I'm going to order a M1 MBA to accompany my 32GB i6 Mac mini, from everything I've read, for a single user 8GB would be fine but my partner and I will both use the machine and both be logged in etc. so I'm wondering if it would be worth getting the 16GB?
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I am really torn between 8GB vs. 16GB RAM
- Thread starter Booji
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Depends on if you and your partner can tolerate the occasional out of memory error. (Starting at minute 9:00)
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With normal productivity apps, I would say yes. Where it gets a bit confusing are the more intensive creative apps for photo and video.
My guess is that yes, you'll be happier with the 16gb. You could probably get by with 8gb but if it's two of you using it, not worth trying to save the $200.
Enjoying all the conjecture but thought I would add my experience to date after 2 weeks of full-time use.
I am running an M1 Mac mini 8GB / 256GB as an always-on headless home server, hub, UniFi Controller, Plex Server, Apple Content Cache, dedicated transcoder, music server, 10 GbE node... and the list goes on.
Pretty much everything I have learned about x64 memory management can be left at the door when moving to an M1 system. There is nothing that can be read directly across from Intel systems and with a wave of the hand you can pretty much announce that like-for-like the M1 sips on raw memory capacity whilst enjoying a massive amount of memory bandwidth. Remarkable even. If I had to grab a figure I could almost say that 8GB = 32GB on my iMac Pro.
Is there a catch? - well yes, or possibly yes, and we all love a good etherial 'it depends' moment to ruin the mood.
Having thrown everything at the base M1 mini I find myself needing more RAM for just one of my applications.
For me the Achilles Heel is running a UniFi Controller through Rosetta 2. UniFi leans heavily on Java 8 and an old Mongo DB and taken together these seem to grab and hold onto quite a bit of memory. For whatever reason this combination of dependancies seems to sit uneasily within the Rosetta 2 framework and M1 memory management. It all works ok but by brute force memory-mismanagement, leaving less available for all the efficient apps and base OS.
So I've ordered a 16GB model, which will be delivered a number of weeks away apparently. I suspect that a better version of Java or a more optimised version of UniFi or putting Mongo DB out of its misery would restore sanity, but for now I have a specific and demonstrable need for 16GB.
So close, so very very close...
I am running an M1 Mac mini 8GB / 256GB as an always-on headless home server, hub, UniFi Controller, Plex Server, Apple Content Cache, dedicated transcoder, music server, 10 GbE node... and the list goes on.
Pretty much everything I have learned about x64 memory management can be left at the door when moving to an M1 system. There is nothing that can be read directly across from Intel systems and with a wave of the hand you can pretty much announce that like-for-like the M1 sips on raw memory capacity whilst enjoying a massive amount of memory bandwidth. Remarkable even. If I had to grab a figure I could almost say that 8GB = 32GB on my iMac Pro.
Is there a catch? - well yes, or possibly yes, and we all love a good etherial 'it depends' moment to ruin the mood.
Having thrown everything at the base M1 mini I find myself needing more RAM for just one of my applications.
For me the Achilles Heel is running a UniFi Controller through Rosetta 2. UniFi leans heavily on Java 8 and an old Mongo DB and taken together these seem to grab and hold onto quite a bit of memory. For whatever reason this combination of dependancies seems to sit uneasily within the Rosetta 2 framework and M1 memory management. It all works ok but by brute force memory-mismanagement, leaving less available for all the efficient apps and base OS.
So I've ordered a 16GB model, which will be delivered a number of weeks away apparently. I suspect that a better version of Java or a more optimised version of UniFi or putting Mongo DB out of its misery would restore sanity, but for now I have a specific and demonstrable need for 16GB.
So close, so very very close...
Any reason you don't just move to a dedicated UniFi controller?
Loaded up a few photoshoots on my Mac mini 8/256gb config today. I'm probably going to go ahead and return this one for a 16gb version as the MBA handles Lightroom much better. Not sure if the native version will fix this but when importing multiple 45MP RAW DSLR files my Mac mini slows to a crawl while my MBA M1 16gb keeps going smoothly
Memory pressure definitely in the yellow majority of the time
Memory pressure definitely in the yellow majority of the time
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It's an option for sure but dedicated hardware for just one job does seem excessive when you already have an always-on computer that is already hosting other stuff.
Of course, some of the dedicated hosting hardware from UniFi has been less than spectacular, putting it mildly.
No, it does not. 8GB on an M1 Mac is 8GB on an Intel Mac. The massive amount of memory bandwidth is wasted if the data needed to be processed has to come SSD. The 68GB/sec RAM bandwidth is irrelevant if the system needs to obtain data from the SSD at a rate of 2.1GB/sec. The 68GB/sec bandwidth only benefits that which is already in memory.
So in a nutshell its just horses for courses. What you intend to do dictates the amount of RAM you need. For me 4GB is enough for others 16GB will be essential. Just look at what you want to do and how intensive it is and choose your RAM and processor accordingly.
Don't forget it is not all about RAM. If you are going to do some really intensive work you need to factor in processor speed, BUS speed, thermal constraints etc etc
Original thread torn between 8GB and 16GB like that is all that matters???
