Mac Desktop for Photo Editing

[smoke665]

Do I really need a 5k display? No. Do I want to spend $2,000+ to downgrade my monitor after using a 27" 5k display for the past 8 years? Also no.

My first thought would be to spend the extra money on RAM and external drive, but no matter how well the the 4k might perform, you'll always have the "downgrade thought" in the back of your mind. Spread over the life of the equipment the additional cost isn't worth the piece of mind, go for it.

 

[adamhiram]

My first thought would be to spend the extra money on RAM and external drive

You make a good point, and that raises another important question - how much RAM is enough? My 2015 iMac has 16GB and I always wondered if I should have gone with 32GB. The current M2 Mac Mini offerings max out at 24GB, unless you get the M2 Pro version, which maxes out at 32GB for $1700 - so much for the $600 starting price. For that amount, there's no reason not to go with a Mac Studio with a better M2 Pro processor with more CPU and GPU cores, and the same RAM for $2000. Or add $400 to bump it up to 64GB. Now back to hemming and hawing over the monitor.

 

[Rickbb]

It’s always been my rule of thumb that whatever the box comes with you should at least double it. I’ve never had any user tell me they had too much ram.

 

[smoke665]

how much RAM is enough?

I would think that's a variable number based on use. I do know that Adobe is leaning more and more on the GPU and its onboard VRAM for graphics, which negates some RAM requirement. I'm not familiar with MAC and their GPUs.

 

[adamhiram]

I do know that Adobe is leaning more and more on the GPU and its onboard VRAM for graphics, which negates some RAM requirement. I'm not familiar with MAC and their GPUs.

Newer M1/M2 Macs use "unified memory", which is shared between the CPU and GPU. And of course, more is better.

 

[smoke665]

Newer M1/M2 Macs use "unified memory", which is shared between the CPU and GPU. And of course, more is better.

I thought that some of the newer Macs were actually running two GPUs? Part of the problem is as power of the GPU increases, so does the wattage to run it.

 

[adamhiram]

The bottom line is I'm probably going to pickup the base model M2 Mac Studio with the RAM increased to 64GB. I'll continue to deliberate whether to spend $400-800 on a decent 4k monitor before just going with Apple's 5k Studio display. After that, I'll complain that for the price, it doesn't even come with a keyboard and mouse, which I have to buy separately. And lastly, I'll comment on how absurd it is that they want $1200 to add an internal 4TB SSD and will just buy an external 4TB SSD for $250 instead.

 

[adamhiram]

I started "building" this system, so I figured I would share some updates.

• Base system: Mac Studio M2 Max. I considered going with a Mac Mini, but in order to support 32GB RAM, which is the least I was considering, I would need to go with the most expensive offering. For just $300 more, I was able to go with the Mac Studio base model, which goes from M2 Pro (10-core CPU, 16-core GPU) to M2 Max (12-core CPU, 30-core GPU). With the direction Adobe apps are going with AI features that leverage more GPU cores, this seemed like a good upgrade path.
• RAM and internal storage: I decided to upgrade from 32GB to 64GB RAM, and internal storage from 512GB to 1TB. Do I need either of these upgrades today? No. But Apple doesn't give the option to upgrade down the road, and these seemed like common sense upgrades.
• External storage: I went with a Crucial X9 Pro 4TB SSD. It frustrates me that 4TB of internal SSD storage costs $1200, but external is just $250. To be fair, the USB-C connectivity will be significantly slower than internal storage, and I could have built my own external storage solution with a Thunderbolt enclosure and internal SSD for faster performance, but as a data storage volume, I wanted to go with something off the shelf.
• Monitor: I went with a Dell UltraSharp U2723QE 27" 4k display. I was looking for a way to justify the 5k Studio display, but I really don't need it. The Dell display is 1/3 the price, and by many metrics, matches or exceeds performance. The only real drawback is it does not include integrated webcam or speakers, which I'll have to figure out separately.
• Mouse and keyboard: Again, I would think for what these systems cost, they could include a mouse and keyboard. The current generation of their wireless mouse and keyboard goes for about $300. Other than the integrated fingerprint reader, there's no difference between these and the prior generation versions, which can be found on Amazon for about $175. I'm just reusing my existing mouse and keyboard.

That's about it so far. I started with a $5500 build, and got it down to about $3k with no real sacrifices, which was my original target. I'll follow-up in a few weeks with any additional thoughts.

 

[smoke665]

@adamhiram storage needs seem to expand to fit available storage my new desktop HP has 1TB primary, a 2Tb secondary, a 1TB usb-c external scratch disk, and a 10TB external drive. Truthfully I've not experienced any slowdowns on file transfers unless I'm transferring a lot of files.

 

[adamhiram]

I'll follow-up in a few weeks with any additional thoughts.

The new desktop is built and I am pleased to say it meets all expectations. It works just as well as my 9 year old iMac for regular usage, which I guess is a good thing; I'm not sure what I really expected there. But now it is able to run the current OS, the latest versions of Lightroom and Photoshop, and performance in those applications is amazing. As a quick test, I opened a headshot and started using the spot healing tool to remove stray hairs, something I would normally reserve for Photoshop. I got up to about 100 edits with absolutely no slowdown or lag, something that would have happened on my old system after about 10-15 edits at most.

Here's a recap and update of what went into this build.

• Mac Studio M2 Max: RAM upgraded to 64GB and internal storage upgraded to 1TB
• Crucial X9 Pro 4TB SSD (external): While not as fast as internal storage, it is plenty fast enough as my main data repository. I designed and 3d printed a mini-dock for external peripherals to keep my desk looking clean.
• Dell UltraSharp U2723QE 27" 4k monitor: This looks just as good as the 5k display on my older iMac, which is essentially what the Apple Studio display uses. Accurate colors (calibrated with Datacolor Spyder X Pro), thin bezel, and includes a built-in USB-A/USB-C hub, which came in handy. The downsides are more of a plasticky feel compared to Apple's metal and glass, no built-in speakers, and no built-in webcam.
• Logitech C920E webcam: I already had this laying around, and the quality is certainly better than the one built into my old iMac; I'm not sure how it compares to the one in the Apple Studio display. However the bezel on the dell monitor is so thin that the camera wasn't able to sit on top of it without partially covering the screen. I designed and 3d printed a custom mount to alleviate this.
• PreSonus Eris 3.5 Studio Monitors: I needed speakers since the Dell monitor didn't have them built in, and the smaller computer speakers I originally picked up sounded like the cheap computer speakers they were. These give a much fuller sound, and admittedly are a significant improvement over the ones built into the monitor. However they do take up more space on my desk that I didn't have.
• USB hub and USB-C to USB-A adapters: The Mac Studio has an abundance of USB-C ports, but only 2 USB-A, which I needed quite a few of. I picked up some inexpensive USB-C to USB-A adapters to be able to make use of the USB-C ports, and added a small USB 3.0 hub for quick access to additional USB-A ports without having to use more adapters or reach around to the back of the machine. I already had the USB hub, and added it to the design of the 3d printed peripheral dock.
• Intel NUC mini PC: This was an unexpected addition. I needed more space on my desk, which was currently being taken up by a 15 year old Windows PC that somehow still worked for basic tasks. For $200, I replaced it with this mini PC that had a tiny footprint and could share the same monitor. It may not have much processing power or a dedicated GPU, but it was a nice update to my old desktop from 2009, and saved quite a bit of space.

All in all, a lot more work that I had planned for simply buying a new desktop, but ultimately it all worked out and I hope to be good for another 8-9 years.