M1 Mac mini versus Intel I7 (and ram) question

[LinkRS]

Wow that’s quite a change. I wouldn’t dare. But good to know that “it is no match” and so not quite the same.... thanks

Howdy apple fan23,

Really, only you can make an informed decision on this. RAM is RAM, regardless if it is "unified" or not. It is quite possible that your workload does not need 32GBs, and that you would not have any issues stepping down to 16 GBs. However if you do need greater than 16 GBs, just because a system is M1 based doesn't mean that you can get by with only 16 GBs. Take a look at the kind of applications you run, and how you use your system. If you mainly use a web browser with tons of tabs, you probably don't need 32 GBs. However, if you are loading up large images or using applications with large datasets, you may actually need all of that RAM. Personally, I wouldn't want to step-down, and would look at a new purchase needing to have at least 32 GBs. Remember that just because you don't need more than 16 GBs today, doesn't mean you won't in a year or later. If you plan on replacing your machine every 2 or 3 years, you probably don't have to worry about that, but if you want to keep it for as long as possible, get more now.

Good luck!

Rich S.

 

[apple fan23]

MauiPa, thanks for the comment. activity monitor says am using about 24gb (don’t get why as I’ve only got the basic stuff open: email, safari with a few tabs, notion, pdf reader app, whatsapp, zotero). Pressure is forever green. Not sure now whether this means 16gb is not enough.

 

[apple fan23]

THanks @LinkRS ! Yeah, I am reluctant to go down, although I have changed my work and now no longer using Final Cut Pro and Lightroom so much. Then again, never say never.....

I would imagine then, that my macbook pro 32gb, i7 is more powerful than the mac mini M1 16gb, and so I should stick with my macbook pro for now and hook that up to the new display.

 

[Lihp8270]

No step down - your Intel Mac memory is no match for the Apple SOC unified memory.

It's not crazy to "step down". I did that with from an Intel i7 w/ 32GB that ran hot and noisy to a M1 w/ 8GB without any heating, throttling nor any fan spin ups.

If you went from 32 to 8 gb. Then you never needed 32gb to start with.

 

[leman]

MauiPa, thanks for the comment. activity monitor says am using about 24gb (don’t get why as I’ve only got the basic stuff open: email, safari with a few tabs, notion, pdf reader app, whatsapp, zotero). Pressure is forever green. Not sure now whether this means 16gb is not enough.

It doesn’t mean that since macOS will use the spare memory for caching and other optimizations. @LinkRS made a great summary and beyond that your best option is just trying it out. Apple offers free returns, why not get a mini and test it for a couple of days?

 

[clevins]

You keep saying you use 24G but LOOK AT MEMORY PRESSURE. It's the area on the left. Watch that.

Now then a couple of possible misconceptions. More RAM will not give you better performance unless the machine can actually use it. That is, if your workload can fit in 16G easily (not seeing pressure), then having 32G wont materially affect performance.

BUT if you sometimes do things that need more than 16G then get 32G. If it's a rare occurrence you can skim by on 16G but if you're hitting the limit a lot, you want 32G. That's why you want to watch the Memory Pressure graph. It will give you some insight into trends etc.

 

[apple fan23]

Thanks! The memory pressure thingy is forever a flat green line... so no issues there - working on my 32gb ram iMac. So I don’t know whether my work will fit in 16gb easily. How do I find this out?

 

[apple fan23]

By the sound of it I should stick to my 32gb macbook (saves me buying a mac mini) and use that as my ‘desktop’ connected to the display. It might be intel, but it will probably allow me to do more than a mac mini would.
Much appreciate everyone’s answers! Thank you!

 

[MauiPa]

Howdy apple fan23,

Really, only you can make an informed decision on this. RAM is RAM, regardless if it is "unified" or not. It is quite possible that your workload does not need 32GBs, and that you would not have any issues stepping down to 16 GBs. However if you do need greater than 16 GBs, just because a system is M1 based doesn't mean that you can get by with only 16 GBs. Take a look at the kind of applications you run, and how you use your system. If you mainly use a web browser with tons of tabs, you probably don't need 32 GBs. However, if you are loading up large images or using applications with large datasets, you may actually need all of that RAM. Personally, I wouldn't want to step-down, and would look at a new purchase needing to have at least 32 GBs. Remember that just because you don't need more than 16 GBs today, doesn't mean you won't in a year or later. If you plan on replacing your machine every 2 or 3 years, you probably don't have to worry about that, but if you want to keep it for as long as possible, get more now.

Good luck!

Rich S.

Yah cause in 2-3 years CPU speeds may be doubled, GPUs faster, video encoders better, and maybe the issues with OLED not being bright and subject to red shift and burn in might be fixed, and oh the new battery tech to improve battery performance might be out. Who would want any of that - because - ram?

 

[clevins]

Thanks! The memory pressure thingy is forever a flat green line... so no issues there - working on my 32gb ram iMac. So I don’t know whether my work will fit in 16gb easily. How do I find this out?

I'd get 32G which means sticking with the Intel for now. If they ship a Mini with 32, you can upgrade then. App memory is, well, memory used by apps and if you're routinely up against 16, I'd move to 32. Here's a good Apple Support article detailing what each of those means https://support.apple.com/guide/activity-monitor/view-memory-usage-actmntr1004/mac

Obviously, you can sort by memory used and see if there's anything egregious going on, etc. But when you're at the point of managing how you work so that you can fit things into a machine's specs it really means you need to move the specs up. Or, in your case, buy a higher specced machine.

