I am really torn between 8GB vs. 16GB RAM

[thegiftofdom]

Now I am questioning whether I should I have gone with 8gb myself as I continue to wait 3-4 weeks for my 16gb/1TB Mini to arrive. I am very tempted to cancel it and just order the 8gb/256 base and have it arrive in a days time. I am coming from a 2013 iMac and just wanted to future proof myself, but I highly doubt I’ll keep this first gen silicon mini for another 7 years anyways. I don’t really do anything extreme. I run mostly all native apple apps. Safari (for my eBay business), Photos and Mail are open 100% of the time. Occasionally I use final cut with some pixelmator. Do I really need the 16gb config? would I notice a difference?

Not at all, you won't notice a huge difference. I'm pushing my M1 Air at 8gb to the max, and it is running as fast or faster than my 16GB i7 Spectre.

Now I may upgrade to the 16gb just because I may want to keep it for a minimum of five years, and 16gb will give me a peace of mind, but if you don't plan on keeping it for too long, I think 8GB will suffice.

I don't know how far Apple will take with this new unified memory RAM, but so far, it's way more efficient than Intel chips. I would recommend using it and really pushing it to its max potential to see if it fits your needs(do your regular workflow + throw in some extra things in the background to see if it can handle the load)Another thing to consider is that the M1 Mini seems to be the most efficient/powerful of the three new Macs.

What I plan on doing is using this until the 8th of January(last day to return), and see if I can swap it for a 16GB. I only opted for the 8 because it was the only model I could have gotten without waiting for a month. If the 16gb models aren't available, I'll trade my 8GB in for store credit and just wait til the delivery times are shorter.

 

[Hexley]

Another video has just been posted on this subject. The conclusion is that 8GB will be sufficient for most people -

Beaten to it!

As I said.... most people dont do Apple forums.

So if you're here then you're more likely to need 16GB or more than someone who never heard of this forum!

 

[pshufd]

What I plan on doing is using this until the 8th of January(last day to return), and see if I can swap it for a 16GB. I only opted for the 8 because it was the only model I could have gotten without waiting for a month. If the 16gb models aren't available, I'll trade my 8GB in for store credit and just wait til the delivery times are shorter.

The issue with delivery times really complicates things. 16/1 is available locally to me for the MacBook Air but I don't need 16/1; I'm fine with 16/256 because what I'd use it for is on the NAS. I'd like a 16/256 Mini as well but I've never seen any 16 GB Minis in the stores.

 

[theluggage]

I was mostly serious. Seems like a small price to pay to double the RAM. Of course everyone may have different needs.

On the original Intel Mini, and the iMac, Apple charge the same £200/$200 for an upgrade from 8GB to 16GB RAM - i.e. a pair of 8GB DDR4 sticks effectively identical to the ones that Crucial sell for £30 each retail (I.e. including Crucial's profit margin and distribution costs). A business the size of Apple will be paying a fraction of that wholesale - and then you've got to subtract the value of the 4GB sticks that they are leaving out. The words "money", "for" and "nothing" spring to mind.

Now, with the M1 that's harder to check, because LPDDR RAM doesn't seem to come in DIY, retail, plug-in stick form, and Apple are probably getting genuine performance gains by integrating it in the M1 package with very short bus lengths, but I doubt that Apple are cutting their own throats on that £200 upgrade. Looking at (say) the Dell XPS13 - something that can reasonably stand comparison with the 13" MBP and Air - the 16GB upgrade only costs £100, but that isn't available "on its own" on the baseline system, and if you look at the prices/specs of comparable configuration as a whole the 13" MBP starts to look pretty good (considering that the M1 probably matches, if not thrashes the low-power i7s that Dell are offering as an upgrade). I haven't done a deep dive on Mini-alike PCs, but last I looked they were (a) expensive by PC standards and (b) mostly came with an external power brick nearly as big as the computer - and that was before the M1 came along.

Apple's RAM and SSD gouging was getting a bit old when they were basically making slick-looking PCs with a MacOS license - and while the M1 machines are still pretty gouge-y in those respects, at least Apple now has a clear distinguishing feature in the M1, plus their RAM and SSD do seem to offer clear speed benefits from being soldered in.

It still hinges on you actually wanting an ultraportable or a Mini - if you're prepared to go PC you can still build a killer AMD mini-tower (or even a Mini-ITX system) and chuck in more RAM and SSD than you'll need without agonising over the cost.

 

[pshufd]

On the original Intel Mini, and the iMac, Apple charge the same £200/$200 for an upgrade from 8GB to 16GB RAM - i.e. a pair of 8GB DDR4 sticks effectively identical to the ones that Crucial sell for £30 each retail (I.e. including Crucial's profit margin and distribution costs). A business the size of Apple will be paying a fraction of that wholesale - and then you've got to subtract the value of the 4GB sticks that they are leaving out. The words "money", "for" and "nothing" spring to mind.

