unclear which chip to buy for personal use

[ggx12]

Hi everyone,

I am in the market for a new mac for my home. I know this topic has been brought up multiple time and that the simple answer is just buy a M2 Mac.

However, I can't wrap my head around the conflicting reviews. For some, it seems like the M2 chip can handle pretty much everything you throw at it. For other, it's good for general computing and you need to upgrade to the M Pro chips if you're going to do advanced work on it.

It will be a home device but I like to do all kinds of things on my computer (and use Adobe software).

I think that a M2 16gb should be enough for me but the M1 Pros on the refurb are really tempting.

Anybody doing pretty advanced stuff on M1/M2 willing to share their views on it?

Thanks!

 

[kschendel]

It depends partly on how "advanced", and how time critical that advanced stuff is. Can you elaborate?

 

[ggx12]

It depends partly on how "advanced", and how time critical that advanced stuff is. Can you elaborate?

Editing RAW images in Lightroom, thinkering with Illustrator. I am currently learning 3D. It's for personal use so not time critical, but I would say that I want to avoid lag as much as possible. I heard people being really dissapointed using illustrator with the M1 which scared me a bit (I don't know if they were using the roseta version or the more recent AS-optimized version). I guess i am more familiar with the intel Macs, I'd be fine with something equivalent to the 2020 5K iMac.

 

[mmkerc]

I have an original M1 mini with 16gb. I do not use Illustrator, but do use Photoshop, iMovie, and other graphic related programs. I also have a few fairly complex Excel spreadsheets for nodal analysis. The Mini is clearly faster than the Mac Pro (2013 trash can model with 32Gb). Most of my photo editing is cleaning up old photos and have not had any issues. In term of video I miss Final Cut Pro, so my work with iMovie is not nearly as involved.

All of that said for your stated use I would go for longer future horizon, i.e. the M2.