Moving from PC to Mac

[Tomasz Petrycki]

Hi.

I have been using Affinity for PC for several years. I plan to transfer to a Mac. I don't create complicated graphics, I don't process gigabyte photos. I am planning to buy a used Mac. What system and hardware minimum can you advise? I know that PC parameters do not apply here and there is nothing to compare, so I am waiting for advice ...
Will it be enough? https://amso.pl/product-pol-194259-Apple-Mac-Mini-6-1-A1347-i5-3210M-2x2-5GHz-8GB-240GB-SSD-WiFi-HDMI-OSX-Kabel.html

[NotMyFault]

I would recommend a M1 MacMini. The older intel i5 based are no fun at all.

I tried Affinity on the i5 based MacBook of my partner, it is night and day vs. my new M1.

You will be able to work, only feels like 10 times slower.

a new one with same spec cost about 2,5 times the money. You may get a used one for 1,5 times money, but it will serve you much longer.

 

[jmwellborn]

3 hours ago, Tomasz Petrycki said:

Hi.

I have been using Affinity for PC for several years. I plan to transfer to a Mac. I don't create complicated graphics, I don't process gigabyte photos. I am planning to buy a used Mac. What system and hardware minimum can you advise? I know that PC parameters do not apply here and there is nothing to compare, so I am waiting for advice ...
Will it be enough? https://amso.pl/product-pol-194259-Apple-Mac-Mini-6-1-A1347-i5-3210M-2x2-5GHz-8GB-240GB-SSD-WiFi-HDMI-OSX-Kabel.html

The most important thing is to be sure that you have at least 16GB of memory.  The M1's are really wonderful, but Apple was absolutely correct when they advised me to buy my MacBook Pro M1 and the iMac 24" M1 with 16 GB of memory.   That is key to the speed and smoothness of these machines.  Hope you can find something really nice! 

[NotMyFault]

8 minutes ago, jmwellborn said:

The most important thing is to be sure that you have at least 16GB of memory.  The M1's are really wonderful, but Apple was absolutely correct when they advised me to buy my MacBook Pro M1 and the iMac 24" M1 with 16 GB of memory.   That is key to the speed and smoothness of these machines.  Hope you can find something really nice! 

I agree that 16 GB RAM is better, but the base model is the best bang for the buck. All add-ons like RAM, SDD etc are insanely expensive. If you are on a tight budget, the M1 base model is the best value, even with 8 GB RAM.

[Tomasz Petrycki]

Is there a problem with replacing the RAM at a later date?  Is there an access to the socket like in PCs?

[Old Bruce]

8 minutes ago, Tomasz Petrycki said:

Is there a problem with replacing the RAM at a later date?  Is there an access to the socket like in PCs?

Apple is ... less than helpful... when it comes to upgrading machines. I cannot say for certain but I would say that the RAM you have when the machine is purchased is the RAM you'll have for the lifetime of the machine. You would be better served checking out various Mac websites that focus on the hardware. Maybe a DuckDuckGo search of something along the lines of "Can I upgrade the RAM on a Mac Mini?"

[NotMyFault]

10 minutes ago, Tomasz Petrycki said:

Is there a problem with replacing the RAM at a later date?  Is there an access to the socket like in PCs?

no, current regular Macs cannot be extended internally in any way (CPU/RAM/SSD/GPU). You must buy what you need from start.

You may use external disks, with a performance penalty.

[v_kyr]

40 minutes ago, Tomasz Petrycki said:

Is there a problem with replacing the RAM at a later date?  Is there an access to the socket like in PCs?

You simply can't do that easily here (see for example several iFixit articles & videos) on modern Mac systems, everything is mostly soldered & glued inside together there. And if you buy a new system you shouldn't do that, since you may otherwise loose your warranty by the Apple service. If they detect that seals inside are demonstrably broken, they won't offer you the warranty.

In the past for former times MacBooks, iMacs, Mac Minis, you were able at least to exchange or add memory modules, but those times are long gone nowadays! - Thus you have carefully to decide from start up how it should be equipped & then configure it accordingly.

In case of a Mac based system, I won't go nowadays the old and dying out Mac Intel CPU road, you better make the switch to the M1 ARM CPU based move now.

RAM wise I wouldn't buy a machine with just the initial 8GB, even it might look at a first glance more attractive price wise (lower acquisition cost), the downside is, it's also too low for upcoming tomorrow OS systems & bigger software apps etc. You should better opt for at least opt for 16 GB here. Same with SSD storage capacity, you can't exchange those easily and plugging on external ones don't give you the speed of internal ones here (...further in case of Affinity software products, these always have problems with external media storage). So the right SSD size should also foresighted be taken into account here.

All in all If a Mac purchase has to be amortized over a longer period of time, then you have to take this into account from the outset and then configure the respective device accordingly!

[R C-R]

3 hours ago, Tomasz Petrycki said:

Is there a problem with replacing the RAM at a later date?  Is there an access to the socket like in PCs?

AFAIK, there are no RAM module sockets in any recent Mac model. The Apple M series Macs solder the RAM directly to the same substrate that the M series combined CPU/GPU is soldered to. This is to keep the connections between the two as short as possible to maximize the speed & minimize the latency of data transfers between them.

So it is done at least in part for performance reasons, not just to make people pay more for Apple RAM.