M2 mac advise request

[JFreak]

Pretty much best advise is spend all you can (because upgrades are not possible) and newer cpu generation is better than older.

So with that said M2 mini pro is great because it matches thunderbolts of M1 studio. Buy as much memory as you can afford.

[reichman]

I'm with Darryl on the RAM. I've watched the Memory page in Activity Monitor closely on my Intel Mac Pro 6,1 and my Mac Studio Ultra 13,2. There is no special ability of Apple Silicon to make better use of less RAM. Pro Tools, the Avid Video Engine, EuControl, the Dolby Atmos Renderer, etc. all use the same amount whether Intel or AS. And ancillary apps like Media Encoder, Safari, Chrome etc. all chew up a ton of RAM. You will feel the pain with 16GB. Go higher than that.

[Ben Jenssen]

On the RAM; I say, it depends.
Depends on what you'll use it for.
I have 16GB, and I never have swapping, paging, any signs that it's not enough.

My typical session has 20-50 audio tracks, two or three VIs, a few reverbs and FX, and a channelstrip plugin on all tracks. No video. Activity Monitor might report PT using 100something percent cpu usage for PT, maybe 150+. That's from a total of 400%, as I have 4 performance cores.

I also use Adobe Lightroom Classic, a big memory hugger, with quite an extensive catalog of images, no problem. Memory in the green. If I run PT and LR simultaneously I might get more close to paging, but the launching/quitting of apps these days is so fast… Of course, all browser tabs, small apps, utilities etc are running all the time.

I had 32GB on a M1 Mini a year ago - was completely a waste of money, because I didn't need it.

So there!

[Sardi]

Originally Posted by Ben Jenssen

I had 32GB on a M1 Mini a year ago - was completely a waste of money, because I didn't need it.

The M1 Mac Mini only went up to 16GB RAM.


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[Ben Jenssen]

Originally Posted by Sardi

The M1 Mac Mini only went up to 16GB RAM.

Of course. Sorry, I meant the I7 Intel 2018 Mac mini.
I've been swapping macs frequently the last few years.

[Carl Lie]

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

^^^ and some expectations that lots of Apple products waiting for M3 upgrades are slipping significantly as TSMC has issues delivering from 3nm fabs, and Apple has to prioritize future iPhone silicon.

Whenever it happens M3 is where it will really be at, hopefully a much more significant upgrade over the M2 which was a minor upgrade to the M1 (as I think BScout has mentioned himself elsewhere). We'll see. I would not be buying anything now and waiting to see what happens at WWDC, even though I've toned down my expectations for anything at this WWDC.

On the Mac Pro we very likely won't be getting at WWDC... It's pretty sad you can't even buy a ATP Podcast Mac Pro "Believe" t-shirt any more. https://cottonbureau.com/p/TR4KZV/sh...rcent-cotton-s I so wanted to believe...

I'm amazed at how long the final Mac Pro solution is taking. Perhaps end of this year. I purchased a Studio Max with 64b Gigs of RAM to put in my studio as replacement for my old 5,1 and I decided I like it so much it's now in in use at my home studio. Perhaps when my 5,1 totally craps out I'll switch in the Studio. Or perhaps by then I'll look into whatever the Mac Pro ends up being.

These new Macs are super quiet and powerful (esp when using in apple silicon mode).

I think I could have done well with 32 gigs of RAM and if one does not use sample players/synths perhaps the 24 would work.

C

[basslik]

Originally Posted by its2loud

Buying into more RAM is considered an investment in your hardware. If you have working jobs that will pay for it over time, it's worth it.

The Mac Studios will probably get an update soon to the M2 chips, although this is not a guarantee.

I've been using the standard M1 Mac Mini since 2021 and it's biggest limitation has been the 16GB of RAM. There are some benchmarks out there that compare the base Mac Studio to the M2 Mac Mini Pro and the Pro wins out over the Mac Studio in some areas.

This is a hard one to answer. There are some folks who are on the DUC who have been using the base Mac Studio so perhaps they'll chime in.

Personally, I like the form factor and the quiet operation of the Mac Mini. That's not to say the Mac Studio is loud but there is more hardware inside that box. I personally don't have any experience with it.

I don't think you'll lose out either way whether you go with the Mac Studio or Mac Mini Pro. You just might be kicking yourself is Apple announces the M2 Mac Studios at their WWDC next month.

I'd also like to point out the Avid Video Engine has not been ported to Apple Silicon Native yet. While Pro Tools itself is, if you use the Video Engine for video playback, that is the most inefficient part of Pro Tools. On my system the Video Engine alone uses 4.8GB of RAM and Pro Tools is hovering at around 4.2GB for a basic 5.1 session. This doesn't give you much room for running any other applications at the same time as Pro Tools.

It's obvious of course because it's a M1 and M2 technology, but has anyone bench marked between and old 5,1 with OpenCore, which now can address and use 1,024 of ram via OpenCore (sick) I know but it works who scripted it, and had 8x128 sticks of ram. Just curious if anyone has benched that scenario?

[Sardi]

Originally Posted by basslik

It's obvious of course because it's a M1 and M2 technology, but has anyone bench marked between and old 5,1 with OpenCore, which now can address and use 1,024 of ram via OpenCore (sick) I know but it works who scripted it, and had 8x128 sticks of ram. Just curious if anyone has benched that scenario?

Benchmark in terms of CPU power?

They are so far apart it’s not funny.


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[basslik]

I'm sure that is of course. I do remember geekbench were doing head to head on the newer trash cans and the 5,1 decked out with goodies, NVMe, metal card, Opencore, were hanging with the best of the cans at the fraction of the cost.



I was just curious if anyone has benched the M1 against a decked out 5,1.


Astonishing to me is that who would have ever thought a 5,1 would be able to render 8K, let alone able to run the newest Mac OS. WOW

[Ben Jenssen]

Originally Posted by basslik

I was just curious if anyone has benched the M1 against a decked out 5,1.

Geekbench single-core scores.

My basic M2 mini scores 2624.
2012 Mac Pro scores 543.

Click "Multi-core" to see multi-core results:

My basic M2 mini scores 9677.
2012 Mac Pro scores 3969.