Seeking Mac mini upgrade advice for graphic design

GraphicsKentucky wrote:

My current IMac is very slow in processing Photoshop and I cannot run the most current programs due to lack of processing power required for the current applications. I mostly use Adobe Creative Suite (Illustrator and Photoshop primarily). I would like to possibly get into some other applications for movies and 3D illustrations now that I am retired.

Those are the reasons I suggested the M4Pro over the M4. I use Photoshop, Lightroom, CaptureOne, iMovie, Davinci Resolve, some other media apps and anticipate adding Final Cut Pro. They all require good system specs to perform satisfactorily. I have an M4Pro MacBookPro and it's the nicest Mac I've ever had; runs them all beautifully.

Do keep in mind that you will need to replace Adobe Creative Suite.. The CS Stuite will not run on any modern Mac (actually, anything running Catalina or later). You will need to replace it with an Adobe CC subscription. There is a nice bundle called the Adobe Photography Plan that includes Photoshop, Lightroom, Lightroom Classic and 1TB cloud storage for $19.99/month. Photoshop alone costs more than that and Illustrator alone is $22.95/month. There is also a bundle plan called Creative Cloud Pro that includes Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere and Firefly for $34.95/month for the first 3 months but that's a teaser rate.

A Mac mini plus a separate large display would make sense for what you are doing. Current Mac minis use M4 and M4 Pro chips that are one generation behind the M5 and M5 Pro chips in the latest Mac notebooks. It is expected that Apple will release M5 and M5 Pro Mac minis later this year, but we aren't allowed to speculate in these forums about when that might be.

On single-core CPU benchmarks, the M4 and M4 Pro Mac minis score about 5.4 to 5.5 times higher than your iMac.

It is hard to find comparisons of the GPU in your computer to modern GPUs. But the Geekbench 6 browser shows it as having a Metal score of only 2132. That would put the M4 GPU as almost 27 times as fast, while the M4 Pro GPU is something like 45 to 51 times as fast. At least on Metal, the graphics API that Apple currently uses.

A lot of 2012 iMacs came with mechanical hard drives, and if you are still running your Mac off one of them, the fast SSDs in the M4 and M4 Pro Mac minis will really speed up starting up the computer and launching programs.

You do want to be sure to have enough RAM. RAM was user-expandable on 27" 2012 iMacs, but is not expandable on any Apple Silicon Mac.

Note that Adobe no longer sells one-time-purchase versions of any of the Creative Suite applications – and that old one-time-purchase versions won't install and run on current versions of macOS. So, you would be looking at either subscribing to (renting) the current Adobe applications, or looking for alternatives.

A Mac mini makes perfect sense, especially with the capability to use whatever monitor you are most happy with (mostly).

No need to spring for all the whistle and bells, though if you've been getting by with a 2012 iMac. Even the base model with a bump up in RAM and storage will run rings around the old iMac.

I would suggest a Mini configured with the M4 chip, 24 GB RAM and 1 TB storage. Then pick whatever monitor looks good to you and is compatible.

Mac mini Technical Specifications - Apple Support

To help you select what's best for you, Apple provides this link: Which Mac is best for me? - Apple Support

The Mac mini is very reasonably priced. But I will say I have purchased from Apple's Certified Refurnished selections several time without issue. These Macs are sold with Apple's full warranty and I believe they qualify for extended warranty as well. The models available at the site may change from day to day depending on what they are turning around a the moment, so if you don't see what you like today, check again tomorrow.

I would not hesitate one bit to purchase an Apple Certified Refurbished Mac. I have purchased a number of them from Apple over the years and you cannot tell them apart from new. They come with a full Apple Warranty and are eligible for AppleCare+.

Also, for the uses mentioned by the OP, I suggest the M4Pro over the M4. The extra power of the M4Pro will provide better performance today and over the lifetime of the machine as app requirements continue to grow.

Since 16 GB of RAM was good enough for you with a 14 year old iMac this configuration would work for you in a new Silicon Mac Mini: a 10 Core Mac Mini M4 with 16 GB RAM and 1 TB SSD ($1084 US) with a 32" LG 4k monitor ($331 US) from Amazon.com)  is $1415 US which is $541US less than a similarly configured new 24" iMac ($1956 US)  re 07/2025. Keep your keyboard and mouse from your current Mac for use with the Mini. 

I got the above Mini with a 32" LG 4K monitor w/speakers for only $60 US more than the 27" (didn't know the Mini had a speaker).  There are many monitors available in 27" size for $100 US to $500 US depending on what features you want.  The prices are before tariffs. I believe your biggest decision will be the monitor.

The configuration above will run rings around your 2012 iMac. It's blazingly fast. If you're running macOS Catalina all your apps are 64 bit and should work with Tahoe 26 unless some have not been updated for Silicon.