neillaubenthal

The M1 is the low end consumer version of Apple silicon. Although it will run LR and PS just fine from what I’ve seen…I would recommend waiting on the M2 or M1X or whatever they call the higher end chip…which will go in the upper end MacBook Pro and iMac…and the latter will very likely have a larger screen.

mikegreenwald Loc: Illinois

Thank you - I'll get one ion I can.

Papa j Loc: Cary NC

Thanks
J

JohnR Loc: The Gates of Hell

One downside is that you'll need all new software. I doubt any of your existing will work on the new 64bit only iMacs.

Hamltnblue Loc: Springfield PA

It doesnt sound right with a new computer but if 16 gig is the max, walk away.
My understanding is that the memory is shared with the video card which makes it worse.

You may be fine with 16 gig today but start running multiple programs and do some hdr with high res files and you’ll easily exceed the 16 gig. Also if you ever get into panoramas, memory can become an issue. I’ve seen over 32 gig used on some of mine.

Also, there is no ,agriculture fairy dust that the M1 chip has in it. What apple has the absolute best of is marketing. They could rebrand an 8088 from 1988 and talk Apple lovers into buying

Barry335 Loc: Philadelphia PA

You are correct in your assumptions about max memory on new M1 iMac. Photoshop and Lightroom are memory hogs. You may be ok with 16g but Adobe recommends “16g or more”. I would think that would be pushing the limit if you are editing large RAW files. And if do any 4K video editing using say Premier Pro you’ll pretty much be screwed

https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom-classic/system-requirements.html

https://helpx.adobe.com/premiere-pro/user-guide.html/premiere-pro/system-requirements.ug.html

BobHartung Loc: Bettendorf, IA

Unless you are in dire need of a new computer, I would wait a few months and see what Apple really has in store.

Ednsb Loc: Santa Barbara

this was just a subject that could have answered the question -- the new m1 has an integrated board so the ram, GPU ram, and SSD ram are used at needed and because they are all on one board it is the same speed.

I went with the 16GB and 512 SSD a couple of weeks ago and you will love it. There was a link posted on the other post which proposed because of the architecture that you could buy the 8GB and spend the extra money to double the size of the SSD because the mac would use it as if it was RAM. Interesting idea but I'm conservative so I went the route I did.

Barry335 Loc: Philadelphia PA

Technically, the Mac recognizes the SSD as a disk device albeit a very fast disk device. When an application is written, it typically, and this includes Lightroom etc., uses available memory as a repository for the current working set; if the app overruns the amount of available memory it will start paging/swapping to disk. It may not matter as a practical consideration because an SSD is around 100x faster than a mid-range spinning disk. This is different however than an operating system extending available memory by using some or all of an SSD device as a fast cache. In the enterprise world there are dedicated devices that work like this. I just think it’s good to be careful with confusing the effective result with actually how the app and OS looks at a its memory and disk resources. If it were me I’d still figure out how much memory I need for what I’m doing, get that, and enjoy having a super fast disk device while uploading and downloading files.

Hamltnblue Loc: Springfield PA

What's interesting is the M1 Macbook pro has the same dimensions and specs as the new IPad Pro. The only difference I see is the Mac has a folding display and the Ipad Pro is a Tablet.
Both have 8 or 16 Gig. The drive on the Ipad can be up to 2tb. So with the Macbook you have a tablet that looks like a mini laptop.

xt2 Loc: British Columbia, Canada

I am waiting to see where Mac is going. The newest M model does have less reliance on RAM, but I am running couple of late 15s with 64 and love the extra speed and headroom.

Cheers!

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

Please watch some review videos on the MaxTech YouTube channel regarding the M1 Macs. Here’s a buying guide video they made:

https://youtu.be/qa2g2AknvrY

Yes, 16 GB is plenty. 8GB is enough for 90+% of users. Apple manages memory very differently (FAR more efficiently) on these machines.

My son has a MacBook Air, 8GB RAM, 512GB storage. Photoshop flies on it. Lightroom Classic is not native yet, but it runs very smoothly. MS Office 365 runs flawlessly. Blender, DaVinci Resolve, and Final Cut Pro run great. Adobe Premiere Pro is only slightly slow, but it is not native, yet.

