iMac m1 16Gb or m3 8Gb?

[Chuckeee]

Yes but the question wasn’t that. It was m1 16Gb or m3 8Gb. Everyone if they could would just get the best

M1 16GB. You can always use RAM, it is not clear how often and when you would benefit of the M3 vs M1. The “additional years of support” I would consider to be of limited benefit unless there is some software that you have to update annually. For most people, staying a generation or two behind the latest software release is no big deal. Just observe common sense while on-line (don’t click email or message web links, avoids shady web sites, etc)

 

[Mr.Fox]

Yes but the question wasn’t that. It was m1 16Gb or m3 8Gb. Everyone if they could would just get the best

Be able to look forward to the future.

 

[minik]

I really like the overall M3 improvement over previous generations. However, it’s such a toss up. While Apple hardly update the iMac line up, getting a M1 in 2024 is really a bummer. The 16GB onboard is a better way to go nonetheless.

 

[MrMister111]

I really like the overall M3 improvement over previous generations. However, it’s such a toss up. While Apple hardly update the iMac line up, getting a M1 in 2024 is really a bummer. The 16GB onboard is a better way to go nonetheless.

What improvements have you noticed/experienced? Is this over m1? Did you have an m1 previously? 8 or 16Gb?

The m serious over intel is a big upgrade, not sure m3 over m1 though.

 

[opeter]

If you need it right now, go for M1/16GB iMac.

If you don't need it right now and can wait until you have more money for a new M3/16GB, or it shows up in a refurb store, well, than go for the newer iteration.

Here is a very solid video, that compares the Max versions of these chips:

To see a real difference, that depends on the nature of the used applications, situations.

 

[i-want-an-iMac]

For me, the 16 GB M1 iMac. 8 GB vs 16 GB is objectively a 100% increase. The M1 vs M3? I don't think thats 100% increase there, and it's already a super strong CPU, the M1. It would be awkward to have the beefier CPU and then find yourself handicapped on RAM.

 

[Surfsalot]

What improvements have you noticed/experienced? Is this over m1? Did you have an m1 previously? 8 or 16Gb?

The m serious over intel is a big upgrade, not sure m3 over m1 though.

Iv'e had a 8/512 M1 for 2.5 years, if buying now would get 24/1tb M3.

 

[MrMister111]

Iv'e had a 8/512 M1 for 2.5 years, if buying now would get 24/1tb M3.

Why? You didn’t max out when getting the m1, why would you on m3? What won’t work on your m1 currently?

 

[Surfsalot]

Why? You didn’t max out when getting the m1, why would you on m3? What won’t work on your m1 currently?

2024 now should be 16gb base.

 

[MrMister111]

2024 now should be 16gb base.

I agree, lots do, but Apple don’t, and they still sell so they’ll keep selling base at 8Gb for as long as can, and charge £200 for another 8Gb.

 

[picpicmac]

but Apple don’t, and they still sell so they’ll keep selling base at 8Gb for as long as can

Most of the personal and business computer companies offer base models at 8GB of RAM. It's not just Apple. It's just a meme that has gotten rooted in certain sectors of the consumer market, that Apple is being stingy by offering 8GB base configurations.

 

[opeter]

Most of the personal and business computer companies offer base models at 8GB of RAM. It's not just Apple. It's just a meme that has gotten rooted in certain sectors of the consumer market, that Apple is being stingy by offering 8GB base configurations.

For the amount of money, you pay for the base Macs, one could expect, that the customer gets 16GB of memory in these.

 

[Chuckeee]

For the amount of money, you pay for the base Macs, one could expect, that the customer gets 16GB of memory in these.

The money is going for the fancy logo, bragging rights and hopefully slightly better quality. Anything else cost extra. Just like a Rolex watch or a Chanel purse.

I like the logo, so I just hold my nose and pay the price.

 

[Student of Life]

I think between those options I would go for the M1 with 16GB ram. Sure it will have a faster end of life when it comes to supported OSX but the machine will still work for years to come. The M3 with 8GB should be ok but if your thinking multitasking then the 16GB is the better option.

