Full video & photo editing comparison between the ($1,999) Mac Studio with M1 Max, ($900) Mac mini with M1 and ($1300) Mac mini with the Core i7 CPU! Benchmarks include Final Cut Pro, Premiere Pro, and Lightroom Classic.
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Mac Studio:
M1 Mac mini:
Mac mini i7:
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CHAPTERS:
0:00 Introduction
0:37 Intel Mac Specs
1:24 M1 mini Specs
2:15 Mac Studio Specs
3:24 FCP Benchmarks
6:52 Premiere Pro Benchmark
8:56 Lightroom Classic Benchmark
10:01 9to5Mac's Take
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CREDITS
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TAGS
#MacStudio #M1Ultra #Macmini
I’d buy the Mac Studio Max out of the three. I have a Mac mini 2018 with eGPU and it’s pretty decent. But the Mac Studio seems to be the clear winner – small form factor, Apple Silicon, etc.
Exactly the comparison I was looking! Only one suggestion, it would be nice to hear comparisons between the actual timeline editing (dropped frames, etc) across devices rather than all focus on export speed. Other than that, such a good video!
Exactly the comparison I was looking! Newest Apple CPU VS old Intel one. Great and fair review.
Came here for this. wondering if worth upgrading to studio for scrubbing alone
I really appreciate this comparison. I’ve been looking for this type of comparison all day on all of the reviews. I’m considering upgrading from a mid 2014 MacBook Pro and not really sure which to select (M1 Mac mini or Mac Studio Max). This review helped in my decision making.
Keep in mind that we may see a new Mini in May. WWDC is just around the corner.
@dragngt I’m guessing this one will have the Pro chip! Then the lineup would be, M1 Mac Mini – M1 Pro Mac Mini – M1 Max Mac Studio – M1 Ultra Mac Studio
@sopu That was my thoughts. Could even see the M2 in the new Mini, which would make delaying the upgrade even better. I just need a bit more than the regular M1 offers but not as much as the Studio.
I really appreciate this video. It’s interesting.
I think you need to check you graph scaling though. It makes the studio look many times faster rather than twice as fast.
It really does!
very pertinent comparison. I would like to see the playback performance in the editor, with transitions or any process that is GPU-intensive, as I found that the M1 MacBook was quite disappointing when editing, and that I had to reduce the viewing quality and still had a lot of frames dropped. Exporting times are better with the M1 as it uses CPU and GPU and all the PUs, but live playback in the editor timeline is choppy-
The mini is better
I believe the simple M1 processor is more than great for 90% of users
Absolutely agree. My Mac Studio is arriving Mid May, but I probably could have gotten away with the M1 Mini.
It certainly has the potential. The M1 mini and the laptop are _kind of_ moving in the right direction, but the studio is a step into the toilet. $4-6k can buy a lot more computer on your typical x86 platform. It seems designed towards the upper-tier niche crowd where unified ram makes sense (science, machine learning, etc), but it will never have the ease of maintenance and expansion capability that true niche cases desire. If the M1 ultra chip isn’t getting the job done, there’s no way to make the system go further and add more cards for more processing power. It’s not like you can stack a second mac studio on top of the first one and combine the horsepower. That’s a space where the Mac Pro would be making the most sense. I have no idea if the M1 architecture can handle it, though. All of the current architecture still can’t handle eGPU support, so I worry that expansion cards of any kind are gonna be off the table. If that turns out to be the case in the mac pro, then it’s bound to go over poorly with professionals.
At some point Apple is gonna have to stop playing around with aesthetics and just make a computer that is a true work horse. No more anemic fan cuves and sleek low-profile cases. Just make a chonker with expansion slots, SATA for days, and beefy no-compromise cooling that pushes the silicon to its limits without thermal throttling or any regard to noise. When it’s time to crunch numbers, it should not mess around. Come on, Apple. Stop holding your own hardware back.
The M1 is okay, but not THAT great as everone tell you. The GPU can only tackle 2.6TFLOPs while the M1 Pro has double the performance and 3x the memory bandwidth (200 vs 67), which you certainly notice. Both the Mac Mini and the iMac need the M1 Pro as affordable BTO option!
@BlackHawk Agreed! The M1 is still good though and would work fine for most people, especially when it uses so little energy. My M1 Max Mac Studio is arriving tomorrow… pretty exciting since I do video and audio work.
