Hello Thom,
[Topic moved here.]
Some potential points to consider:
- The Intel Mac Mini is available with a 3.2 GHz 6-core i7 CPU as an option, and also with up to 64 GB of RAM, whereas the Apple-CPU version only allows up to 16 GB of RAM.
- The amount of RAM is extremely important for Hauptwerk purposes, since it determines the maximum size of sample sets that you can load.
- The Apple-CPU version is newer and might potentially be faster than the Intel CPU options (which are older -- Intel 8th-generation), although the 3.2 GHz 6-core Intel i7 model should still perform very well anyway.
- Since both models are still currently available from Apple, you should hopefully be able to expect at least 3 years (and probably at least 5) of support from Apple for new macOS versions for them.
- However, given that Apple are transitioning away from Intel CPUs in the medium-term, the Apple-CPU based option may be more future-proof in the long term.
- Here's the excerpt from the Hauptwerk prerequisites regarding Apple's (non-Intel) CPUs:
The only Macs officially supported at this point in time are those with Intel CPUs. However, we understand that Hauptwerk does work and perform very well on Apple's new Macs with Apple ARM-based CPUs (running under Apple's Rosetta translator), with no known additional problems at the time of writing, and we’ll provide support on them for issues that can be reproduced on one of our primary supported Mac platforms listed above, and that don’t appear to be related to the platform.
Others might have more detailed experiences to report.
[Edit: P.S. I see Chris and I replied at the same time.]
Best regards, Martin.
Hauptwerk software designer/developer, Milan Digital Audio.