Buying Advice: Mac Mini vs. iMac (2012)

Mini:
2.3GHz quad-i7
1TB Fusion ($250)
16GB RAM ($80 - http://www.crucial.com/store/mpartspecs.aspx?mtbpoid=9953A0C6A5CA7304 )

23" IPS - $222 - make sure to get one with a decent brightness and IPS or similar panel:
http://www.amazon.com/Dell-UltraSharp-U2312HM-IPS-Monitor/dp/B005LN1JEC

Keyboard/mouse - ~$100

Total: $799 + $250 + $80 + $222 + $100 = $1451

iMac:
21.5" quad-i5 (slower than the Mini, smaller display, same resolution) or 27" quad-i5 (slower than Mini, bigger display, higher resolution)
1TB Fusion ($250)
16GB RAM ($95 - http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/memory/iMac/2011/DDR3_21.5_27 )

Total:
21.5" = $1299 + $250 + $95 = $1644
27" = $1799 + $250 + $95 = $2144

One thing to consider with the Adobe CS Suite is the GPU. They added CUDA acceleration to some things so the NVidia GPU in the iMacs will help in some cases:

http://www.barefeats.com/aecs6.html

The Intel graphics in the Mini will be fine for the majority of the apps though.

Just received my Mac mini yesterday, but the 16GB RAM is coming in another day or two from a different source.

 

2.6 GHz, 1TB Fusion, 4GB RAM now, 16GB RAM (soon)

 

In easy testing today, it compared favorably to my iMac 27" from last year (3.4GHz, 8GB RAM, SSD+HD).  A basic rendering job took 2min 36sec on the iMac, 2min 40sec on the mini which is not bad at all.I will be doing more intensive testing on it this week and will post here.  So far, it is looking to be a nice little machine.

 

However, I am not looking at it as a primary machine.  Indeed, I access it via screen sharing from the iMac, so there is a screen delay so I can't say anything about the mini's ability to drive a display.  I plan to use it for rendering animation and video; send it a job and wait.

 

In December I will be getting a new iMac 27", so if you aren't in a hurry, I can give you a comparison of the two then.

 

I do some light work with Illustrator/Photoshop but mainly Encore (DVD and BluRay) and other apps for animation creation and audio and video (including FinalCutProX: no more express).

Edited by Bergermeister - 11/26/12 at 5:47am

A comment on displays:

 

Last year I went from a MacPro (old) with a 23" display up to an iMac with a 27" display and will never go back.  The added real estate is very helpful.  I can leave tool menus open all over the place (organized of course with the app) and still have plenty of space to work.  I can have an A3 sheet in front of me (I often print this size) so I don't  have to print a copy to see it real size.  Even with an A3 sheet on screen, there is room for tools and such.

 

If you have a shop nearby where you can see the iMacs (they would likely be the current ones as the new ones haven't come out), do.  You can compare the screen size running different apps.

Yes. They use OpenCL more, which is supported by Intel's IGP and the CPU:

http://forums.adobe.com/thread/979969?start=0&tstart=0

I expect Adobe will transition everything to OpenCL eventually.

They would typically lack some hardware features that would have to be done on the CPU. The GMA 950 wasn't too good but the HD3000/4000 are ok.

It should hold up well for what you are using it for.

Here's a 24" 1920 x 1200 IPS:

http://www.amazon.com/Dell-UltraSharp-U2412M-LED-Monitor/dp/B005JN9310

The 27" displays give you a lot of space but the price shoots up quite a bit for the higher resolution ones. There is a 1080p 27" IPS that is quite affordable:

http://www.amazon.com/Dell-927M9-IPS-LED-27-Inch-LED-lit-Monitor/dp/B009H0XQPA/

Once you hit rotate, you would then turn the display before the timeout and click verify. You can also tilt your head to the side to verify before turning the monitor. It would be great if it worked like an iPad - even if the display disconnected and reconnected but identified itself as a 1200 x 1920 display. It's not something you'd want to do often, you'd work in one mode or the other. Some people buy two and have them setup with one portrait, the other landscape - the Mini supports two displays, one over HDMI and the other over Thunderbolt.