The Mac mini seems to be the same as the Mac Studio for single core general usage. For video/photo editing, the Mac Studio seems to be roughly twice as fast exporting as the Mini. I was going to order the Max Studio on the basis it will be my workhorse for the next 5-6 years but I’m wondering now if it’s worth the extra £1,000 or so over the Mini. I don’t mind waiting longer for files to export but I wonder is there anything the Mac Studio can do in terms of photo/video editing that the Mini cannot do?
I’d personally go for the M1 Mac mini but would pair it with a Studio Display
I have thought about using a Mac mini or a few to create a home server
Little FYI:
IF you PLAN TO HOOK AN EXTERNAL DESKTOP HARD DRIVE INTO YOUR ROUTER TO MAKE A HOME NETWORK DRIVE AND PLAN ON SAVING FILES FROM APPS LIKE PAGES KEYNOTE AND NUMBERS TO YOUR HOME MADE NETWORK DRIVE
MAKE SURE YOUR ROUTER SUPPORTS EXFAT
I’m happy with my Base M1 Mac Mini and 16″ M1 Max MBP combo right now. I’m hoping my next desktop will be at least an Ultra class machine, but it will probably be at least a year and more like three or four. Regardless, it will not be Intel.
I find it interesting that the Studio, which costs a little more than twice as much as the M1 Mini, seems to get a little more than twice the graphics performance. I doubt there’s anything more to it than that, although the $3,999 Mac Studio would theoretically have close to twice the performance of this Studio.
I had that Intel Mini with 64gb ram and eGPU before getting the M1. One thing lost in this comparison, the Intel Mini runs lightroom ok, but the fans are blasting the whole time. Also, during an export, the system basically locks up for doing anything else. The M1 mini doesn’t make a sound under any circumstances.
This is great. I’m thinking on this M1 mini for my photo studio. The issue: find a good monitor for it. One that has the Apple colors/calibration, that don’t cost 1700+ euros, and that have a glossy finish.
I thought about the Eve Spectrum, but damn… kinda hard to relay on them. Can’t even imagine if some defect happens and you need to deal with them considering their track record for customer service.
I got the base model Studio with both the 1TB of storage and 64 GB of memory upgrades. It’s taking a looot just for Apple to process my order, and it’s certainly overkill for what I do at the moment, but I intend to keep this thing for the next 10 years.
Also, I believe this was the first HDR video I’ve seen on YouTube on my iPhone… Interesting.
Thanks, I have both an i5 Intel Mini and the M1 on my desk. I’m primarily a still photographer but I do regularly use the AI upsize algorithm in Pixelmator Pro to make large prints. I’m looking at a very presentably sharp20 by 24 print from a 16 Megapixel micro 4/3 file. The upsize takes maybe 20 seconds on the M1 Mini and about 7 minutes on the I5 Mini. So even still photographers will find themselves genuinely needing the power of Apple Silicon going forward. I would add that I would buy the base Studio, but because the M1 Mini has limited IO, I bought a $250 OWC hub and so have well over $1000 invested since I up specked the M1 Mini to 16/512 gb. The Studio would double the power and has the IO built in, but the M1 will do the job beautifully for the foreseeable future. I also do some video editing in Resolve and will be shooting 4K of a yummy 69 Porsche restoration next weekend. You have to know when ‘to hold ‘em’ according to Kenny Rodgers and I’m definitely holding the M1.
Good comparison video. A quick note regarding QC: (1) digital image corruption beginning at 5:46, and (2) three spots on the video where the voice-over incorrectly mentions an M1 Mac Mini when you meant to say the i7 Mac Mini. This was easily noticeable because the i7 Mac Mini was pictured in the video instead of the M1 Mac Mini.
I would like to see the comparison between the base model Mac Studio and a fully decked out Mac Studio. That would allow me to decide to buy now or save up for the top.
Excellent analisis I was considering the Mac Studio, but it is still pretty expensive for me right now, Im using a 15″ macbook pro i7 and is starting to show its age, I work mainly with final cut pro and after seeing this video I think that the M1 mac mini can help me a lot, many thanks
Great comparison. You won’t believe how much I needed that. Mini all day for my usage.
Good comparison. I assumed the M1 Mac Mini would be sufficient for still photos, but by the time I upped the RAM, SSD, Ethernet, and then added a required $350~400 dock, I was only $100 south of the base Studio, which had everything I needed. So, shiny new toy for me, too.
Great comparison, although on some tests the Mac Mini M1 doesn’t seem to take much longer when dealing with a LOT of photographs those few seconds add up…… as a still photographer regularly uploading 1000 plus shots in Capture One I have to say the base Studio is saving me a ton of time.