M1 Mac vs Ryzen 7?

[lumencreative]

Just wondering what people’s thoughts are between the M1 Mac Mini vs Ryzen 7.

I built a high spec 3800x pc a few months ago for video editing and music recording, but looking at the new Mac Mini, they look like they might actually be faster/better.

Also been looking at upgrading one of the PC’s at work and was going to buy a Dell Optiplex for about £650 (core i5 10400), but could stick my ryzen in work and get the Mac Mini instead.

 

[lumencreative]

It might be fast in CPU benchmarks but all that is for naught in video and audio editing if he's limited by 16Gb of memory or needs to unplug either keyboard or audio interface to copy video footage to external drive. At the moment M1s are more like - net browsing/video watching devices rather than editing devices due to really, really minimalist spec. Was really surprised to see number of expansion ports slashed by half compared to previous gen and memory going from 64Gb back to 16Gb. Perhaps architecture bottleneck, perhaps just a first generation technical issue. Let's see what comes out next.

I completely disagree on your thinking about the memory. The ports, yes, I agree with, however, the memory architecture is completely different to that in a traditional computer, so not as much is needed.

As others have said above, the reviews and tests so far have the M1 systems competing very well with top end iMac Pros and even Mac Pros with much more memory. I watched a YouTube video last night where one guy was showing clips of his $15k Mac Pro struggling to watch Canon Cinema R5 footage and his base MBA flew through it.

 

[lumencreative]

M1 Macs have just blown the Intel macs away on video editing, and audio editing I expect will be similar, this is Apple's niche.

As for ram, 16GB may or may not be limiting but the memory architecture is very different to traditional PCs, so you can't compare your previous expectations of 16GB with this. OP can test this out and return if they find 16GB to be limiting, however the £650 Dell alternative that the OP considered buying is unlikely to have more than 16GB of ram either.



Give the M1 mac a try. You can return it if you don't like it.

With regards to the Dell alternative I just thought I’d clarify that there are two options I’m considering...

1. buy a Dell Optiplex 5070/5080 (9gen i5 vs 10gen i5) for work and keep my ryzen at home.
2. Take my ryzen to work and buy a Mac mini for home.

Work and home differs a fair bit. Work will be editing photoshop files while home is music and video.

 

[lumencreative]

Because previous "entry level" product lineup (wrong term, because with Apple there is no entry level and pro level, there is just for example mac mini that you can leave at basic or max out and that's it) had those features.
Generation to generation we get less. Less ports, less expansion, and now even less max memory. And I appreciate forumites not agreeing that more than 16gb is needed because "arm" but that's just powdering the obvious flaw - new processor may kick bottoms in terms of optimisations but the architectural design of this generation of apple silicon platform is limited, more limited than previous entry level Mac minis and MBPs of yesteryear. Come on, you have to see it for what it is.

If you think about it though, the lack of ports (which, lets face it is what you seem to have the most beef with), is becoming more and more common across all laptops/computers, especially 'ultrabooks' which is what the Macbook Air is. Huawei Matebook Pro 2020 has 2 x USB-C ports and 1 x USB-A port. Dell XPS 13 has 2 x Thunderbolt and 1 x USB-C.

I understand what you are saying about the machines having less ports than previous models, but that's nothing new with Apple, nor with other manufacturers. Ports have been dwindling in quantity for years.