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Will Affinity Photo and Designer work seamlessly on a mac mini?


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I wanted to know whether it would be wise to buy a mac mini with 1.4 GHz dual-core i5 ,4 GB RAM and Intel HD Graphics 5000 for using affinity designer and photo and any future updates of them.

Would it suffice for use uptill the next 3-4 years considering all updates?

 

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My thoughts, first, are regards to the RAM.   Consider, if you will, 16 GB RAM.    Well, the rest, it up to you and 'staff'.   We have a Mac mini, 4.1, and I upped the RAM to 16 GB.   Just not able to stop this little creature.   It can run LR 6.5.1, and PS CS5.   

 

AP may not need this much RAM.  I truly don't know.   

 

Let me ask you, since I have not bothered looking, can you up the RAM as the user?

 

Kind Regards,

 

David4

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The Affinity apps are surprisingly memory efficient. I use a 2012 iMac with 8 GB of RAM (specs below in my signature) & often have both Photo & Designer open at the same time, along with Safari, Preview, & maybe one or two other apps. According to Activity Monitor (an app in the Applications > Utilities folder) the "memory pressure" never gets out of the green & neither Affinity app typically uses as much RAM as Safari.

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

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So sad.   The Wolfkeeper writes:  "The latest mac mini has maximum ram of 8 GB and it isn't upgradeable"!  

 

The 17 inch MacBook Pro is no longer available.   For under $400, it's better for me, to have my pair of MacBook Pro's 8,3 repaired.  And, I did have one of the repaired.  Sent it directly to Apple in USA.   Cannot believe returned to me in three (3) days.

 

Wondering, if purchasing a refurbished Mac mini, that can take 16 GB RAM, is feasible?

 

I am confident, whatever The Wolfkeeper chooses will be the right choice for him.

 

Kind Regards,

 

David4

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Best mac for Affinity Apps:

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/13833-best-mac-for-affinity-apps/?hl=buy&p=61196

 

Which Mac for Photo:

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/16157-which-mac-for-photo/?hl=lens&p=73379

 

My personal take is:

If you don´t know that you need a faster mac, then you probably don´t need one, buy a good lens for your camera instead.

 

I can assure you, as soon as you do a couple of live filter layers like denoise, lens blur, highpass, every mac will get spinning wheels. At some point you´ll always have to work around some limitations. (do a merge visible and after that uncheck the underlying layers for example).

 

 

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The latest mac mini has maximum ram of 8 GB and it isn't upgradeable

According to http://www.apple.com/mac-mini/specs/the latest model can be factory configured with up to 16 GB of memory, but (as usual for Apple) memory upgrades are pricey -- for the base i5 model upping the RAM to 16 GB will add $300 US to the price. Ouch!

 

Upping that model to 8 GB adds a (slightly) more reasonable $100 to the price, & (at least in my opinion) is much better value on a cost vs. performance basis.

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

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But that option isn't available in India!

I did not know that, but from what I have been reading on the web, Apple is working hard to bring the full range of Apple products to India.

 

So there is hope for the future, even if it does not help you now.

 

EDIT: or maybe not. I just saw this news story regarding Apple's retail store problems in India.

Edited by R C-R

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

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