Switching from Windows to Apple. Looking for M1 experiences. How good is it?

[Royk]

Hey peeps, i am in the need for an upgrade. I bought my custom build PC 6 years ago and I am very interested to get back to Apple. Specially the M1 Mac Mini. While there are serveral video's on youtube about this, i can not find any satisfying video from an hardcore illustrator point of view, working in Desigher and on a M1. In complex and huge drawings. For example, i am creating 9 meter long and 3 meter high artwork for a daycare with a LOT of details. My PC is strugling. 32gb memory, 6 core cpu and a M2 disk. It is still having trouble. 

So, i was wondering (and hoping) to find some M1 (pro) users here that can fill-in experiences. I hope it is fine that this topic is in this area.

Cheers,

Roy

[walt.farrell]

I can't help with your question, as I'm a Windows user. 

But I wanted to mention, in case you haven't seen them, that there are rumors that Apple will be announcing their new M2 processor and machines based on it very soon. So you might want to wait and consider one of the new machines.

Also, don't forget that in switching from Windows to Mac, you will need to purchase new licenses for your Affinity applications.

[Royk]

Thank you @walt.farrell I am following the news in Apple land and waiting for more info. They are going launch what seems like the have the name "Mac Studio", what will be there line-up for content creators. Will see about that. M1 or M2, it is very different than x86. Specially the shared memory is so different. 

Thats why i am very courious how people using these machines experience these the speed when they work in huge heavy (vector) files.

[Dan C]

I'd recommend checking out the below thread @Royk, as other forum users have shared their experience with M1 macs here - 

I hope this helps

[Royk]

thank you @Dan C I was looking for such a thread like that! Searching on M1 in the search box was not giving me any topics.

[v_kyr]

22 minutes ago, Royk said:

Searching on M1 in the search box was not giving me any topics

You better do a Google search after those topics instead, like ...

• m1 site:forum.affinity.serif.com
• m1 monterey site:forum.affinity.serif.com
• apple silicon site:forum.affinity.serif.com
• ... etc.

[wonderings]

only done some basic testing on my 14" MBP with M1 Max, applications open quick (slightly faster then their Adobe counter parts). I do all my work in Adobe and really only test and try things now and the Affinity apps. If you have a heavy vector file you want a review on to see how fast it opens, zooms and generally handle I am happy to put my M1 Max to the test. 

[Royk]

Thank you @v_kyrr ! I guess the search box is broken haha.

PS.. the first results brought me in a cloud of doubt. I am trully hyped about the M1. But i am a bit shoked about the many topics. Maybe a bit to early to jump a train. I cant affort standing still.

Right now, i own a windows based PC. An i7 6800K, 32gb mem and a fast M2 drive and a GTX1070. Not a bad PC and it handels everthing well. But snappy.. nah. And when things are getting big it has trouble getting all the calculations done. For now, i pauze my quest to move over and dive deeper in user experiences. Al those youtubers are nice, but most of them talking about video editing. I do Photo manipulation, matte painting and illustration. Pixel and vector. 

Thank you @wonderingsfor your kindnes. I cant share anything, cause it is client work. To bad, i wish i was able to haha. This video made me very hyped, because it looks all so snappy. I wish i had acces to this file too so i can test it on my system. I dont know if that drawing is filled with objects in objects, wit effects and transparancy's. etc etc. 
 

 

[wonderings]

13 minutes ago, Royk said:

Thank you @wonderingsfor your kindnes. I cant share anything, cause it is client work. To bad, i wish i was able to haha. This video made me very hyped, because it looks all so snappy. I wish i had acces to this file too so i can test it on my system. I dont know if that drawing is filled with objects in objects, wit effects and transparancy's. etc etc. 
 

completely understand. If you know of any free vector work out there let me know. I mainly work with Indesign as my main app, but Illustrator and Photoshop get regularly daily use with the various components that uses them best. 

[v_kyr]

1 hour ago, Royk said:

PS.. the first results brought me in a cloud of doubt. I am trully hyped about the M1. But i am a bit shoked about the many topics. Maybe a bit to early to jump a train. I cant affort standing still.

