Which Mini for Photoshop CS5?

[aleni]

i'm planning to purchase a mac mini, but i'm having difficulty to choose which one suits better to me.

i have bought memory and SSD from OWC, it's 2x4GB DDR3 ram and Mercury Extreme Pro 6G and planned to put these beast into the mini.

I will use this mini in my office, only for working big 300dpi image with 4000x6000 pixels in size with Photoshop CS5, and nothing else.

i'm in between the one with the radeon but upgrade the cpu to core i7 2.7ghz or just get the one with intel HD 3000 and quad core i7.

and i'm gonna use this mini with my existing 27" ACD.

currently im using 13" mbp 2011 with intel HD 3000 and core i7 2.7ghz dual core. i feel this machine is fast enough but still slow when converting big images from illustrator to png.

should i go with the quad core mac mini? does the discrete graphic really help photoshop CS5 to be faster?

thanks..

 

[aeaglex07]

Photoshop is more CPU intensive than GPU. I have the base i5 Mini and I put 8GB RAM in it yesterday and CS5 flies on this thing.

 

[aleni]

so is it better for me to buy the one with quad core i7 2.0ghz?

 

[accessoriesguy]

If you got an SSD and RAM upgrade, your bottleneck is going to be the processor. If you are worried about performance, than your best choice is to up the processor. I would recommend upping the processor, simply because its the only part you can not change on the computer, unlike the RAM and Hard Drive. That's my 2 cents.

 

[JeepGuy]

so is it better for me to buy the one with quad core i7 2.0ghz?

All Photoshop features are faster on a multiprocessor system, although some features take greater advantage of the additional processing power than others. There is a law of diminishing returns with multiple processors: The more processors you use, the less you get from each additional processor. Therefore, Photoshop isn't necessarily four times as fast if you have four microprocessors.
Max out on RAM

Photoshop uses random access memory (RAM) to process images. If Photoshop has insufficient memory, it uses hard-disk space, also known as a scratch disk, to process information. Accessing information in memory is faster than accessing information on a hard disk. Therefore, Photoshop is fastest when it can process all or most image information in RAM. If possible, allocate enough RAM to Photoshop to accommodate your largest image file.

How much RAM can Photoshop access? This much:
CS5, 64 bit Mac OS As much RAM as you can fit in your computer

The quad core mini with 8GB and the SSD sounds ideal, since you already have a mac book pro with the i7 2.7 you should try maxing out the ram on that as well. It's a shame 16gb of ram is so expensive, I'm assuming that the OWC 16gb kit that works on the 2011 Mac book pro will work on the mini as well.

edit: looks like it does but mucho $$$

 

[marsmissions]

Quad core is the answer here! GPU doesn't matter much here, and the intel GPU is plenty fast enough!


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[Vermifuge]

Quad core is the answer here! GPU doesn't matter much here, and the intel GPU is plenty fast enough!


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Quad core is over kill. PS5 (CS5) is not that intensive of a program and will work just fine on any of the new minis. You want a minimum of 4GB, but If you are working with much larger multilayer files then 8 GB ram.

The CPU only counts in complex filters and macros and a quad core will be overkill.

 

[aleni]

@accessoriesguy i can't upgrade the processor on the quadcore mini server.

@ Vermifuge yea i do a lot of filters, so is it better to go to the quadcore route? and about 8GB ram, yes i have bought it from OWC and plan to put it on the new mini, and SSD mercury pro 6G too.

@JeepGuy after i buy the mini, i plan to sell my 13" i7 MBP since i don't need to work with photoshop on the road, so i might as well exchange it for a new 11" mba.