Integrated graphics on Mini ok for photoshop elements usage?

[CavemanMike]

Looking at the 'compare all mac desktops' on the apple site, I have the impression the mac mini only comes with integrated graphics, whereas the imac has different choices for graphics cards.

1. How good is the graphics on the mini?

2. While someone editing photos with photoshop elements be sad to have a mini and not a full imac?

Thanks,
Mike

 

[hudson1]

Looking at the 'compare all mac desktops' on the apple site, I have the impression the mac mini only comes with integrated graphics, whereas the imac has different choices for graphics cards.

1. How good is the graphics on the mini?

2. While someone editing photos with photoshop elements be sad to have a mini and not a full imac?

Thanks,
Mike

Should be fine.

 

[El Hikaru]

1

I don't edit photos but tried playing borderlands 2 with Mini.
Not good.
By the way, my Mini has Intel HD graphics 3000. I transferred Steam account to my wife's Macbook Air which has HD 5000 and finish the game. It was not at high resolution but at least I could shoot guns.

 

[Schnort]

Looking at the 'compare all mac desktops' on the apple site, I have the impression the mac mini only comes with integrated graphics, whereas the imac has different choices for graphics cards.

1. How good is the graphics on the mini?

Good enough to do anything that isn't 3d gaming related.

2. While someone editing photos with photoshop elements be sad to have a mini and not a full imac?

no.

 

[QWERTYMac7]

The mid and high end 2011 have AMD graphic processors.

They come up on the Apple refurb store often.

 

[CavemanMike]

How 'bout for video editing?

He's not really doing that now, but I wouldn't want to get a solution that would be terrible for that in case his needs change.

Thanks Schnort: good to know. There will certainly be no gaming on that computer!

Mike

 

[shaunp]

I use a 2012 Mini (Core i7 2.6GHz) with Lightroom 5 and PS CC and it works fine. PS doesn't seem to use the graphics as much as it uses the CPU. I'm running on a 27" display and it's all good.

I was running LR and PS on a PC (i7 3770k, 32GB RAM, SSD) with an Nivida GTX 780 and I've not noticed any drop in graphics performance for LR and PS since moving to the mini. The only difference I've noticed is the PC is a lot quieter when the CPU is pushed, but this only happens when it's creating views in LR after an import. Otherwise silent. The PC has now just become a glorified xbox.

Unless you are editing large photo shoots every day I'd go with the mini. Give you more flexibility over screen choice.

 

[CavemanMike]

Not good for photo shoots?

He's a photographer. He'll shoot an event, upload 300 to the computer, go through them, pick out the best 30, maybe do light photo shop elements for cropping.

Does that sound ok?

Will that tax the mini?

Will it be a good experience?

Thanks,
Mike

I use a 2012 Mini (Core i7 2.6GHz) with Lightroom 5 and PS CC and it works fine. PS doesn't seem to use the graphics as much as it uses the CPU. I'm running on a 27" display and it's all good.

I was running LR and PS on a PC (i7 3770k, 32GB RAM, SSD) with an Nivida GTX 780 and I've not noticed any drop in graphics performance for LR and PS since moving to the mini. The only difference I've noticed is the PC is a lot quieter when the CPU is pushed, but this only happens when it's creating views in LR after an import. Otherwise silent. The PC has now just become a glorified xbox.

Unless you are editing large photo shoots every day I'd go with the mini. Give you more flexibility over screen choice.

 

[Donka]

I use a 2012 Mini with i5, 8Gb RAM and integrated HD4000.
This was initially being used as a standalone iTunes/Plex server but I have since moved it to a study and use it regularly for photo editing and iMovie. Works a treat. I have used Aperture, PhotoShop & Pixelmator and everything is a breeze. I would imagine bulk processing hundreds of images would be time consuming but in typical editing of 12MP RAW files, I see no performance issues at all.

 

[chrfr]

He's a photographer. He'll shoot an event, upload 300 to the computer, go through them, pick out the best 30, maybe do light photo shop elements for cropping.

The Mini will be more than adequate for this. Just plan on upgrading the RAM to at least 8GB.

 

[iizmoo]

Current Mini is at it refresh cycle end time, if you can wait a little bit, should be better integrated graphic in the next release. I have a MBA with HD 5000 and the little thing is actually pretty good, I can run WoW, SimCity, Starcraft 2 pretty well, my Photoshop seem to do ok, but I also only edit one or two item at a time. The next refresh of the Mini should be getting the same HD5000 at a minimal upgrade. It may not be much, but every little bit of advancement count.

 

[shaunp]

He's a photographer. He'll shoot an event, upload 300 to the computer, go through them, pick out the best 30, maybe do light photo shop elements for cropping.

Does that sound ok?

Will that tax the mini?

Will it be a good experience?

Thanks,
Mike

It will do that no problem, I often take 500+ pictures. I imported over 20,000 pictures at the weekend as I migrated from PC to Mac and it took a couple of hours to produce the previews. I did a little shoot yesterday and imported 200 photos, that took a 'few minutes' to import them and generate the previews. I didn't time this, I was browsing the web while it was running but it was pretty quick and I'm normally impatient with these things.