Well tomorrow there will be probably additional Apple silicon based hardware options announced (...with chance). - However, it always depends what one mainly want's to do, or has to work with software wise here then, aka the Apple Mx hardware. So it is also important to check which apps etc. one commonly needs do then run in a flawlessly manner here, ... since not every software is always adapted in a good or well behaving manner so far.

The harware itself should be capable, when good configured (meaning with enough >= 32 GB RAM and 1-2 TB SSD disk storage), but as said before, not every software runs that fast or foolprove as one would have hoped or expected here.

2 hours ago, Royk said:

Right now, i own a windows based PC. An i7 6800K, 32gb mem and a fast M2 drive and a GTX1070. Not a bad PC and it handels everthing well. But snappy.. nah. And when things are getting big it has trouble getting all the calculations done. For now, i pauze my quest to move over and dive deeper in user experiences. Al those youtubers are nice, but most of them talking about video editing. I do Photo manipulation, matte painting and illustration. Pixel and vector. 

Snappy, do you mean Affinity here, or in general?  - Well personally I wouldn't buy a certain hardware & OS system just for Affinity usage here, since I for my part need a bunch of other much more important things for my daily work.  - Well I also don't give that much about what youtubers and social media affiliatos etc. do tell, as most of them are probably sponsored or try to make a living out of that, may just do use plain synthetic bench tests, or don't work or have any clues about the working domain I would need things for. - So it's all always very relative!

 

[MEB]

Hi @Royk,
The current MacMini M1 is limited to just 16GB RAM which i believe is a bit on the low end for the type of work you are doing considering the RAM is not upgradeable and you are buying a new Mac for the years coming. The new Mac Studio if launched tomorrow may be a better option (an eventual lower end version) unless you are also considering the current MacBooks Pro and Max.

[Royk]

Thank you @MEB for your comment. I was hoping that Apple would upgrade their Mac Mini line-up with a M1 Pro with 32gb. Aprox in the 1500 dollar area. I guess the gab to the Mac Studio will not be filled with any headless pro version in between. It is M1 or M1 Max studio. I am not on the fence needing a new computer. But i will keep an eye on this all. 

[walt.farrell]

13 minutes ago, Royk said:

I guess the gab to the Mac Studio will not be filled with any headless pro version in between.

I have seen at least one site speculating that the Mac Mini upgrade will be to the M2 chip, in various configurations, sometime later.

[Royk]

1 minute ago, walt.farrell said:

I have seen at least one site speculating that the Mac Mini upgrade will be to the M2 chip, in various configurations, sometime later.

That sounds good! I think that will be a late 2022 story

[thomaso]

On 3/7/2022 at 10:25 PM, MEB said:

Hi @Royk,
The current MacMini M1 is limited to just 16GB RAM which i believe is a bit on the low end for the type of work you are doing considering the RAM is not upgradeable

Just in case: This articles about M1, respectively "Unified Memory" handling memory different, might interest you:

https://eclecticlight.co/2022/03/01/making-sense-of-m1-memory-use/

https://eclecticlight.co/2022/03/09/how-to-pick-memory-and-storage-for-an-m1-mac/

[v_kyr]

Well, for Apple Silicon based hardware (Apple M1) the used M1 type, aka if M1 ... Pro ... Max ... Ultra, dictates the maximal usable shared RAM memory here.

Apple M1  (8 - 16 GB max RAM)
Apple M1 Pro  (16 - 32 GB max RAM)
Apple M1 Max  (32 - 64 GB max RAM)
Apple M1 Ultra  (64 - 128 GB max RAM)

Mac Hardware:

Mac Mini --> M1  (8 - 16 GB max RAM)

24" iMac --> M1  (8 - 16 GB max RAM)

Mac Studio --> M1 Max (32 - 64 GB max RAM)
Mac Studio --> M1 Ultra (64 - 128 GB max RAM)

13" MBA  --> M1  (8 - 16 GB max RAM)
13" MBP  --> M1  (8 - 16 GB max RAM)

14" MBP --> M1 Pro  (16 - 32 GB max RAM)
14" MBP --> M1 Max (32 - 64 GB max RAM)

16" MBP --> M1 Pro  (16 - 32 GB max RAM)
16" MBP --> M1 Max (32 - 64 GB max RAM)

[Royk]

With some luck the first results of the Mac Studio will find there way on YouTube.. cant wait! Most of them are video content creators.