OpenCL and CUDA both had their limitations last time I checked. I haven't read up on the most recent data, but there are a lot of things that couldn't be duplicated as of OpenCL 1.1. I'm interested in how gpu processing standards will progress. If Apple does anything with the mac pro, they'll have to consider such things. I don't think any company would greatly redesign a workstation today without considering the future of GPGPU, especially if they intend to propagate the same case design over a number of cycles. Right now that looks like the largest growth potential for workstations. I've mentioned this before, but sometimes 25% faster isn't that big a deal, even in professional use. It can be a case of yes your work is done faster, but 10x faster enables new growth in software and totally different workflows. When it comes to being able to move things to real time that couldn't function that way before, that drives sales. Your raytraced Wolfenstein link comes to mind.

 

I can think of a couple OpenCL applications that still recommend NVidia gpus, although they're mostly Windows based. It might have something to do with AMD's workstation drivers. There's still an immense amount of room for improvement in OpenCL.

The primary future proofing element is likely RAM.  32GB max in the 27" iMac vs 16GB in the mini.

 

Personally I'd skip fusion.  If you're holding to the old rule of thumb where your scratch file is 100 x largest image file x number of files you like to keep open some of it will likely get stuck on the 5200 RPM HDD slowing you down.

 

I'd rather spend that $250 on an internal 256GB SSD and whatever you save from doing the mini vs the iMac on the $179 LaCie TB to eSATA bridge + existing external array or get the $570 Lacie 4TB 2Big for ~350 MB/s sequential reads and ~200 MB/s sequential writes in RAID 0 (+ $50 for TB cables). 

 

http://www.anandtech.com/show/5577/lacie-2big-thunderbolt-series-review

 

For comparison purposes the Crucial M4 runs between 250MB/sec to 500MB/sec read and 200 MB/sec writes.

 

http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/crucial_m4_128gb_ssd_review,11.html 

 

Now random reads you're going to get clobbered (as seen in the LaCie Little Big Disk 420GB SSD speeds) and RAID 0 is kinda risky for anything but a scratch disk.

Bergermeister,

 

I am curious, did you get your iMac 27" yet?  Do you think the new Mac Mini holds its own against it?

 

-IP

Still waiting for the iMac.  The shop I ordered at did say January, so I can just sit here and wait.

 

Lots of people who ordered early are getting theirs so I am somewhat hopeful it will come soon.

Hmm.  Tasty spec for tasty price.

 

Have to question why Apple aren't offering a 24 incher in the iMac range...  *thinks back only a few mere years.

 

...I was always hoping Apple would offer 'rotate' design on the iMac.  (So you could iPad your iMac orientation in effect...)

 

For scanning in A3 comic art, a rotated screen would be great...

 

Lemon Bon Bon.

 

I'm still of the opinion Apple should have kept iMac prices the same and bundled a 256 gig SSD with them.  TB platter HD drives can be had for very little money now.  I think Apple's nickle and diming us on margins there with Fusion.  That's very perogative.  (I'd call it greedy from my consumer point of view.)

 

256 gig SSD drives can be hard for over or under a £100 now.  For a big company like Apple, I can't see how this was a problem.

 

ie it would have been cheaper for them to include a 256 gig SSD (shouldn't the price rise of the iMac!!! and the dropping of the '£65' 'Super' drive facilitated that inclusion?) and option me a platter 1TB HD for £55+ than for me to do it.

 

Unimpressed with Apple's recent price hikes and money grabbing on the Fusion and Memory (again...)

 

I went for Fusion (doesn't it have 6 gig buffer to stop any bottle necks between the SSD and 7200rpm drive?  For my purposes it should be fine.)  At the rate SSD drives are going I should be able to get a nice 512 gig SSD external for a couple of hundred in the next half a year.  I may even plop for OCZ vertex 4 256 gig SSD in the meantime...  (Wonder how much they'll be in the Jan' sales...)

 

Lemon Bon Bon.

I'm still in processing.  I'm guessing 1st week or so in January.

 

Lemon Bon Bon.

 

 

Still waiting...  The shop yesterday said there was still no change in the order status, so it will now certainly be January.  Oh, well, so much for getting my hopes up!  

 

Meanwhile, the mini is pulling its weight very well.