Now, with the M1 that's harder to check, because LPDDR RAM doesn't seem to come in DIY, retail, plug-in stick form, and Apple are probably getting genuine performance gains by integrating it in the M1 package with very short bus lengths, but I doubt that Apple are cutting their own throats on that £200 upgrade. Looking at (say) the Dell XPS13 - something that can reasonably stand comparison with the 13" MBP and Air - the 16GB upgrade only costs £100, but that isn't available "on its own" on the baseline system, and if you look at the prices/specs of comparable configuration as a whole the 13" MBP starts to look pretty good (considering that the M1 probably matches, if not thrashes the low-power i7s that Dell are offering as an upgrade). I haven't done a deep dive on Mini-alike PCs, but last I looked they were (a) expensive by PC standards and (b) mostly came with an external power brick nearly as big as the computer - and that was before the M1 came along.

Apple's RAM and SSD gouging was getting a bit old when they were basically making slick-looking PCs with a MacOS license - and while the M1 machines are still pretty gouge-y in those respects, at least Apple now has a clear distinguishing feature in the M1, plus their RAM and SSD do seem to offer clear speed benefits from being soldered in.

It still hinges on you actually wanting an ultraportable or a Mini - if you're prepared to go PC you can still build a killer AMD mini-tower (or even a Mini-ITX system) and chuck in more RAM and SSD than you'll need without agonising over the cost.

One approach would be using a hybrid model - run programs that need a lot of RAM and a lot of SSD on a commodity machine and run programs that need little RAM, SSD but a lot of CPU on an M1.

 

[thegiftofdom]

The issue with delivery times really complicates things. 16/1 is available locally to me for the MacBook Air but I don't need 16/1; I'm fine with 16/256 because what I'd use it for is on the NAS. I'd like a 16/256 Mini as well but I've never seen any 16 GB Minis in the stores.

Yes, the delivery times do complicate things. I needed a computer for December because I might be traveling for Christmas, and the earliest the Mac I originally wanted would get here would be the week of Christmas.

Once I get back from traveling(if I do travel), I will most likely be returning this for store credit and instead of working remotely, I'd just go to my actual job until the configuration I want is in stock.

When I picked up my Air, I asked an employee if the store will have different configurations available for in store pickup for the M1 Air, Pro, or Mini, and they said that they will have them eventually, but couldn't give me a time estimate. Hopefully you won't have to wait too long!

 

[ascender]

The Tally Ho Tech video posted today made quite a good summary based on his findings of editing video on the new M1 Macs. The way he sees it is that due to the performance improvements 8GB on the M1 performs like 16GB on Intel. I know that's simplifying things massively, but you can see where he's coming from?

 

[Ethosik]

Another video has just been posted on this subject. The conclusion is that 8GB will be sufficient for most people -

Beaten to it!

Yes, that 4K test was interesting. I would still recommend 16GB for 4K. But doing 1080p work is fine with 8GB and this helps prove that point.

 

[Jimmy James]

Even permanent and static data will move around on an SSD. The wear leveling algorithm does this so as to harvest available write cycles. A very simplified algorithm:

1) You write new contents to a logical sector. The drive puts the data into a physical sector from the "erased" list.
2) It maps the old logical sector to this new physical sector.
3) The drive now erases the old physical sector.
4) The drive now grabs a "random" sector and copies it to the sector erased in step 3.
5) It now fixes up the logical to physical mapping for the copied data.
6) Next it erases the source sector involved in the copying.
7) This erased sector now goes onto the end of the "erased" list.

Thank you. Very interesting.

 

[thegiftofdom]

The Tally Ho Tech video posted today made quite a good summary based on his findings of editing video on the new M1 Macs. The way he sees it is that due to the performance improvements 8GB on the M1 performs like 16GB on Intel. I know that's simplifying things massively, but you can see where he's coming from?

I just watched that video! At the end of the day, RAM is Ram no matter which way you put it, but the M1 is definitely using it more efficiently.

I can kinda get behind the idea that 8GB unified memory is like 16GB of regular memory? But for something I may want to keep for maybe 7 years or so, 16GB might make me feel better... I don't know.

I just have to keep using this to find out.

 

[Ethosik]

I really don't think people should plan to keep these 1st gen systems for 7 years. They will be like the 1st generation iPad where it will be dropped from support faster than the 2nd gen ones will.

 

[Stefdar]

Guys I noticed in the video that he is using some sort of temperature monitor on the menu bar? Does anyone know which one it is?

 

[thegiftofdom]

I really don't think people should plan to keep these 1st gen systems for 7 years. They will be like the 1st generation iPad where it will be dropped from support faster than the 2nd gen ones will.