[v_kyr]

42 minutes ago, Royk said:

With some luck the first results of the Mac Studio will find there way on ...

... Geekbench Browser.

• Mac13,2 (M1 Ultra, 128 GB RAM)
• MacBook Pro (16-inch, 2021, M1 Max, 32GB RAM)
• ... etc.

Though those are of course just values from a synthetic benchmark. - So no common whole system usage scerario where all system components play together by certain app usages.

[Royk]

18 minutes ago, v_kyr said:

... Geekbench Browser.

• Mac13,2 (M1 Ultra, 128 GB RAM)
• MacBook Pro (16-inch, 2021, M1 Max, 32GB RAM)
• ... etc.

Though those are of course just values from a synthetic benchmark. - So no common whole system usage scerario where all system components play together by certain app usages.

Yeah, yesterday Max Tech also reported about that. First peak seems like we have to take a lot of Apple claims with a bag of salt. Offcourse, we have not seen any real day to day work performance. 

 

[MEB]

12 hours ago, thomaso said:

Just in case: This articles about M1, respectively "Unified Memory" handling memory different, might interest you:

https://eclecticlight.co/2022/03/01/making-sense-of-m1-memory-use/

https://eclecticlight.co/2022/03/09/how-to-pick-memory-and-storage-for-an-m1-mac/

I'm aware of what shared memory is/how it works/what benefits it has performance wise. I still think that buying a system with 16 Gb of shared memory (non-upgradeable) which is supposed to last a few good years for someone creating large artwork is not a great investment for future.

[v_kyr]

8 minutes ago, MEB said:

I still think that buying a system with 16 Gb of shared memory (non-upgradeable) which is supposed to last a few good years for someone creating large artwork is not a great investment for future.

I second that, further let me add, not only for artwork, image, video editing, or 3D rendering, but also for development purposes and other common tasks. - Nowadays a new yet bought system should offer at least 64 GB RAM, more ideally 128 GB RAM, but the later is sadly only to have with a very huge price markup in the Apple world.

[MikeTO]

My two cents.

If Apple was going to release a mini with an M1 Pro they likely would have done it last week so I think you'll be waiting for the M2 whenever that comes and there's no guarantee it will support more than 16GB either.

The new Studio which comes with an M1 Max and 32GB in the base model is obviously a superior machine but it's far more expensive.

One thing you could do is run the benchmark in Photo, assuming you purchased Photo in addition to Designer, and then compare your scores against the ones for the 2020 Mac mini in this table. Without knowing what your bottleneck is - cpu, gpu, or ram - it's impossible to know whether doubling your gpu score will make any difference, but it's better than nothing.

 

[Royk]

The Mac Studio looks awesome in the many reviews that are released yesterday. I will wait for the 'better' reviews that will pop up soon from real world usecases. Dont get me wrong.. but most YouTubers just making video's for YouTube and call themselfs professional. Wich in some way is correct, but edditing a thumbnail in Photoshop or Affinity Photo is not the same thing as working in these tools day and night. On top of that, i think many where sponsored simply because they had it allready for days and all are the same. M1 Ultra + Studio screen. And offcourse.. all rainbows. You dont bite in the hand that gives you food right?

I hope there are some foks here that can share their experiences with the base model of the Studio. The M1 Max 32gb 10 core. And share what you experience. 

[v_kyr]

1 hour ago, Royk said:

The Mac Studio looks awesome in the many reviews that are released yesterday. ...

• Apple's Mac Studio in the first test  (via Google translate from: Apples Mac Studio im ersten Test)

[R C-R]

6 hours ago, Royk said:

I hope there are some foks here that can share their experiences with the base model of the Studio. The M1 Max 32gb 10 core. And share what you experience. 

It would be nice if someone from Serif obtained one of these models, did some testing with it, & let us know the results.