I don't have the mini attached to a display, so I don't know about the graphics capabilities.  It's a rendering and burning machine.

 

It is accessed wirelessly from an iMac using screen share.  I send files over, open them up and set it to render, then bring the results back over.  CS6 is on the iMac; Encore outputs to the iMac and then I move the disc image over for burning.

 

That's my workflow right now. 

Still waiting for my new iMac.  Dropped by the shop this morning and they said that Apple Japan is on holiday until the 7th (New Year's is a pretty important holiday here) so there will be no action on BTO units until after the weekend.

 

Most people in Japan though went back to work today, Friday the 4th.

 

My old PPC Mac was a decent Photoshop machine.  

 

I'm sure the Fusion powred Mini with plenty of ram will be a very decent Photoshop machine.  It should fly.

 

If in doubt...wait for the gpu oompth of Haswell.

 

Or just buy the low end iMac with Fusion and you get a discrete gpu.

 

My top end iMac is being processing.

 

Lemon Bon Bon.

I am also considering buying a mini instead of the iMac.   One thing I would like to do is to buy two monitors for the mini.  Any advice on what to get?  

 

Anything, really. The quality of monitor you need depends on the work that you do.

I would love to here about your comparison and how it all worked out!

 

I'm about to purchase the Mac mini for Purely graphics work as a primary machine.

 

Yea the New mini hase the new i7 processor and the thunderbolt so I think this would help.

 

My primary concern is the Graphics card..

I got the new 2012 mac mini with CS5 suite installed, no problems at all.  Works great, and its nice having dual matching monitors. 

Finally got my iMac after a very long wait.  Should be able to get some testing done over the next couple of days.

Been following this string and looking forward to the comparison.  Just bought a loaded mini and have a Thunderbolt 27 to go with it. I was wondering if the graphic chip variance between the MINI and IMAC will make much of a significant difference with Photoshop use and any other apps...

Bought the iMac 27, hopefully, I won't have to buy a new computer for a very long time. Upgrading from 2004 Dell PC LOL!!!

Sounds good to me, I use CS5 too, but on an i5 really have no problems.  I say go for dual monitors too.   And if you ever notice the system slowing, just open the terminal and type "purge" frees up ram when you're working on heavy projects.  Good luck man! 

What do graphics have to do with any of the software you listed? Indesign doesn't really use it. Illustrator doesn't really use it. Photoshop only cares how much memory you have. If you look up gpu benchmarks on something like barefeats, you'll notice that they basically drag race it. When was the last time your work was slowed down by liquify or iris blur rendering time. If never, don't worry about it. Just load up with ram either way.

I have been following this string, and I think that for basic photoshop, the mini will be ok. Video editing would be limited, but you indicated that you only do a little of this. As far as monitors, I suggest you that a look at monoprice.com. They sell a 27" IPS monitor that uses same led panel as Apple, that outputs same resolution, at about half the price of Apple's 27"monitor. It uses display port, and they sell the mini Displayport to display port adapters too. (If you use HDMI, you are limited to 1080 resolution)

He mentioned final cut pro express which doesn't use it. If he said Premiere, that uses the gpu for playback and possibly a couple other things assuming CUDA support and adequate video memory. Adobe gives a list of certified gpus here. Those are specifically for Premiere. FCPX seems to make limited use of it. Final Cut Express was the old one, which I thought wasn't supported under Mountain Lion. I could be wrong. GPGPU has been hyped for years, and it can really speed specific things up where it's fully implemented. It's just not much of a consideration unless the software in question makes significant use of it, which isn't really the case with the OP's apps. There are various good displays. With the OP's use, I wouldn't suggest a shiny thunderbolt display. Reflections are too distracting. The new imac screen treatments are supposed to be significantly better in terms of reflectivity, but there are plenty of other equivalent or better displays out there. As for photoshop, there are very few use cases where you really couldn't use a Mini. Most people seem to regard some of the newer dslr files in the 30MP range as being heavy, yet that is really nothing. Quad core cpu + lots of ram and you're basically fine even with dozens of layers. If you're getting lagged by too many thumbnails and long history states, that won't really be solved by a more powerful gpu.