That's a good point, I didn't even think of that! Maybe it's best I keep this 8GB version? Gah, so many variables!!

Edit: To play devils advocate, this is just the 1st M1 chip, not the first Mac, I'd imagine it would be supported still.

 

[ravinder08]

Interesting results here between the 8gb and 16GB machines

 

[Lammers]

I really don't think people should plan to keep these 1st gen systems for 7 years. They will be like the 1st generation iPad where it will be dropped from support faster than the 2nd gen ones will.

That’s pure speculation. I don’t see any reason for that conclusion.

 

[ascender]

I really don't think people should plan to keep these 1st gen systems for 7 years. They will be like the 1st generation iPad where it will be dropped from support faster than the 2nd gen ones will.

What makes you think it will be anything like that given how mature Apple's SOC offerings are and the fact it will be so much easier for them to support these chips for x number of years than it would be with previous Intel ones?

I could totally understand that view if the iPhone and iPad had never happened, but that's just alarmist.

 

[pshufd]

Yes, the delivery times do complicate things. I needed a computer for December because I might be traveling for Christmas, and the earliest the Mac I originally wanted would get here would be the week of Christmas.

Once I get back from traveling(if I do travel), I will most likely be returning this for store credit and instead of working remotely, I'd just go to my actual job until the configuration I want is in stock.

When I picked up my Air, I asked an employee if the store will have different configurations available for in store pickup for the M1 Air, Pro, or Mini, and they said that they will have them eventually, but couldn't give me a time estimate. Hopefully you won't have to wait too long!

I do not need an M1. I would just like one to play around with. I would also be able to move email and web browsing to macOS from Windows.

 

[pshufd]

I really don't think people should plan to keep these 1st gen systems for 7 years. They will be like the 1st generation iPad where it will be dropped from support faster than the 2nd gen ones will.

My 2008 died in 2018. My 2014 and 2015 are still going strong though I wouldn't mind replacing the 2014 with a MBA. But I'd say that the 2014 still has at least three years of life and maybe much more than that.

 

[ravinder08]

Looks like if you’re doing this it may be good to get 16GB otherwise 8GB is fine for almost all cases

 

[pshufd]

Looks like if you’re doing this it may be good to get 16GB otherwise 8GB is fine for almost all cases

Very illuminating. 16 GB it is.

 

[DemNoir]

Interesting results here between the 8gb and 16GB machines

Wow. This YouTuber is not making useful comparisons of RAM amounts. Speed and temps while single tasking? Are you kidding me?

 

[theluggage]

Another video has just been posted on this subject. The conclusion is that 8GB will be sufficient for most people

I think that videos conclusions should be helpful to a lot of people here - i.e. most people won't need more than 8GB unless they're running specific RAM-hungry jobs which - until now - they wouldn't have expected to work on Apple's cheapest machine because the CPU and GPU wouldn't cut it.

It's a pity that he finished by trotting out the old nonsense about 16GB on M1 being equivalent to 32GB on Intel. Not if you actually need 32GB for a specific workload.

However, there is still a point being missed: there's not a lot of point running a test on a 16GB machine when it isn't even running out of memory on an 8GB machine - and the reviewer seemed to be making the usual mistake of looking at "RAM usage" rather than "Memory pressure" which is the real indications that lack of RAM is slowing things down.

Otherwise, it's like having a race between a Bugatti and an economy city compact... through a school zone at max 30mph.

The real test is to find a realistic workload which is pushing the "memory pressure" into the red on an 8GB Intel machine, and then try that on a M1 8GB and/or 16GB machine.

 

[thegiftofdom]

I do not need an M1. I would just like one to play around with. I would also be able to move email and web browsing to macOS from Windows.

Gotcha. You should be fine getting a base model then!

 

[jon08]

Guys I noticed in the video that he is using some sort of temperature monitor on the menu bar? Does anyone know which one it is?

iStatistica

 

[Ethosik]

That's a good point, I didn't even think of that! Maybe it's best I keep this 8GB version? Gah, so many variables!!

Edit: To play devils advocate, this is just the 1st M1 chip, not the first Mac, I'd imagine it would be supported still.

Early Intel Macs were dropped from support faster than the later ones. We have seen it happen many times. Its also not a good thing to plan for anyway. I like to keep my systems around for a long time too, which is why I used my 2010 Mac Pro until 2019. But I was still missing SATA 3 or even NVME speeds without resorting to third party solutions that have odd limitations. Trouble with newer graphics cards and limited to PCIe 2, no USB 3.0 without a third party card, and the CPU didn't have all the enhancements that later Intel processors had which caused the CPU usage to be higher than a lower core/frequency chip that was 8th gen or later.

Not only that, but getting 7 years out of the lowest end will have more restrictions later. Like lack of RAM upgradeability means you will be stuck with 8 or 16GB of RAM until 2027!