequently, and even contacted an Apple representative via Chat on Apple.com yesterday. As of yesterday my order was "processing", so I contacted Apple on their chat and was told all was well with my order.

Well, to my surprise, when I checked on my order today, I was notified that my order was cancelled. What? Cancelled? So, I called Apple customer support on the phone, and was told that they sent me an e-mail to inform me that there was a problem with my payment. (Which ended up being one of their Apple gift cards being declared as void, in error, as I was told by the manager I talked to.) In the e-mail, they informed me of the steps I could take to remedy the issue and that I had one week to do so. One week. Not one hour! Yet my order was cancelled on the same day I was notified of the payment issue. (Which, BTW, was only $25 US.)

The initial Apple rep I talked to told me that they sent the e-mail on Feb 2nd. When I looked through my e-mails, the only one I received was sent today at 9:44 AM, local time. They persisted that one had been sent earlier, so I asked if that were the case, why did they send an e-mail dealing with this today? Of course, they had no answer for that, so they called a supervisior into the mix. I also asked that about the chat session I had with them earlier, and they couldn't explain that either. The supervisor did assure that they would "look into it and try to make sure it didn't happen again."

The supervisor offered a bit of empathy, but couldn't offer any answers as to why my order was cancelled, and they couldn't "un-cancel" my order. Furthermore, I have to wait at least 24-hours for the funds for my order to be refunded and made available for use again. Once the funds are again available, I can reorder the computer, but will be back into the same waiting sequence as I was before, but may be able to get them to expedite shipping if I call them after I reorder the thing.

So, now, I wait until I can reorder the computer, and then I wait again for processing and shipping. Nearly two weeks have gone by, and I end up in a worse place than when I started. If I weren't so much of a Mac geek, and if I didn't have a bunch of Apple gift cards to spend, I'd seriously consider not ordering the thing!

Thanks for tolerating my rant! I wish that I felt better after it, but I don't!
 
Member's gallery
I ordered a Mac mini M4 Pro 512/48 direct from Apple on the 8th. Showing as processing. We shall see whose comes first. I am sorry for your frustrations. It will be worth the challenges when it finally arrives.
 
Member's gallery
Whiskeyman said:
GRRRRR, Apple! :mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:

Sorry for this diatribe, in advance.

I ordered a new M4 Mac Mini from the online Apple Store on February 2nd, and have patiently waited for processing to be finished and the computer to be shipped to me. I dutifully checked the status of my order frequently, and even contacted an Apple representative via Chat on Apple.com yesterday. As of yesterday my order was "processing", so I contacted Apple on their chat and was told all was well with my order.

Well, to my surprise, when I checked on my order today, I was notified that my order was cancelled. What? Cancelled? So, I called Apple customer support on the phone, and was told that they sent me an e-mail to inform me that there was a problem with my payment. (Which ended up being one of their Apple gift cards being declared as void, in error, as I was told by the manager I talked to.) In the e-mail, they informed me of the steps I could take to remedy the issue and that I had one week to do so. One week. Not one hour! Yet my order was cancelled on the same day I was notified of the payment issue. (Which, BTW, was only $25 US.)

The initial Apple rep I talked to told me that they sent the e-mail on Feb 2nd. When I looked through my e-mails, the only one I received was sent today at 9:44 AM, local time. They persisted that one had been sent earlier, so I asked if that were the case, why did they send an e-mail dealing with this today? Of course, they had no answer for that, so they called a supervisior into the mix. I also asked that about the chat session I had with them earlier, and they couldn't explain that either. The supervisor did assure that they would "look into it and try to make sure it didn't happen again."

The supervisor offered a bit of empathy, but couldn't offer any answers as to why my order was cancelled, and they couldn't "un-cancel" my order. Furthermore, I have to wait at least 24-hours for the funds for my order to be refunded and made available for use again. Once the funds are again available, I can reorder the computer, but will be back into the same waiting sequence as I was before, but may be able to get them to expedite shipping if I call them after I reorder the thing.

So, now, I wait until I can reorder the computer, and then I wait again for processing and shipping. Nearly two weeks have gone by, and I end up in a worse place than when I started. If I weren't so much of a Mac geek, and if I didn't have a bunch of Apple gift cards to spend, I'd seriously consider not ordering the thing!

