rtownley001 Posted October 21, 2021 Share Posted October 21, 2021 Have been using Serif/Affinity software for many years and have no problems with the PC versions. But it's time to upgrade hardware and I'm considering the new M1 Mac. It is available with 8gb RAM or 16gb for extra charge. Has anyone had any experience with Affinity on the new Mac and can recommend if the extra memory is worth the extra cost? The conventional thinking for PCs is that more RAM is always better, but the Apple IOS is supposed to be a lot more efficient than Windows. Any advice appreciated! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alfred Posted October 21, 2021 Share Posted October 21, 2021 Welcome to the Serif Affinity Forums, @rtownley001. M1 Macs are discussed here: Quote Alfred Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for Windows • Windows 10 Home/Pro Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for iPad • iPadOS 17.4.1 (iPad 7th gen) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fixx Posted October 22, 2021 Share Posted October 22, 2021 I would not do professional work with 8 GB RAM, even if it were M1. rtownley001 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Staff James Ritson Posted October 22, 2021 Staff Share Posted October 22, 2021 13 hours ago, rtownley001 said: Have been using Serif/Affinity software for many years and have no problems with the PC versions. But it's time to upgrade hardware and I'm considering the new M1 Mac. It is available with 8gb RAM or 16gb for extra charge. Has anyone had any experience with Affinity on the new Mac and can recommend if the extra memory is worth the extra cost? The conventional thinking for PCs is that more RAM is always better, but the Apple IOS is supposed to be a lot more efficient than Windows. Any advice appreciated! Hi @rtownley001, I've got an M1 Mac Mini and I went with 16GB. The unified memory architecture and very fast SSD means that swapping is not as big a hindrance as it used to be, but I would still err on the side of caution for image editing and go for 16GB. This would give you more headroom for complex documents, especially when working in 16-bit (or even 32-bit) precision, and given that you'll want to be using the GPU for compositing, that will need a share of the unified memory as well. Hope that helps! jmwellborn and R C-R 2 Quote Product Expert (Affinity Photo) & Product Expert Team Leader @JamesR_Affinity for tutorial sneak peeks and more Official Affinity Photo tutorials Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
R C-R Posted October 22, 2021 Share Posted October 22, 2021 8 hours ago, James Ritson said: The unified memory architecture and very fast SSD means that swapping is not as big a hindrance as it used to be, but I would still err on the side of caution for image editing and go for 16GB. It would be interesting to compare the performance of an M1 Mac Mini with 16 GB of RAM vs. one with 8 GB (with all other specs being the same) on some AP test documents of varying complexity. Quote All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7 Affinity Photo 1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rtownley001 Posted October 22, 2021 Author Share Posted October 22, 2021 Very helpful, thanks people! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lacerto Posted October 22, 2021 Share Posted October 22, 2021 On 10/21/2021 at 8:22 PM, rtownley001 said: It is available with 8gb RAM or 16gb for extra charge. Has anyone had any experience with Affinity on the new Mac and can recommend if the extra memory is worth the extra cost? The conventional thinking for PCs is that more RAM is always better, but the Apple IOS is supposed to be a lot more efficient than Windows. I have the basic 8GB M1 MacBook Air model (besides having several mid and high end Windows laptops and desktop PCs + a mixed bag of 10 or so older MBPs, one Mac Pro, Mac Minis, and iMacs), and I think this is price-quality-wise the best computer I have ever had. M1 chip has its limitations, and 16GB RAM can probably make a difference with certain tasks (according to some benchmarks I have read and also posts made on this forum), but as long as heavy multitasking is not constantly needed and very large files are not regularly processed, I have not noticed any significant bottlenecks after about a 10-month usage with Affinity apps, some Xcode and VisualStudio app development, and Photoshop. "Professional" is a subjective attribute, IMO, and it should not be used, at all, without a definition (ruling out this kind of a device would, after all, make much of pre-2016-or-so computing "non-professional", which is just absurd). Affinity-apps themselves could well be rendered "hobbyist", or "semi-professional", at best, in the same vein, so these kinds of labels really do not mean anything. So to be able to give accurate answers, more specific task specs should be known, to make meaningful comparisons. 2D graphic design [exclusive video processing aside] generally is pretty low-end as regards computing requirements, so as a general note I'd say there is very little what this specific "entry-level" M1 computer could not do without any problems, at all. Affinity apps themselves have some serious problems with memory management, long documents, etc., and a more capable computer might alleviate handling (or avoiding facing) these kinds of situations. [The results as for the amount of RAM available seem to be mostly comparable disregarding the kind of a mac M1 chips are used on.] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.