 

[MrMister111]

I think between those options I would go for the M1 with 16GB ram. Sure it will have a faster end of life when it comes to supported OSX but the machine will still work for years to come. The M3 with 8GB should be ok but if your thinking multitasking then the 16GB is the better option.

Your right Macs, even if not on latest MacOS, can still last years.

Multitasking never understood fully, surely can just close some apps, some browser tabs to help? can only do one thing at a time anyway (or is that just me!?!) Imagine a large video project though might need large RAM.

 

[minik]

What improvements have you noticed/experienced? Is this over m1? Did you have an m1 previously? 8 or 16Gb?

The m serious over intel is a big upgrade, not sure m3 over m1 though.

Although we have no received any base M3 equipped Mac in our fleet, we deployed M1 (base/Pro/Max), M2 (base/Pro), and M3 (Pro). All with upgraded memory. While both M1 and M2 are 5 nm chip and M3 is 3nm, the memory bandwidth is also faster compares to the base level chips. With the unified memory, it shares in between the system and GPU. The 16GB model has more breathing room.

My daily driver at home is the M1 Pro MacBook Pro w/32GB of memory connects to the ASD and LG 4K monitor. At work, I was given a M2 Pro MacBook Pro w/32GB of memory.

 

[picpicmac]

For the amount of money, you pay for the base Macs, one could expect, that the customer gets 16GB of memory in these.

Dell, Lenovo, HP - all offer all-in-ones that start with 8GB RAM, geared for low-end home users. Yes, they cost less in that configuration than the 24" iMac, but all of them use low-end processors, low-end GPUs, and the displays are 1080p.

HP does offer "business" level AIOs, though, and if you look at one of their models: HP EliteOne 870 G9 27-inch All-in-One it has 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD, a 27" display that is only 1080p, 250nits, and the price is.... $1,989.

And that is just with an i3 processor. If you want to bump the processor to something closer to the M3, an i7 bumps the price $397.

Dell is a more competitive on price, but one is also stuck at a low end display and low end internals.

So no, the iMac is not overpriced. It is competitively priced. Price wise the iMac sits between Dell AIOs and HP "business" AIOs, and is superior to them in most regards.

 

[MrMister111]

Although we have no received any base M3 equipped Mac in our fleet, we deployed M1 (base/Pro/Max), M2 (base/Pro), and M3 (Pro). All with upgraded memory. While both M1 and M2 are 5 nm chip and M3 is 3nm, the memory bandwidth is also faster compares to the base level chips. With the unified memory, it shares in between the system and GPU. The 16GB model has more breathing room.

My daily driver at home is the M1 Pro MacBook Pro w/32GB of memory connects to the ASD and LG 4K monitor. At work, I was given a M2 Pro MacBook Pro w/32GB of memory.

iMac only have the base m chips. Also the efficiency doesn’t matter as much on desktop, obviously it’s great for laptops, wish they made an m chip for desktop specifically.

 

[MrMister111]

Dell, Lenovo, HP - all offer all-in-ones that start with 8GB RAM, geared for low-end home users. Yes, they cost less in that configuration than the 24" iMac, but all of them use low-end processors, low-end GPUs, and the displays are 1080p.

HP does offer "business" level AIOs, though, and if you look at one of their models: HP EliteOne 870 G9 27-inch All-in-One it has 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD, a 27" display that is only 1080p, 250nits, and the price is.... $1,989.

And that is just with an i3 processor. If you want to bump the processor to something closer to the M3, an i7 bumps the price $397.

Dell is a more competitive on price, but one is also stuck at a low end display and low end internals.

So no, the iMac is not overpriced. It is competitively priced. Price wise the iMac sits between Dell AIOs and HP "business" AIOs, and is superior to them in most regards.

Agree, in my experience iMac been solid and last longer on general than PCs, without as many hiccups along the way.

I imagine Apple also checks other prices, configs, compared to theirs, then sets price, knowing in general Apple users will lay a little more.

 

[AhmetRyzen]

Hardware has ARM architecture. In this way, computer no matters how many updatest gets doesn't lose any of its speed.

 

[okkibs]

I strongly recommend against purchasing any M1 Mac in 2024 going forward unless it's a used device priced accordingly.