Thanks for tolerating my rant! I wish that I felt better after it, but I don't!
Click to expand...
I feel your pain.
I’ve been trying to order a M4 Macmini since January 23. Everytime I place an order, within 24 hours it is cancelled without an email informing me of that fact. This has happened 8 times since January 23. I’ve placed multiple phone calls to Apple, probably totally 8 hours worth of calls and no one can determine why this is occurring. I’ve even written a litter to Tim Cook about the issue. And one of the executive‘s emailed me back and ask me to call them. I‘ve called the extension at least 3 times and left messages. No one has called me back. I’ve made one more attempt today to purchase one online and if it is cancelled again I’m going to go to the Apple store and purchase one of the stock M4 Mac Mini Pros in person. I would have done this from the start but I wanted one with a 2tb SSD which you must purchase on-line. The stores don’t carry anything but the base models which have 512gig SSDs which I think is a joke.
I‘ll let you know how I make out.
 
Member's gallery
Ralph said:
I feel your pain.
I’ve been trying to order a M4 Macmini since January 23. Everytime I place an order, within 24 hours it is cancelled without an email informing me of that fact. This has happened 8 times since January 23. I’ve placed multiple phone calls to Apple, probably totally 8 hours worth of calls and no one can determine why this is occurring. I’ve even written a litter to Tim Cook about the issue. And one of the executive‘s emailed me back and ask me to call them. I‘ve called the extension at least 3 times and left messages. No one has called me back. I’ve made one more attempt today to purchase one online and if it is cancelled again I’m going to go to the Apple store and purchase one of the stock M4 Mac Mini Pros in person. I would have done this from the start but I wanted one with a 2tb SSD which you must purchase on-line. The stores don’t carry anything but the base models which have 512gig SSDs which I think is a joke.
I‘ll let you know how I make out.
Click to expand...
Good luck, Ralph. I also feel your pain. I'm also looking at upgraded one, and I'm wondering if I'll be able to get the configuration that I want.
 
Member's gallery
Ralph said:
Just ordered my mini from B&H. They have many configurations in stock. Suppose to arrive tomorrow. I’m holding my breath until delivery. 😂.
Click to expand...
I'd do this exact thing, except I'm paying with a lot of Apple Gift Cards that family members and I have received as gifts and prizes over the years. I was surprised that the older ones still worked. What supposedly caused my purchase cancellation was a "bad" $25 Apple card that I purchased that day.

Ralph, do you have a tracking number from B&H? If so, that is a good sign!

What configuration did you order?
 
Last edited:
Member's gallery
Whiskeyman said:
I'd do this exact thing, except I'm paying with a lot of Apple Gift Cards that family members and I have received as gifts and prizes over the years. I was surprised that the older ones still worked. What supposedly caused my purchase cancellation was a "bad" $25 Apple card that I purchased that day.

Ralph, do you have a tracking number from B&H? If so, that is a good sign!

What configuration did you order?
Click to expand...
Yes.It has already shipped.Expecting it tomorrow 🙏🏻
 
Member's gallery
pvindis said:
I currently have an iMac M1, 16 GB, 512 GB and am actually quite happy with it for Lightroom Classic, PS, Topaz Photo AI and Helicon Remote/Focus.
I am considering switching to the new Mac Mini M4.
Does anyone have experience switching from an iMac M1 to a Mac Mini M4 - is it worth the money?
Click to expand...
I also have the M1 MBP and have found syncing masks in LRC across multiple images sometimes causes issues, however the new LRC release (Feb20) is supposed to have increased performance with masking.
 
Member's gallery
Ralph said:
Success!!👍👍
View attachment 107269
Click to expand...
Fantastic, Ralph!! I see you also got a keyboard with the numeric keypad, which, IMO, is a good choice.

I'd like a full report on photo editing ASAP!! ;)

As for mine, I've reordered and immediately called a Apple customer service manager, and they supposedly are doing everything they can to expedite my order. They admitted that someone at Apple erred by cancelling my order when they did. Still, however, it shows I should get it by NLT March 4th. It still is a "custom build" with the 64 GB of RAM, which is likely overdoing it, but..., well, you know.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top