Advice on MacMini M2 Pro vs Mac Studio M2 Ultra

[Arty Greg]

Hi Everyone!

Current machine: Mac Mini M2Pro / 12CPU / 19GPU / 32GBram / 1TBhd

Full time Freelancer Illustration, Art & Graphic Design

Files can become very complex with a lot of layers, effects, textures etc - 2-4GB

Illustrator example:
Very complex vector file with many layered effect+texture objects takes around 25seconds to load any movement or undo of anything...

Photoshop example:
Again complex file usually hundreds of layers, effects etc ... doc info bottom left of screen in PS reaches around 10GB before things start to feel 'laggy' and brushstrokes etc + general use feels choppy.

I have been pondering if upgrading to a Mac studio M2 Ultra with 64/128GB ram 1TBhd would improve any of this (or obviously M2 Max if Ultra is simply overkill)?  I've read all kinds of opinons on various forums but the main differences I see are in:

Memory bandwidth - Mini Pro 200gbps, Studio Max 400 & Ultra 800

GPU - obviously the more I spend the more cores I get - 30, 38, 60 compared to my current 19

Ram - pretty safe to say the more the better I assume - 32GB doesn't look like it's struggling (close to max but no swap used) if I view Activity Monitor but if upgrading I think at least 64GB would be wise... 

I now read about Scratch disk being a big factor... currently my internal 1TBhd has around 600GB free ... I also have a fast external m.2NVMe drive for backups.

Any advice welcome!

[Conrad_C]

What the Ultra brings is a doubling of CPU/GPU cores and video encoder hardware over the Max, which is very helpful for video editing or any other activity that breaks up tasks into lots of jobs that can be distributed among all those cores and done in parallel, including building Lightroom Classic previews in bulk.

But that doesn’t describe Photoshop and Illustrator, which would leave most of those expensive Ultra cores idle as the still image document mostly sits there waiting for the next command or tool to do something. Those apps aren’t constantly using extra cores to re-render frames in the background like a video editor, 3D application, or raw processor would do. Photoshop and Illustrator would benefit more from faster single core performance, but single core performance is basically the same from the base M processor up through the Pro, Max, and Ultra. The extra performance is mostly due to adding more cores. I am not sure how much it helps to have more than 200GB/sec memory bandwidth in Photoshop and Illustrator.

32-64GB Unified Memory is definitely what works well for most people on current applications. 96GB is for Photoshop documents with very large pixel dimensions, with a lot of layers. 600GB free on the fast internal storage for scratch is a good place to be. (I have to assign my scratch file to an external SSD because I don’t have that much available on internal storage.)

[Arty Greg]

Thanks Conrad!

So What I gather from that is the new Mac silicon format is more about improved performance for video editing / motion graphics as you go up the 'ranks' rather than actual chip power.

Yes Faster CPU has always been what I understood as what 2D artists need but since Apple started on the new format it's become quite confusing ... I suppose to some degree if this is the way specs are going, software will follow suit to best take advantage of it eventually!  I assume having a greater capability for CPU to talk to Ram etc can't harm but I'm guessing you mean PS is unlikely to need that... or you genuinely don't know if it would/could?

Yes the Mini isn't exactly feeling overworked ... until I hit these limits with admittedly large pixel dimension many layered files ... but checking activity monitor hasn't yet shown the Ram struggling.  That being said if I do upgrade I will certainly be opting for at least 64GB

[D Fosse]

For Photoshop, RAM isn't as important as most people think. There is no such thing as "enough RAM" anyway - Photoshop's memory requirements are much higher than any RAM you may have installed. The heavy lifting is the scratch disk.

Think of RAM as a fast access cache to the scratch disk's main memory.

So the speed of the scratch disk is crucial - and this is where the latest generation NVMe drives really pay off. But those bandwidths are probably only available when the drive sits directly on a PCIe 4.0 bus on the motherboard.

As for scratch disk size - with the file sizes you're working with, I would never be comfortable with anything less than 1 TB.

The GPU is also very important these days. One important consideration here is that an integrated GPU, which is what you get on Apple Silicon, uses shared system memory. And the GPU can use a lot! So that is in fact a valid argument for increasing the installed RAM. I would say a working rule of thumb is to double the amount you would normally need. This would not be a consideration with a discrete GPU.

[Arty Greg]

Thanks D Fosse!

Yes interesting - I had seen a number of your posts elsewhere in the forums about this... I have been aware of scratch disk when I had 2 hard drives installed in my old Mini it did improve PS noticeably!  I had always assumed it was more of a second choice solution just in case you didn't have enough ram... similar to swap?

You mention bandwidth - do you think the increased speed of the M2 max/ultra (400GBPS/800GBPS) would make any difference in Photoshop with large complex files and working with quick brush strokes that I need to stay very accurate?  My biggest struggle right now is when I'm getting to the end of a complex piece and I have hundreds of layers with all kinds of texures and effects and I'm working with tight deadline... turning layers on and off, shifting them about and switching between brushes, undoing, redoing all very quickly it's becomming sluggish and choppy / laggy right when I need the smooth/quick response most... something is obviously overloaded.

I guess from what you're saying this is where scratch disk comes into play ... or is it still Ram ... I can't imagine it's CPU as nothing I'm doing is anything that taxes the computer at the start of the file creation?

And if GPU is/will become more used to share the processes across multiple cores then having more can't harm for future proofing ... as long as I have enough Ram to make use of the integrated setup on Apple silicon...

I'm currently thinking maybe a standard M2 studio Ultra 24CPU/60GPU 64GB RAM with 2TB hd could be the way to go... I did spot one on Apple refurb but with 128GB ram & the 1TB hd  which of those two do you think would work best in the situation I described?

[Arty Greg]

Hey everyone!

Quick update - since my last post I spotted a great deal on a Studio Ultra 128GB ram with 2TBhd on Apple Refurb and have been running it for a number of months while working on large complex Photoshop files for my current client project.

My impressions so far are a little surprising but it is my long term workhorse now.

The very first thing that stood out was how it wasn't quite as snappy in general use as the Mini M2 Pro - starting up, opening apps, etc ... not sluggish but not instant... maybe due to newer OS? Who knows!  However as soon as I started testing with large complex files in Illustrator (6x10ft @ 600dpi inc multiple textured gradients with effects applied - yes that kind of dpi at that size is daft) ... wow.  My old 2012 intel Mini with 16GB ram would take over a minute to move a group of complex objects in any way and any undo would take the same... an M1 Mini with 8GB ram I tested took around 45seconds, My Mini M2 Pro took around 25seconds ... The M2 Ultra can move anything in the file instantly and only undos take around 17 seconds to action.  That alone makes it a complete no-brainer if I end up doing similar projects again...

As for Photoshop and the laggy brush response I was experiencing once files got to a certain threshold - not a huge difference in actual use between the M2 Pro with 32GB ram and the Ultra with 128GB ram - I still get the issue at the same kind of point (somewhere between the document files size showing 5gb - 10gb) but you can just tell it has extra 'grunt' in general.

Personally, if I knew I wasn't going to be working on HUGE files at daft resolutions in the future I'd stick with the maxed out M2 pro with 32GB ram as it is an incredibly impressive machine and very good value (for me even when maxed despite the Studio Max being very close in cost ... of course Studio Max is the one model from the lineup I haven't been able to test so maybe that would be the sweet spot in speed vs power!) For personal & hobby use I feel the Mini M2Pro is all you need.  But if you have the funds and need the most peace of mind for work the Ultra with 128GB ram does power on through even if its a touch more 'purposeful' in it's speed.

Obviously this is all just my own opinion based on my personal use case but hope it's helpful 🙂