New M1 hardware in 2024 means that even on a sale or especially with the Apple refurb store you pay a lot for old hardware. It might seem like a sweet discount but 10-15% can be had on brand new hardware and previous gen sells at 20-30% discount with retailers easily, the rare steeper discounts go further. Unless this was around 50% off from the $1500 initial Apple pricing I'd consider that a bad deal. If you look at the refurb store now they sell these refurbished, not even brand new units with 16GiB for $1389.

Apple's basically giving you $111 off for a 3 year old M1 model and on top of that it's not even brand new. If it was new and around $750 so 50% off then I'd say sweet deal and ignore the other drawbacks. But nobody sells these new for that amount let alone below $1000.

As M1 is 3 years older than M3 it will stop receiving updates sooner. This didn't matter as much on Intel Macs as you could usually upgrade to a newer MacOS with Opencore legacy patcher regardless or in the worst case install Windows or Linux if the alternative was that apps would not longer run and fail to update after being stuck on an old MacOS for a couple years.

With Apple Silicon the only system that currently works flawlessly is MacOS. Even ARM Windows simply doesn't boot, and with Linux they aren't making progress like they did on Intel because these Apple components aren't used elsewhere so figuring out how to support all that Apple exclusive hardware is a slow process with no guarantee that we'll ever have a flawless linux M1 Mac.

And it's fine to stay on an older MacOS for a while but I really cannot recommend spending upwards of $1000 on a device in 2024 that could see it last new MacOS (major) version in 2026 already. It might be 27 or even 28 but we don't know. Apple doesn't tell and 2026 is pessimistic but the point is there are no promises and when you spend upwards of $1000 you might want to make sure you have an update guarantee.

Finally there is performance. The M1 chip (I had one of these devices myself) was at the time faster than any Intel Macbook and was a fantastic upgrade. It's noticeably slower than even the M1 Pro not to mention the current Intel hardware as well as M2 and M3. That being said, slightly worse performance is preferable to running out of memory which can cause worse performance than have a slightly older M1 chip.

As the 24" screen is just a regular static backlit IPS panel I would just not buy an iMac at all, even if the resolution is very high for the 24" size. Solid 4k monitors with static backlit IPS panels are cheap these days and paired with a M2 Mac Mini you'd end up somewhere around a similar price point slightly above $1000. Anyone saying it takes more space and what about all those cables - it's a single additional power cord to the monitor and one USB-C cable to connect Mini and monitor. The Mini is really tiny and can fit anywhere. Throw it in one of the cable management trays for desks if you must.

 

[opeter]

Hardware has ARM architecture. In this way, computer no matters how many updatest gets doesn't lose any of its speed.

Yes, if you use the right software on it. So the one that was current when it was released.

However, as (new) more and more demanding software comes out in the future, you will soon collide with a boundary in regard of speed/usability.

You can today use more decade old software on the appropriate hardware (if it still works) and you will see, that the speed is just as it was in the original state. But as soon as you want to install something more demanding, you immediately notice the limits.

 

[Andrey84]

Hardware has ARM architecture. In this way, computer no matters how many updatest gets doesn't lose any of its speed.

I think this is very naïve. New Mac OSs always release software features which are more demanding of hardware than the previous generation. Apple M1 is essentially a buffed-up mobile chip. I'm positive that in 2028 it will be dropped from the newest Mac OS. In 2030, should you install the latest Mac OS using OpenCore Legacy Patcher on an M1 machine, it will be running quite slowly, just like a 2014 Core i5 does now on Sonoma. There is no magic architecture to compensate for software which demands more computing power.

 

[rosegoldoli]

I would consider m3/16 the true investment and save. As others have said you will lose out on future updates sooner and it wouldn’t be fair to you to pay $1300+ on a device right now that is already several years behind the latest tech

 

[wilberforce]

I would consider m3/16 the true investment and save. As others have said you will lose out on future updates sooner and it wouldn’t be fair to you to pay $1300+ on a device right now that is already several years behind the latest tech

I agree.
Getting 8GB is just not a wise choice, unless your computing usage is very basic.
I think the only good reason to get M1 16GB is if you save at least $500 compared to an M3 16GB. This will enable you to buy its replacement a year or two earlier (considering it is an older model)