brian43053 Loc: Buffalo, NY

A recent update to photoshop gave me a message that my video card wasn’t good enough anymore. I have a 2012 MacBook Pro. Anyone else get this message? Can I upgrade the video card? I’ve been considering upgrading and going with the 16” MacBook Pro with either the new M1 chip or M1 pro chip. Anyone have one of the new MacBook Pro with the new chip? How does it work with Lightroom? Photoshop? Luminar?

CamB Loc: Juneau, Alaska

Your machine is old and the new chip is great and fast with all programs. Time to upgrade.

Hereford Loc: Palm Coast, FL

I don't have one of those, but I will offer a comment anyway. The new M-1 SoC (system on chip) architecture Apple introduced last year is the future for Apple -- intel architecture will be phased out. In fact these new efficient, fast SoCs will likely be the future of all computing for the future. This chip combines all processing functions (CPU, graphics, and the unified memory) on a single chip which makes everything much, much faster as proven by numerous comparative testing.

Apple's first launch of M-1 SoC last year provided only 16GB of non-upgradeable fixed unified memory. That seemed like a paltry amount given that Adobe says we should allocate 20GB of RAM for Photoshop alone. Their tests show it is blazing fast with that amount because it is so much more efficient by eliminating memory copying between separate functions of the old intel architecture. I personally remain skeptical of that claim.

Last month Apple released the MacBook Pro offering the M-1 S0C configured with either 16, 34, or 64GB of unified memory. I should think 64 GB of unified memory should be plenty for all the memory intensive photography programs and large raw files we all use. This is the future IMHO. I'm waiting and hoping Apple will provide the M-1 64GB unified SoC on the 27' iMac next year. Apple is saying nothing about that yet. See the link below for more info or google the new M-1 on your own.

https://www.macobserver.com/analysis/understanding-apples-unified-memory-architecture/

brian43053 Loc: Buffalo, NY

thank you for the info. much appreciated

RustyM

I was in a similar situation with a 2014 vintage MacBook Pro that was beginning to fail. About two weeks ago, I got the MacBook Pro 16" 2021 with M1 Pro chip, 16GB memory and 1 TB storage. LR and PS work fine. I don't use Luminar, so I can't speak to that. I do use Topaz Sharpen AI and Denoise AI, which would take forever to process images on the old Mac but are quite fast now. The other choice in chips is the M1 Max. It's faster than the Pro, but based on my research, it's overkill unless you do video editing.

foathog Loc: Greensboro, NC

I'm looking for a new Mac. Mine is ancient. Ive been an Apple guy since 1993. I would love to get an M1 computer but the largest monitor available is 24". I currently have a 27". Why would I downgrade?? Oh yeah I could get a 27" but it has the old fashioned Intel chip. PLUS if you look at the new iMacs they all look like toys. They appear to have been made for grade schoolers with pastel colors.. I'm not happy with the quandry I've been presented.

Lazy J Loc: Pacific Northwest

FYI - It is rumored that the new and improved iMac 27 will hit the market early next year. It is also rumored that the screen may even grow to 32 inches. One can hope!

jainnh

I now have the new 21' mac with the M1 chip, compared to my old 11-year-old 27'Mac, there is no comparison, Night and day different. I know Mac is costly, but My old is still running great for my 12-year-old son. All Photo apps working great, go for a new one, the technology has jumped warp speed in 10 + years, Go M1.

newvy

I have aMac household. Last year I upgraded my sons school computer to the new (at the time) Mac mini M1 w 8gigs ram. No larger ram available. The last couple days I’ve been working on a project in Lightroom and photoshop. The computer is amazing and didn’t “ bat an eye”. All good. My recommendation would be to buy all the memory available that you can afford to future proof your computer.

foathog Loc: Greensboro, NC

I've heard that too (about the 32"). But I hate to put my money on rumors. My present computer is still using High Sierra for godsake. LOL I've strung it out as long as I can. I'm ready to pull the damn trigger. I don't thing Steve Jobs would have handled it this way.

moonhawk Loc: Land of Enchantment

I just got the new 14" macbook pro, and I love it. Everything runs great, better battery life, doesn't get hot, no fan noise, bigger, higher resolution screen, got rid of the touch bar and brought back keys, brought back magsafe charging, and maybe best of all the SD card slot built in.

How's that for a run-on sentence?

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

Yes, my 2010 Mac Mini won't run the latest Adobe apps because it does not support Metal graphics. That's the key... Your Mac must support Metal. No, you cannot upgrade the video card in your 2012 MBP.

M1 MacBook Air with 8-core CPU, 8-core GPU, 16-core Neural Engine, 1 TB of SSD storage, and 16 GB of UNIFIED memory (unified means all system cores share the same pool of RAM, a far more efficient and far faster method than is used by x86 chips).

I run Lightroom Classic and Photoshop (latest versions). I also run Apple Final Cut Pro for editing video, Microsoft 365 for office tasks, GarageBand for editing and sweetening video sound tracks, and much more. Everything is very snappy, compared to anything I ever owned before. My son has essentially the same machine. He is very happy with it. The only things he runs on his gaming PC are games and Adobe Premiere.

The new 16" has a choice of two FASTER processors than the M1, called M1 Pro and M1 Max. Most mere mortals do not need these machines. But if you want obscene amounts of RAM and SSD, and better graphics performance than M1, they're reasonable picks.

The M1 is found in the late 2020 MacBook Air, the late 2020 13" MacBook Pro, the late 2020 Mac Mini, the 24" iMac, and the iPad Pro. Performance is about the same in all the computers. The Air is maybe 10% to 15% slower at sustained performance, because the processor throttles down as it heats up. (It is completely SILENT, though, because it has NO FAN.) This can be remedied with the addition of a heat sink (I'll do it once my warranty expires!).

Apple isn't done with their transition. They still have several more machines in the pipeline. By the end of 2022, they will be done with Intel.

Scour this website to check the compatibility of your software: https://isapplesiliconready.com

Luminar AI version 1.3 and later are Universal (M1 and Intel compatible).

neillaubenthal

Works fantastic…you probably don’t need the M1 Pro Max as the plain Pro is plenty…but since RAM and SSD are soldered make sure you get enough. I wen5 32GG/2TB in my 14 inch model and upgraded to the larger number of GPUs but stuck with the Pro. It blows my 2019 Intel iMac out of 5he water…but my wife’s year old M1 MacBook Air does as well.

mrtkarlin Loc: Ashland, Oregon

I just finished migrating from a macbook pro 2014 to a new 16" macbook pro with 32gb of memory and a 1tb hard drive. I use a 4tb external drive for my pictures. It took about a day to complete all backups of my older computer and hard drives, migrate from one computer to the other, upgrade my older 32 bit programs to 64 bit such as LibreOffice, reconfigure all details, upgrade from Lightroom 6 to Lightroom Classic/Photoshop subscription, test Topaz and probably a few other machinations. So far so good. Everything is running smoothly and quickly. I hope I didn't just jinx myself. Oh yes, I used an adapter to get my apple 27" thunderbolt display to work as well.

neillaubenthal

The larger size iMac is likely the next one to get sketched over to the M1 chips…and since the low end 21 got eliminated last year in favor of 24…it expect the 27 to become 30. We should also see the higher level Mac mini to come along with the new iMac…and considering it and a monitor instead of the iMac is in my plans…since the mini will likely have the same chip and options as the iMac will. A monitor will usually last longer than a computer so there’s something to be said for that route.