Bret Perry

Have you checked these out?
Pricey but 1 USB-C 3.1 and 2 Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) and more...
https://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/TB3DK14PSG/

Out-of-stock, need to pre-order, but great, 3 Thunderbolts USB-C, but that's all:
https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/owc-thunderbolt-hub

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

Yes, Apple is quite possibly the best marketing company on the planet. But they didn't get to where they are with lies or bait-and-switch. They're not bluffing or exaggerating about Apple Silicon.

Dozens of serious computer industry journalists have said as much. At first, when Apple announced their plans in June, 2020, they laughed. "How can this be true?" was a common theme.

Then, in November, when the M1 MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, and Mac Mini machines became available and the reviewers tried them, they changed their tunes. A few of them had to shave beards or eat crow hats.

Have you actually tried using an M1 Mac? I have. We bought one for our college student and I set it up. It is the fastest sub-$2000 computer I've ever used.

I've been using Macs and PCs since 1986. The M1 is a dramatic quantum leap. I've never seen a Mac or Win10 box with 16 or 24 GB of RAM run as fast as the M1 MacBook Air does with 8GB! It had no trouble with 90 tracks of audio, each with several audio processing plug-ins, or a Final Cut Pro video with three video tracks, six audio tracks, and a bunch of color corrections, titles, and effects. It ran 11 different common productivity apps at the same time, without breathing hard. It never gets hot, even though it HAS NO FAN. Rosetta 2, which emulates x86 apps, works flawlessly with all my son's applications. By now, most of them are M1-native or universal (x86 AND M1 dual binaries). If x86 plug-ins won't run with a native M1 app, you can tell the app to run in x86 mode, using Rosetta 2.

Memory management is completely different on these ARM-based machines, with refinements honed over a decade of Apple designing extremely efficient processors for the iPhone, which has consistently remained the fastest smartphone on the market, despite extremely limited RAM.

The first Apple SOC was the A4 in the iPhone 4 and the original iPad. The M1 in the four latest Macs (and the latest iPad Pro) is essentially one of the FOURTEENTH generation of Apple SOCs. M1 is based on the same technology in the Apple A14 Bionic, a 64-bit ARMv8.5a Apple system on a chip. It is a bigger extension of that architecture.

Even Tom's Hardware, a time-honored champion of the AMD-Intel x86 industry, took notice:

https://www.tomshardware.com/uk/news/apples-m1-chip-is-bringing-long-time-x86-pc-users-to-the-arm-powered-mac

Here are a few of the more iconic YouTube channels' reactions:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MkrEMjPk24 (Linus Tech Tips)

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCptwuAv0XQHo1OQUSaO6NHw (Selection of Mac-related tests, reviews, and topics from MaxTech)

https://www.youtube.com/c/TheEverydayDad/search?query=m1 (Everyday Dad. He's goofy, but rewards excellence.)

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCey_c7U86mJGz1VJWH5CYPA/search?query=m1 (iJustine, the gushy blonde cheerleader turned tech nerd)

And no, the M1 Macs are not perfect. These new Macs are some of the most non-repairable, non-upgradeable technology ever built.

They come with a limited port selection (at best, a headphone/mic jack, two Thunderbolt 3 / USB 4 ports, an HDMI output, and a pair of USB-C or USB-A ports). You'll need a dongle collection, or better, a hub or a dock. (Hint, check out the OWC Thunderbolt hubs and docks for home/office, and the CharJen Pro Ultimate Dock Gen 2 for the road.)

The M1 SOC supports only two monitors, one of which is built-in on the laptops. Yes, you can run six if you use DisplayPort adapters and software, but that's hardly good enough for any video editing or gaming applications. Yes, you can use Sidecar to use an iPad as a wireless external monitor, but that seems silly unless you already have one.

What these do quite well is portend the future of the Mac and MacOS. Apple will be done with their switchover from Intel by the end of 2022. They have at least two more advanced tiers of Apple Silicon SOCs in the works.

Papa j Loc: Cary NC

Thank you great info

Joe