Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

james*b

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jan 2, 2011
143
0
Hi -
I was thinking of switching from my Mac Mini (late 2012 Quad Core i7 2.3 GHz, 4gb ram) to a 2013 13" Macbook Air 6,2 (Core i5 1.3 GHz, 8gb ram).
I am interested in how Lightroom will run on the 2013 MBA compared to the quad core Mac Mini - does anyone have any experience about whether it will be significantly slower?
I have looked for an appropriate benchmark but I am not sure which one is most applicable.
Thanks in advance!
 
I do not use Lightroom but I have a suggestion. Because your question did not yield any results, you might do better asking in the Special Interests > Visual Media > Digital Photography forum.

Although I do not expect that there would be a great difference between those two machines running that application, you should be able to find someone who can provide some insight into the actual performance you can expect.

Be careful though, this is a very subjective question. On that same forum, a user recently posted a fine video that compared the difference between major photo editing programs. The systematic project compared DPP, Aperture, Capture One, Lightroom and DxO. His results showed mixed performance and this comparison showed that Canon's DPP trailed the other software with especially sluggish operation.

I suggest caution because my experience with DPP is quite different. I do not uses the other programs but the newest version of DPP is quite snappy on my i7 2.3 Mac mini. When compared to this video, for my use with my hardware, DPP outperforms the other packages on the posters nMP. My older Canon DSLR produces smaller image files and I am not using dual 4K displays.

In a similar way, your question introduces so many variables that it is tough to guess the relative performance of those two machines. Your Mac mini has less memory, a more powerful CPU, and (I assume) a slower 5400 rpm HDD. The Macbook Air has twice as much memory(!), a slower i5 CPU, and blazing fast SSD storage.

Perhaps you have not found "an appropriate benchmark" because one does not exist! In your position, I would be inclined to add memory to the mini and put it to work but you are considering that Macbook for some reason. 8Gb or more of RAM and SSD storage would place your mini in another performance category completely. Do you require portability or some other feature that the Macbook provides?
 
Last edited:
I use Lightroom a lot.
The CPU only makes a difference when you import and export large amounts of raws/jpegs.

Other than that Lr does not care about RAM, CPU or GPU. What does make a noticeable difference is the ice ssd in the mba.
 
Perhaps you have not found "an appropriate benchmark" because one does not exist! In your position, I would be inclined to add memory to the mini and put it to work but you are considering that Macbook for some reason. 8Gb or more of RAM and SSD storage would place your mini in another performance category completely. Do you require portability or some other feature that the Macbook provides?

Thanks for the advice. I now need a portable. The Mac Mini is running sufficiently fast using an external SSD boot drive and is a great machine.
 
You Are Welcome!

I use Lightroom a lot.
The CPU only makes a difference when you import and export large amounts of raws/jpegs.

Other than that Lr does not care about RAM, CPU or GPU. What does make a noticeable difference is the ice ssd in the mba.

... I now need a portable...

From what Meister said, switching to the MacBook should not cost you much Lightroom performance, if any at all. Does "switching" mean that you are going to get rid of your i7 mini, or do you plan to keep both?
 
From what Meister said, switching to the MacBook should not cost you much Lightroom performance, if any at all. Does "switching" mean that you are going to get rid of your i7 mini, or do you plan to keep both?

Sadly I can't justify both, but I am still dithering over whether to go with a macbook air or pro.
 
OP wrote above:
[[ Sadly I can't justify both, but I am still dithering over whether to go with a macbook air or pro. ]]

This answer is easy:
MacBook Pro, preferably the retina model.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.