non dairy wrote:
I'm contemplating the following and wondering if the $500 to $700 price increase is justified for my needs.
It's a quandary, for sure. But the fact is that the Mac mini's performance vs. price is hard to beat.
Here is an article I suggest reading: I Have A Mac Studio And A Mac mini – Here's The Reality Even though it compares an M1 Ultra Studio to an M4 Pro mini it raises good points to consider even when comparing the M4 Studio to the M4 mini. If anything, the M4 Studio basically brings the Studio up to the M4 mini's capabilities and in some respects beyond them. But in "real life" you have to decide if the "beyond them" (extra specs) is worth the extra $$.
That said, as a fellow photographer & sometime videographer/audio producer, it's hard to believe the Studio is going to give you that much more bang for the buck that it would be noticeable in your day to day work. Heck, even my i9 iMac w/32GB RAM & 1TB SSD is an awesome performer for the work that I do with Photoshop, CaptureOne, Portrait Pro, iMovie, Davinci Resolve & Sound Studio. I do HDR merges with RAW files, multi-layer Photoshop edits, high resolution scanning & restoration, video & audio capture & editing. Stepping up from your i5 iMac to an M4 anything is going to blow your mind.
For a 64GB RAM/1TB Mac, it seems to me the big question is what are you going to get for the additional 2-4 CPU cores and extra USB & Thunderbolt ports in the Studio. I don't believe the "40 GPU cores" in the Mac Studio is going to make much of a difference in still image production. Perhaps in video rendering but I doubt it for stills.
Bottom line, I'd go with the Mac mini and use my 'savings' on a set of good external drives for backup. But only you know what your actual needs and preferences are.
