Mac upgrades

[bimmridder]

OK, I'm going to prove how computer stupid I am, as well as how little our five artists know about the machines and the software they run. (I'm not trying to criticize them) We have five artists and six workstations, all Macs. We have an outside IT person that handles updates and issues with these machines. All of the other computers in the building are PCs and another company handles the IT on them. So we have been told that we need to upgrade all of the Macs. We have always trusted our IT people to give us the best advice. Kind of like me and my GPS, blind faith. My business partner asked a few questions of the person we bought our RIP through. He shared the specs our IT guy is saying we need. The RIP guy said he thought it was a bit of overkill. "You're not gamers". So being at the mercy of what a few "experts" and not knowing jack, I thought maybe I'd ask here. Are there any people here doing graphics on Macs that would share their computer specs. We certainly don't want the bare minimum. Something robust, I'd say. Speed matters. I probably haven't given enough information to get good answers, but I don't know what else to ask. So if you're running a Mac for your design work, and updating because Apple won't support what you have, what are you buying next?

Thanks for any input.

[Admiral]

I prob can't help a whole lot because we use Macbooks for development and Windows 11 computers for artists, but I would say make sure to get 32gigs of ram or more and the video card does not need to be fancy but the amount of ram on it is the only thing that comes into play for us so I get the ~$200 card that makes sense there with around 6GB of ram.

I upgraded all artist computers this year, they were 10 years old and mostly going strong with a minor upgrade or two on them.  New ones only cost $900 each with us building them (Ryzen 7 9700X, 32G DDR5, Samsung 990 Pro 2TB SSD). 

[bimmridder]

Thanks

[zanegun08]

What is your staff currently using?  The processors have come really far in the last years with Apple chips, so anything will be a huge upgrade.

If you already have good monitors, then I would get M4 Mac Minis as they will be powerful enough for 99.9% of what we do in screen printing, especially if you are still mostly vector graphics.  If you have someone who handles sim process separations you could get them Mac Studio or Mac Pro but they are overkill for what our industry does in my opinion.

If you want your staff to be mobile, then a Macbook Pro or Macbook Air with recent chips are all powerful.  I personally work on a Macbook Air M2 with 16gb ram and it's powerful enough for like 99.9% of things and that .01% I can live with just moving slower on those graphics.

If you don't have monitors already, then I personally like the iMacs as they are a good value and a good screen.  May not be super color accurate but again I think for my guess on your client base it may not be that important.

I'm cheap, and Mac's lifespan is much longer than a PC espeically with the new chips.  I feel no need to upgrade my 2022 Macbook Air M2 even when using new features in Photoshop that may go a little faster.  For what we do (copy / paste onto a mockup / assign spot colors for separations) I don't think it's necessary to have the most powerful computer / processor.

I think at the time I went with the lower spec processor and more RAM like Admiral said, but again I'm cheap and at the time Macbook Pro was behind on updates so I got the Air as faster processor and cheaper.  Can look here - https://buyersguide.macrumors.com/#mac as they have notes about releases and when you should or should not buy.

I think in most instances you may be better to run a RIP on a PC that runs on the network on a dedicated PC for that, as I think RIPs will have more support for PC than Mac and if the RIP is the thing forcing the upgrade it could make sense to change that over now instead of updating 6 macs.  It's not a big purchase but Apple does have a business division that you can get some discounts off retail from that you may want to look into. 

Post what computers they are currnetly using, if you don't know how just hit the apple icon in the top left and the first menu is "About this mac" and it will tell you the year, computer, processor, ram, operating system.

Adobe's trying to move a lot of the AI and new gimmick features to cloud processing anyhow, so long term having a faster processor may not even matter as much in a couple years.  But for most of the illustrator, spot color mockups, separations, the lowest power mac mini will be fine for 95% of stuff.

Don't think you need to break the bank.

[bimmridder]

Much appreciated. I guess what it comes down to is Apple will no longer support the machines we now have. Getting an artist to send me current specs.

[bimmridder]

What I was give...iMacs, 3.6 GHz 8-Core Intel Core i9 and 4.2 GHz Quad Core Intel Core i7. Graphics-Radeon Pro Vega 48 8 GB. Memory 64 GB 2667 MHz DDR4, SSD. All of which means nothing to me.

[zanegun08]

The i9 is probably from around 2019, and i7 from before then.

Sucks to throw out good monitors if they are still good for a software problem.  However going from the i9 to the new M4 they will be much faster.

If you want easy, just get new imacs, don't need to get the highest spec's mid level would be fine.  Either the 8 core or 10 core and then maybe upgrade the RAM.

However, if you want to be cheap, you could try it first and if doesn't work return it, but you could technically get a 10 core Mac Mini with M4 chip, and use something like this https://astropad.com/blog/step-by-step-guide-how-to-use-your-imac-as-a-monitor/ to use your old imac monitors as a monitor for the Mac Mini.  The Mini with the M4 and upgraded RAM will be a huge upgrade from what is currently used, and only $600 per station.  Or even the mini with non apple monitors, but I'm a sucker for Apple monitors even though they are expensive and not super color accurate, they look good and lost long.

But again, if you want easy just get new iMacs.

The M5 chips just came out in the Macbook Pros, so could also do those if you wanted them more mobile, but iMacs are easy, Mac Minis are cheaper but isn't an all in one package.

What is the computers your IT people are suggesting?

Good luck!