Don't forget it is not all about RAM. If you are going to do some really intensive work you need to factor in processor speed, BUS speed, thermal constraints etc etc
Original thread torn between 8GB and 16GB like that is all that matters???
Pretty much. 8gb on M1 is not 16gb on Intel. It just handles swapping better due to the almost 2x faster SSD, BUT it's still significantly slower than ram. My 8gb Mac mini stutters like crazy when importing 400+ RAW files in Lightroom causing the memory pressure to go into the yellow zone. If I have Photoshop loaded up too it makes it worse.
My 16gb MBA M1 handles Lightroom much better with nary a slowdown.
Below is my 16gb MBA, compare to my Mac mini 8gb machine above.
I'm not going to repeat the explanation that's been given here many times already, because I know you've seen it and aren't going to get it. I'll just point out that you're ignoring the context for the 8GB = 32GB claim.
Leaving aside your cherry picking I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding of what RAM does or how onboard L1/L2 cache can be so small yet so effective. Architecturally RAM is an expensive way to do precisely nothing with a chunk of data. Worse still, it had become a holding pool for data not destined for the CPU but for other federated parts of the system, such as to and from a GPU, using interfaces that are relatively ponderous and inefficient.
Things are changing, do try and keep up.
According to Blackmagic the higher capacity SSDs in the 2018 Mini appear to match the speeds of my M1 Mini with a 256GB SSD.
Setting aside your insults your comment about "what RAM does or how onboard L1/L2 cache can be so small yet so effective" applies equally to Intel Macs as much as it does M1 Macs. The discussion is focused on some benefit offered by the M1 Macs which is not found in Intel Macs. Your comment does nothing to address that focus.
By the way, I suspect she sees that error because her hard drive is full (or close to it?) or there is a system bug preventing swap/paging. I have never gotten that message on a Mac in the decade+ that I've been using them. I even suffered through with an old iMac 2010 with 4GB of RAM as recently as 2017 when 4GB was most definitely no longer enough and never saw that lol. I have the M1 Mini with 8GB (don't really use pro-level apps) and it seems fine with a few dozen chrome tabs and a game or GarageBand running in the background.
Intel Macs have the same NSObject retain and release speed as the new M1s? That's news. There may also be other improvements in the speed and manner in which RAM is used with the M1.
How about SSD speed for swap, is that the same with comparable Intel Macs? You compared earlier to a higher capacity SSD in a higher-end model, but that's not the most useful comparison.
His comment did address the focus of the thread, just not in a way you liked. He found some rough equivalency between his 8GB M1 and 32GB on his iMac Pro. It was a vague remark, so if you think it's wrong, you should ask for clarification first, instead of assuming.
Honestly, I wouldn't treat your RAM concerns any differently to purchasing an Intel Mac.
The key difference is the speed, since it's unified memory that works side-by-side with the rest of the SoC.
I'm under the impression that it's this change in speed which is causing reviewers to think differently about the RAM is being used; but in reality, it's just faster compression and page swaps.
Go for your normal/intended amount and be done.
The key difference is the speed, since it's unified memory that works side-by-side with the rest of the SoC.
I'm under the impression that it's this change in speed which is causing reviewers to think differently about the RAM is being used; but in reality, it's just faster compression and page swaps.
Go for your normal/intended amount and be done.
In my experience compression and swap are nowhere near fast enough. When importing large amounts of files into Lightroom, my 8gb M1 Mac mini runs out of memory and starts to slow down considerably while my 16gb M1 MBA handles the same load much more smoothly even without a fan!
Of course, if you're a light user 16gb would be a waste. But for my use purposes, 16gb is a must. Unfortunately I'll be waiting into next year to get my 16gb Mac mini now...
As a reference point, my 2012 i7 2.6ghz with 16gb ram doesn't slow down and stutter as much due to memory pressure when importing the same RAW files like my M1 8gb Mac mini does so there goes that argument on memory usage. (Ironically, the M1 Mini is still faster overall in finishing the task!) I think ram that the native M1 programs are able to swap better and be more efficient with ram usage vs Intel counterparts, but a 100mb RAW file in ram is going to take the same amount of ram on Intel vs. M1
Also, whenever M1 native Lightroom classic (God knows when that's coming out of beta) comes out it may improve memory usage. Until then I will need the 16gb version
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Yes, that makes sense. But I don't see how it follows that people in general should just get the same amount of RAM as they would have before. Different RAM uses appear to behave differently on the M1, some faster than before, some not so much. Seems to depend heavily on what the application is.
What you see with m1 is low latency and less need to be fetching back and forth. Native apps may also be tighter and better fit. The download are definitely smaller. If like using COBOL when assembly or other code bases do a better job. But nothing magically to it. Shorter lines in checkout counter are always nice to have.
Less need to be fetching back and forth between what? RAM and SSD? If so how does the M1 achieve that? Tighter code? What about data? If I have a requirement for 32GB of data then code size is largely irrelevant, that data likely outweighs any code requirements.
There is nothing, I repeat nothing about the M1 which reduces memory requirements by 1/4 compared to Intel systems. At least I haven't seen anyone demonstrate as much.