I currently have a Retina 5K, 27” 2017 iMac and Im thinking about updating it. I use this computer every for work in graphic art and design. The apps that I use are Photoshop, Illustrator and Indesign most of the time. My question is.. would I’ll be ok with a new iMac or should I go with a Mac Mini, Mac Studio or a Mac Pro?
Trouble is, "Photoshop, Illustrator and Indesign" are a piece of string - they'll run happily on an 8GB machine (not recommended), but if you're compositing a ton of ultra-high-res bitmap images they might slow to a crawl without 64GB+
What processor, GPU and RAM do you have in the iMac?
You also have to think about what display you want/need, since the 5k iMac is hard to beat. The 24" iMac display is good, but its not 27". Going with a Mini or Studio gives you a wide choice of displays, including multi-display setups but if you like the 5k, 27" format there's not much choice, and I wouldn't be falling over myself to "upgrade" the 5k iMac as long as it was getting the job done. (Personally, I went from a high-ish-end 2017 iMac to a Studio Max and its a decent upgrade - but also personally I never really wanted the iMac display, got the iMac because it was the only viable Mac desktop in 2017, and prefer the twin 4k+ monitors I'm using with the Studio even if they aren't quite such good image quality as the 5k - your mileage may vary).
Also, the 24" iMac is currently the oldest model on Apple's books - probably not a good time to buy.
Really, the obvious upgrade path from a higher-end iMac is a Studio Max + studio display (if that floats your boat) or alternative display (which is usually cheaper). The Mac Mini Pro looks OK if one of the standard models hits your sweet spot, but start adding BTO options and you're probably getting a better deal with a Studio.
With the iMac and the Mac Mini Studio.. can I upgrade the RAM by myself?
No. Which makes for the awkward problem of deciding how much RAM you
really need up front... whereas a lot of iMac users just bought an 8GB iMac and stuffed in 16 or 32GB of cheap 3rd party RAM without needing to agonize over the cost. Certainly look at the Memory Pressure reading in Activity Monitor on your iMac (and maybe experiment with removing some of the RAM - in theory you should be able to create a RAM disk to mop up half your RAM although I've never tried that).
I had an M1 Mini 512/16. I use some art apps as well and if I had a couple of other apps open, not only was their swapping but the art apps suffered with pauses and stuttering etc.
What display were you using?
Its worth remembering that although the M1's GPU is a huge upgrade from the Intel Integrated graphics in the lower-end Intel Macs, that's very,
very faint praise. Running a 5k display is demanding - running a 4k display in "looks like 1440p" means rendering at 5k internally
and using the GPU to downsample the result to 4k. Also, unified memory may be efficient but it still means that some of your 16GB is being used for stuff that would otherwise be in VRAM on a Mac with a discrete GPU.
I think some people got a bit carried away thinking they could really replace their $3000 high-end Intel iMac/MacBook Pro systems with a $1000 M1 Mini.
