Possible editing set-up. Your thoughts?

[TheBeastman13]

I'm a college student looking to upgrade from my current MacBook to a new, more powerful setup so that I may buy Adobe's Production suite to edit videos and photos. I'm thinking if max out the Mac Mini and buy an external monitor would be cheaper than buying a MacBook Pro equivalent to the Mini's hardware. Is this a smart move? Will a maxed out Mini handle Photoshop, AE, and the like, without hiccups?

Also, instead of buying an external monitor, can I use my MacBook as a monitor for the Mini?

I've seen threads speaking of a Mini update for the fiscal 13/14 year. Should I wait until Christmas time to get the Mini so I know I'm getting a 13/14 Mini, not the 12/13?

Thanks for the thoughts and pointers.

 

[phrehdd]

I'm a college student looking to upgrade from my current MacBook to a new, more powerful setup so that I may buy Adobe's Production suite to edit videos and photos. I'm thinking if max out the Mac Mini and buy an external monitor would be cheaper than buying a MacBook Pro equivalent to the Mini's hardware. Is this a smart move? Will a maxed out Mini handle Photoshop, AE, and the like, without hiccups?

Also, instead of buying an external monitor, can I use my MacBook as a monitor for the Mini?

I've seen threads speaking of a Mini update for the fiscal 13/14 year. Should I wait until Christmas time to get the Mini so I know I'm getting a 13/14 Mini, not the 12/13?

Thanks for the thoughts and pointers.

I think the wisest thing you can do is go to Adobe oriented forums and see what people are using as far as computers and in particular Macs. If you decide on a Mini, might as well wait to see if the refresh comes towards the end of this year (perhaps the end of this month). Also, consider maxing out the RAM as a priority, getting the fastest drives you can use (SSD etc.). Many Adobe oriented forums provide excellent information on set ups for all Mac systems and what is "optimal."

I use a Mini (quad 2.0) for Photo related programs including CS6 PS. It works good enough for me and allowed me to invest in a decent monitor that I can calibrate properly. The reservation should be more towards products that deal with moving images as they do best with "faster is better." In some respects, even an iMac 21" would be a worthy contender if you are keen on the Mini.

Best luck on finding the right computer to fit your needs and do hope you explore those above mentioned forums.

 

[blanka]

It totally makes sense to do so. With a Mini you can get a monitor that is, for example, capable of displaying 24/25fps content as well. No Apple monitor does that properly.
Also the Mini is easy to upgrade. You can put in an SSD yourself.
At the moment all top Macs have a CPU geekbenck from 13000-15000. Including top iMacs and top Macbooks, but also the top Mini. The difference on CPU speed through the models has never been this low. With USB3 and TB for external storage, large volume storage is also equal in speed.

As far as the upgrades: the new Mini will NOT arrive before the MacPro, and Apple will probably tell you when the Pro hits the shelves next monday in the iPad keynote.

Besides that, the Haswell upgrade will be mostly about PCI-SSD's, the CPU speed increase will be marginal. But then, you might pay a lot for the Apple SSD. A OZC Vector or Samsung 840 pro delivers 550MB/s write/read, and that is not a lot worse than the 650-700 of the PCI offerings. I also have no idea if Apple's SSD's are "MLC" or "TLC with cache". If it is the latter, you'll be better off with the suggested DIY drives as they hold their speed much longer when copying hefty video files.

Edit, probably only the 1TB SSD offering by apple is TLC. The 250 and 500GB one seem to be a speedy one.