It's definitely not going to be as intense as that, but you can certainly make a lesser computer cry with enough audio plugins. I was not even able to make it work hard with the same amount of plugins that used to make the fan scream in my Intel Macs. I guess I'm just surprised to hear it didn't stack up to an Intel Mac for you because I watched videos of people raving about doing exactly the sort of thing you're talking about and that they couldn't believe their Mac Mini smashed their older Mac Pro. I know most of the secret sauce is that it's compartmentalized. There is a processor specifically made for image processing built into the chip, along with several other specialized processors. Haha, I just realized my argument is moot since the Mini has a fan. Sorry, I'm an idiot sometimes, lol. It never turns on so I forgot it was there.
Yes, I think the Air is the only M1 without a fan, and that seems to seriously compromise the power of the chip for sustained data-intensive tasks. However, it was still so quick at processing the first ten raw files that I did some research and decided to buy an M1 MB Pro, which I'm happy to say does not slow down at all and is not noisy or hot. It has enabled me to upgrade cameras from 20Mpixel to 45 without any hit in workflow speed. After the post-More's Law stagnation of the last decade it's amazing that Apple has achieved a massive speed leap out of nowhere. The M chips are absolute beasts.
For $300 more I'll choose the M2Pro, it has much more video ability for gaming. Its said to be much closer to a M1 max in performance. I already have a USB enclosure with 2TB. The brick is needed for the drive I have installed. its power requirements are more than a single shared USB can deliver. I can pull the additional power from the Mini's buss but why. Mini M2 Pro 16MB, 10 core CPU, 16 core GPU 2 TB SSD $1900 A Mini M2 16MB mem, 8 core CPU, 10core GPU 2 TB SSD $1600
That's about as vague as it gets... could have just defined it from the start... but the MB Air was not meant to crunch 1000's of 50MP RAW images or video editing, that what a Mx Pro/Max is for. That's not why you buy an Air Also the multi core performance of the Air M1 is double that of the Air Intel i7, and Air M2 is 2.5x faster than the i7 Mac Benchmarks - Geekbench Browser
The Studio is a Beast! Mac Studio M1 Max 400GB/s memory bandwidth Mac Studio M1 Ultra 800GB/s memory bandwidth Mac Mini M2 100GB/s of memory bandwidth Mac Mini M2 Pro 200GB/s of memory bandwidth Mac Studio M1 Ultra 114 Billion Transistors Mac Mini M2 20 Billion Transistors Mac Mini M2 Pro 40 Billion Transistors
If you already have a drive is one thing, but with TB4 SSD's you don't need brick/external power. I have the 2TB version of this OWC Envoy Pro FX - The Fastest, Most Compatible Drive Ever Made 2800MB/s
Running a Mac Studio M1 Max to my Schiit Modi3+ Audio Midi Setup allows me to select all combinations of 2-channel X (44.1/48/88.2/96/174.4/192 kHz) x (16/24/32 bit). I have it set to 24bit, 192 kHz, but honestly not sure I could tell the difference on any setting.
Yes, but I suppose my point was a warning: don't think the Air will give you all the M1 goodness just because it has an M1 chip. Same chip, much lower performance after about one minute of hard work. All the other M1/M2 Macs are beasts. Also be warned that the M2 MB Pro 14" has no SD card slot, unusual in a pro laptop. I bought one and took it back to exchange for the M1 the next day. My photography depends on that slot. Card readers are just another thing to forget, and I will.
I have a Studio M1 Max and it meets all my needs easily. I held out for the Max vs. ‘just’ an M1 as I wanted to add RAM and the M1 is caps out at 16 MB. Per Apple’s standard, you can’t add RAM at a later date and as I tend to keep computers for a long time I wanted to future-proof it in this regard. All that said, RAM is allocated very differently on the M chips so it’s apples/oranges comparing RAM needs on an M chip vs. Intel.
I have a 2017 15" MacBook Pro i7. It has NO SD card slot. It ONLY has 4 USB-C ports and nothing else.
Yeah, the Mac Studio is leaps and bounds better than ANY Mac Mini available! No comparison. The Studio is as fast or faster than yesterdays Mac Pro computer. I built and use an Intel i7 based Hackintosh with a Radeon RX 5700 XT video card running Adobe CC (macOS Catalina 10.15.x). I edit in Premier. Its as fast as a 10 year old Mac Pro. The M1 and M2 Mini's are fast for a consumer computer and its way faster than the older Intel i7 based Mini but thats not saying much compared to the Mac Studio or Mac Pro's My Next Work computer will be a Studio model. Waiting for the M2 Max or Ultra equivalent to be released, likely Fall of 2023. But the M1 Max or Ultra are Insanely Powerful and Fast and capable professional workhorses!
I think the loss of the SD slot from that previous generation of MBP was received poorly by Apple’s target market, so they have listened and brought it back!
This thread appears to have drifted debating the merits and overall capabilities in general of the Apple Silicon M series Macs, There is no doubt they are outstanding game changing processors. That said the original question and concern about being sample rate locked to 48KHz is a true and valid concern in a specific scenario. That being, when outputting from the Mac via HDMI it will be sample rate locked to 48KHz (It is possible to select bit rates of 16, 20 or 24). Intel based Macs did not have this limitation. That said, to be clear while this limitation exists on HDMI output, the 48KHz limitation does not exist when outputting via USB. I have a 14” MacBook Pro M1 Max with 32GB ram running MacOS Ventura 13.2, When outputting to my Denon X3800H receiver it is sample rate blocked to 48KHz. HDMI is an important output for those of us into multichannel music as USB inputs into ATMOS or other multichannel recievers is basically non-existent. I also run a Peachrtree Audio Interface via USB for two channel and there is no 48KHz limitation. I can choose multiple different sample rates up to and including 192KHz. Ideally Apple should fix this limitation, as I’d prefer to run my multichannel music at it’s native resolution just as I did on my old Intel based MacBook.
