The base models of the MacBook Pro 16' and Mac Studio will perform better than the current M1 iMac and M1 Mac mini, especially during bulk import and export processing where the additional CPU cores help. The M1 Mac mini is a year and a half old, so many are waiting for an updated model that is a better match to the more recent releases. The M1 iMac is currently 24' only, there is no 27' option at this time.

The M1 iMac and M1 Mac mini are basically the same computer inside configuring to the maximum 16GB unified memory is recommended for Lightroom Classic. There is usually no need to look at the high end Macs, for Lightroom Classic. The low end performs well enough but might need a memory upgrade, the base models of the mid-range are sufficiently equipped that upgrades beyond that are not always needed. Now, thanks to Apple Silicon, all M1 Macs, from the cheapest to most expensive, run Lightroom Classic well.

A few years ago, if you wanted good Lightroom Classic performance, you couldn’t bother with the low-end models and usually had to pay a lot more for a discrete GPU and more memory. But I spend hours a day in LrC, and I want it to zoom like it used to, and to do so for maybe a decade to come. But how much would I actually need for LrC, as opposed to having bragging rights, which I truly don't care about. I could blow my retirement totally upscaling all the options. Again, how beefy do you have yours configured to get good LrC performance? Obvious advantage to portability, though I usually run with a few external drives, where the photos all live. Is it beefy enough to keep LrC zipping along? Are you happy with yours? How's it configured? BTW, this one has 1TB of disc and 24GB of RAM, just to offer my baseline. The monitor is in perfect shape even if the computer itself is dying, so I now feel I'm in effect abandoning good components since it's all in the same box. While I've loved my current one until lately, I'm now a bit skeptical of the all-in-one format. To some extent, my question is independent of which particular form of Mac, though clearly some offer larger RAM choices and such. So here's my question: how much Mac is plenty without unnecessarily blowing the budget? How much RAM? How much CPU? And so on. This year performance is starting to suck badly, and not just in LrC, so I think it's about time for a new Mac.

I've been running LrC (even before they added 'Classic') on the same iMac 27 for about nine years.

Imac lightroom