Importing photos won't tax the mini too much - CPU runs at around 50% when creating the previews in LR 5. I would however put the OS on an SSD and have fast external storage for the photos. I got a Pegasus 2 for my photos. This combination works very well.

----------

Current Mini is at it refresh cycle end time, if you can wait a little bit, should be better integrated graphic in the next release. I have a MBA with HD 5000 and the little thing is actually pretty good, I can run WoW, SimCity, Starcraft 2 pretty well, my Photoshop seem to do ok, but I also only edit one or two item at a time. The next refresh of the Mini should be getting the same HD5000 at a minimal upgrade. It may not be much, but every little bit of advancement count.

True, but nobody knows when this will be because Apple don't do normal things like a roadmap. I personally can't see them upgrading it with Haswell as that boat has already sailed and the main benefits were power saving. Yes the integrated GPU was improved too, but I see them waiting until Broadwell now for an update. I can also see the form factor changing too, and PCI-e SSD's been introduced.

 

[CavemanMike]

50 open pictures in Photoshop at once?

As to: "but I also only edit one or two item at a time."

What do you mean? If you have more than 2 photos open, is that really taxing the video or is it just consuming memory? I intend to get 16 gigs of memory specifically for this purpose.

This user will open maybe 50 at once, touch up, crop, etc. He's terrible about closing and typically won't do so until his pc starts making terrible grinding sounds.

Thoughts?

Thanks,
Mike

 

[Schnort]

The 2d graphics capabilities on any machine in the past 5 years is more than adequate to do photoshop editing or video editing. For photoshop, you could probably go back 10 years with no issues.

You need more system RAM, more than anything. After that, a fast harddrive/ssd. The video card simply isn't a factor in performance of photoshop or video editing.

 

[CavemanMike]

That sounds reasonable, thank you!

That sounds reasonable, thank you!

 

[yjchua95]

I think you should wait till the 2014 Mac Mini refresh. It's most likely going to come with Iris 5100/5200 Pro, which offers stellar performance in apps that use OpenCL heavily, like Photoshop CC.

I have a 2013 Haswell rMBP, and Photoshop works better with Iris than with the GT750M.

 

[thekev]

As to: "but I also only edit one or two item at a time."

What do you mean? If you have more than 2 photos open, is that really taxing the video or is it just consuming memory? I intend to get 16 gigs of memory specifically for this purpose.

This user will open maybe 50 at once, touch up, crop, etc. He's terrible about closing and typically won't do so until his pc starts making terrible grinding sounds.

Thoughts?

Thanks,
Mike

You're over-thinking this. They don't matter very much. Recent gpus are quite fast. Do you understand those grinding noises? Those are called hard drive thrashing. They have nothing to do with the gpu. It means the application is being forced to write large amounts of data to disk and likely cannot find enough contiguous space in large chunks. Your user needs more ram, and he needs to balance the preferences in the application to ensure that PS is not starved. He also needs to use a drive that isn't terribly full, whether it's an SSD or HDD. The GPU is the last of your concerns.

 

[fig]

I think you should wait till the 2014 Mac Mini refresh. It's most likely going to come with Iris 5100/5200 Pro, which offers stellar performance in apps that use OpenCL heavily, like Photoshop CC.

I have a 2013 Haswell rMBP, and Photoshop works better with Iris than with the GT750M.

Is that much of Photoshop CC actually taking advantage of Open CL acceleration? In the past PS has used the GPU very little, only for certain operations, and I find that while cool the test results that look impressive (like in the article linked) are for operations that I never do.

 

[VI™]

Don't skimp on the processor. I have the i5 with ATI GPU and 16GB of RAM editing on a 2560x1600 resolution 30" screen. It's a little laggy and Lightroom exports seem to take forever. My new rMBP with i7 blows it out of the water.

 

[Cape Dave]

I use PE all the time on my mini. Nothing heavy, but it works fine. And, as with ANY new computer, GET THE SSD. Makes all the difference.

 

[ElectronGuru]

Yeah, quad + ram + SSD. Don't sweat the rest.

 

[yjchua95]

Is that much of Photoshop CC actually taking advantage of Open CL acceleration? In the past PS has used the GPU very little, only for certain operations, and I find that while cool the test results that look impressive (like in the article linked) are for operations that I never do.

Yeah Photoshop CC heavily utilizes OpenCL.

 

[fig]

Yeah Photoshop CC heavily utilizes OpenCL.

For what though? Per the Adobe docs it doesn't sound like much:

GPU-enhanced features added in Photoshop CC

The Blur Gallery - Iris Blur, Field Blur, and Tilt-Shift - is enhanced by OpenCL.

Smart Sharpen uses OpenCL for Noise Reduction only.

I'm not going to be too concerned about running an OpenCL video card to speed up a handful of filters if that's all there is to it.

 

[Edde1]

I use the i7 2012 mini for pro photo. I use ps and lightroom and edit movies whithout any problems. I have 16gb ram and standard hdd. No problems

 

[CavemanMike]

Thanks!

@thekev Thanks for suggesting: " He also needs to use a drive that isn't terribly full, whether it's an SSD or HDD. " Good point.

And funny you note: yes: I have a tendency to over-think things

Mike