Are 16GB of Memory in an M1 Mac Mini "more" than 32GB of memory in an old Mac Pro?

[MacCheetah3]

You can also set up tab groups in Safari. So, if I'm shopping for running shoes and have 11 tabs open related to that, I can save that group then safely close that window entirely. When I launch the tab group again, that exact set of tabs opens again. It takes a little discipline to open things the appropriate Safari window, but it's massively helpful in being able to "let go" of open tabs knowing they're easy to resurrect later.

I haven’t used Tab Groups.

The only reason I mentioned Chrome is because Tab Groups were introduced until Catalina, apparently, and the latest macOS (officially) supported on the 2010 Mac Pro is Mojave.

trhoffman:
"Because @Fishrrman doesn’t use browsers?"

I use browsers. Numerous different ones. Possibly more variations than you do.

But whenever possible (especially with Safari), if I'm on a page, and need to open a URL, I right click on it and choose "open in new window". ALWAYS.

If by chance I "miss" and the menu opens the URL opening in a new tab, I IMMEDIATELY CLOSE THE TAB, right-click on it again, and this time open in a new window.

I seldom add bookmarks any more. If I want to save a page's URL, I go to the menu bar, and drag the URL to the desktop to create a "webloc" file.

I've seen one or two other browsers where the ONLY WAY to open certain URLs is with a new tab. I use this only if I have to, do what I need to do, then close the tab.

As you may have surmised, I have no interest in tabbed browsing.
Zero.

Most browsers run just fine without them.

Tabs or windows comes out to be the same resource usage. For some users, tabs are visually more efficient. If not for you, that’s okay.

Words fail me. I mean, you work how you want to work ... but 194 tabs after closing dozens? Zaz.

194 tabs?
No wonder this guy might be having memory problems...

<-- (Fishrrman NEVER uses tabs, ever, not a single one)

Even when I left tabs open in place of bookmarking, I probably had a max of 30. For active work, it’s reasonable to have multiple tabs/windows open for quick reference. However, there is indeed a point (i.e., amount) in which the behavior becomes useless/inefficient. Beyond the convenience of quick referencing, humans can’t simultaneously process multiple sources (i.e., multitask). The illusion is created by switching tasks, which some people can do more seamlessly and quickly.

Anyway, the memes are justified.

 

[xkcd308]

The M1 Mini is going to absolutely roast that 12 year-old Mac Pro. The speed of the processor and graphics will more than make up for the difference in RAM. You can see this in any benchmarking numbers you care to look up -- but even those don't tell the full story. Even my MacBook Air with only 8GB of RAM is like a night and day difference from my old 2014 iMac 5K which had 32 GB of RAM. No comparison whatsoever.

The performance of a M1 with 8GB is impressive, but it comes at the cost of tearing up the SSD with memory swapping. I avoid doing anything memory intensive and monitor memory usage on my base M1 mini. I use it for browsing, document editing, basic photo editing, Discord, etc. My memory pressure is always in the yellow, and all my efforts to manage my memory use have barely kept my SSD writes under 100TB in a year and a half. If I actually did any light gaming on it or did more media editing I would probably have used half the SSD's available spares by now. Anyone who buys an Apple Silicon Mac with less than 16GB RAM better be spending money on a more storage, or they'll burn through the spare memory cells in a hurry.

 

[ignatius345]

The performance of a M1 with 8GB is impressive, but it comes at the cost of tearing up the SSD with memory swapping. I avoid doing anything memory intensive and monitor memory usage on my base M1 mini. I use it for browsing, document editing, basic photo editing, Discord, etc. My memory pressure is always in the yellow, and all my efforts to manage my memory use have barely kept my SSD writes under 100TB in a year and a half. If I actually did any light gaming on it or did more media editing I would probably have used half the SSD's available spares by now. Anyone who buys an Apple Silicon Mac with less than 16GB RAM better be spending money on a more storage, or they'll burn through the spare memory cells in a hurry.

I got curious and checked my own SSD's stats (M1 Air, 8GB of RAM). According to DriveDx, I've written 173TB to the 256 GB SSD. The estimated perentage left of its lifespan is 89%. Doesn't look like I'm going to have it die "in a hurry".

 

[MarkC426]

The performance of a M1 with 8GB is impressive, but it comes at the cost of tearing up the SSD with memory swapping. I avoid doing anything memory intensive and monitor memory usage on my base M1 mini. I use it for browsing, document editing, basic photo editing, Discord, etc. My memory pressure is always in the yellow, and all my efforts to manage my memory use have barely kept my SSD writes under 100TB in a year and a half. If I actually did any light gaming on it or did more media editing I would probably have used half the SSD's available spares by now. Anyone who buys an Apple Silicon Mac with less than 16GB RAM better be spending money on a more storage, or they'll burn through the spare memory cells in a hurry.

You really can't beat REAL memory.
My cMP with 32gb is NEVER out of a tiny slither of green memory pressure (about 8% in istat menus).

 

[thinkinginventor]

Mac Pro 2013 12 core 64gb Mac Pro 2009 12 core 64gb I use my m1 Mac 8gb like an iPad. Waiting for Mac Pro with slots, lot of them lol.

 

[Bodhitree]

27 windows and 194 tabs is… impressively profligate.