Low Cost Hardware Upgrade?

[yo-han]

Hey all! I'm trying to teach myself graphics on a budget and have been learning a lot for Affinity desktop on my old MacBook 2011 core2duo. I want to make an upgrade but need to stay inside of a tiny budget  ( ~$250 - 300)  my current options are:

 2011 Mac mini with a 2.7ghz i7 processor, 8gm of ram, and a AMD Radeon HD 6630M 256MB [no metal capability]

Or

2012 Mac mini with a 2.5ghz i5 processor, 8gm ram and an intel HD Graphics 4000 with 1536MB [metal capable]

My question is whether I'm going to have a better work station with the i7 non-metal capable Mac, or with the i5 Mac that is metal capable..  or is it really just worth it to get something with the i7 and metal capability.

Just looking for a affordable machine to get my foot in the door? Mostly doing basic graphics (web banners, logos etc.) and photo edits (cleaning up my old Cannon EOSM shots for hobby)

Obviously anything is going to be a major improvement from what I'm coming from!

Thanks a bunch! 

[stokerg]

Hi yo-han and Welcome to the Forums,

While we (staff) can't recommend specific hardware, i can give you some information which may help you decide:

In terms of recommended systems, our devs have mentioned before that the more cores in the CPU, and the faster the cores run, the better. Something like an Intel core i5 with 4 cores that runs at ~3.5GHz.
Our app will run with less RAM, but we recommend 8GBs where possible. Equally any app will run on a hard drive but I would personally consider a high capacity SSD for boot and main applications a necessity nowadays.

Hope that helps and i'm sure others will be able to post more suggestions  

[SrPx]

I'm not into the Apple's world (tho made some research about mac minis as my sister insisted in getting a Mac instead of a PC -until I convinced her- ) but an intel processor from 2012 or 2011 is quite an old processor. Still, tons faster than a core2duo. The OS is very different, but the intel chips are the ones we know from the PC world. Yep, you should notice quite a difference. I think there were issues to run Mojave and Catalina with non metal gpus, but it seems there's an unofficial patch or something. Officially at least, seems one should get the mac mini supporting metal (2012 or +).

In Apple's site seems not easy to get further info about the specific intel models used. It seems you can opt for more expensive configs -paying crazy differences, I guess, as usual- , and I see that while 2011 uses 2nd gen of the intel core series (core i5, i7 etc), and those series where way more powerful than a core2duo, a lot of the default configs are only dual cores. You may be able to opt for a quad core, in the 2012.  For the other one, the optional i7-2620M is actually a dual core. 2011 is sandy bridge, the second gen, the 2012 is 3rd gen. Not that there was a lot of difference in performance, not as much as between Sandy bridge and the first generation (my cpu). I'd definitely not pick the 2.3 GHz option, but the 2.6 one in the 2012, if possible. I'd try to put a ssd but surely also upgrade (there's an upgrade option that gives you both) the HD to be 7200 rpm, is much faster  than a 5400 rpm HDD. And is cheap storage. Dunno, maybe then the price gets crazy. Is a matter fo checking.

Unless someone actually knowing about macs (not me, LOL) tells you other things, at least on paper, about the hardware and due to that OS thing, I'd go for the 2012, but would try to put the max options possible, unless it reaches so a price that then you'd better get you just a current mac mini, which, judging only the hardware specs, seems a ton better (the 2018 one could get even an i7 8700 - "ish" optional, which is quite a beast in comparison).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_Mini#Specifications_3

Also, again, dunno a freaking cr4p about Mac, but seems to me that (the "better" card in the 2011) 256 MB of video memory to be quite limited (ie, for GPU 3D rendering or even basic video rendering, if GPU based)

They're telling you that 4 cores and around 3.5 ghz would be recommended. If it is possible for you to get the 2012 one with the option of 2.6 GHz (3.6 GHz) with the i7-3720QM cpu, instead of the default, and does not get too crazy in price, that's perhaps the best path. As is a 4  cores / 8 threads model, runs at 2.6 Ghz base, 3.6 turbo. Definitely quite much faster than your current core2duo. Faster and more cores, (also, the model I just detailed, has 6mb of cache L3, all the others have 3) , that should be better for Affinity. Also is more modern cpu tech, always while all of this is pretty arcane.

But the mac mini is a good offer, the only kind of thing I'd buy in Apple's world, as for its ratio of hardware/price. In PC you get quite better deals and way more variety/freedom, but the mac minis ones are closer to those deals.

[R C-R]

6 hours ago, SrPx said:

In Apple's site seems not easy to get further info about the specific intel models used.

In part, that is because while Apple's Intel CPU's are from the same CPU families as the COTS (Common or Commercial Off-The-Shelf) parts used in other brands, they are not necessarily identical to them, so you can't always match them up perfectly with specific COTS model numbers (like i7-2620M or whatever). The same may be true for some of the GPUs & other chips Apple uses in Macs -- they could be customized versions made specifically for Apple & not sold to anyone else.