I am a little curious as to what eats all that RAM though - your described workload doesn't sound like it should eat 24G

 

[apple fan23]

thanks for that link - that is very helpful!! App memory is interesting then...as it’s nearly 15gb... me think I should stick to 32gb and so the mac mini is off my list! Very much appreciated your help.

 

[cawsllyffant]

So just to put some info out there comparing the experience between 16 and 8GB. I have a base M1 air ( the one with one fewer GPU cores) with 8GB and a 16GB M1 Mini.

The 8GB is enough for light dev work (using Intellij, datagrip and code) or research (20-30 tabs open in two browsers) or playing minecraft. Can do two of those things for short periods, but more than maybe 20 min and memory pressure spikes and I gotta shut some stuff down. All three scenarios I'm also running teams, slack, mail and calendar. Memory pressure is usually in the yellow unless I spend to much time on reddit (that page gets HUGE in memory). It's "sufficient enough" for work that I (lead architect/software manager) was able to use it for about a month while I was waiting for a new laptop to arrive.

The mac mini runs plex, docker (1 container running papermc, the others running a vpn & some services that filter the network through the vpn), scrypted... and a couple browsers open. The vm running docker takes up about 6-8GB of memory on its own. Even with plex optimizing a 4K file and a couple folks on the papermc server the memory pressure is in the green. The only time I've seen yellow on this was when I had what appeared to be a memory leak in my docker vm... it hit something like 30GB.

I could probably switch to podman and save some memory, but I haven't had time to look into it yet.

 

[ArkSingularity]

One little-known trick on Intel Macs is that you can actually set it to boot with some of its RAM disabled to mimic a lower-specced machine if you are looking to test performance. This won't really give you a complete picture of how your workload would perform on an M1 system (testing 16GB on an Intel system isn't the same as testing 16GB on an M1 system), but it could give you at least some sort of an idea.

I will say that M1's generally do a decent job handling yellow memory pressure conditions thanks to hardware accelerated memory compression (Apple reportedly introduced this into the A14 as well). It definitely helps to handle light to moderate memory-overload conditions with less of a performance penalty than there was before, but this only helps when the majority of your workload can be handled by the RAM compressor rather than swap. Once swap starts getting used for active working data (or memory pressure starts to approach red territory), both architectures will face a massive performance hit.

 

[hagjohn]

You keep saying you use 24G but LOOK AT MEMORY PRESSURE. It's the area on the left. Watch that. View attachment 1979155

Now then a couple of possible misconceptions. More RAM will not give you better performance unless the machine can actually use it. That is, if your workload can fit in 16G easily (not seeing pressure), then having 32G wont materially affect performance.

BUT if you sometimes do things that need more than 16G then get 32G. If it's a rare occurrence you can skim by on 16G but if you're hitting the limit a lot, you want 32G. That's why you want to watch the Memory Pressure graph. It will give you some insight into trends etc.

Easier to look at swap, IMO, because if you have used swap, you have had pressure but you may not see that on the memory pressure because too much time has gone by.

 

[BanjoDudeAhoy]

I’ve never had any issues with “only” 16GB in my Mac mini.
I don’t have as many things open side by side as OP, though.

I generally use it for photo editing (Affinity Photo), writing (MS Word), browsing (Safari), GarageBand and occasional 3d modeling in Blender.
No issues with memory pressure with any of that.

Choice of browser may make a difference alone, though. Chrome is a bit of a memory hog. I see that on my partner’s iMac a lot ?

 

[thunng8]

Repeating this kind of nonsense is just giving fuel to folks who claim that Apple users lack technical understanding. Intel has been using unified memory since at least 2012. There is very little difference in memory topology between Apple Silicon and any Intel SoC since Sandy Bridge.

P.S. The efficiency you mention is power efficiency and has nothing to do with performance. In fact, base M1 DRAM interface has identical bandwidth and latency to Intel CPUs using the same type of LPDDR4X RAM.

That's the theory anyway, but the reality is very different.

I've had Intel macbooks pros with 16GB RAM and it gets bogged down running large applications. To the extent that a large Lightroom export would slow to a crawl (approx. 1/2 normal speed) when I running lots of other applications. I've had to exit the other applications to get back to normal speed.

While my Mac mini M1 and Macbook Pro with 16GB RAM (performance decrease was not measurable or less than 10%) never has any of these issues in the same situation.

 

[leman]

That's the theory anyway, but the reality is very different.

I've had Intel macbooks pros with 16GB RAM and it gets bogged down running large applications. To the extent that a large Lightroom export would slow to a crawl (approx. 1/2 normal speed) when I running lots of other applications. I've had to exit the other applications to get back to normal speed.

While my Mac mini M1 and Macbook Pro with 16GB RAM (performance decrease was not measurable or less than 10%) never has any of these issues in the same situation.

That's what I wrote in post #8. it is not clear why, but ARM Macs are much more agile with memory management. Maybe it's optimised pager, maybe its the 16KB page size or maybe it is some other magic Apple is using. So as long as each one of your apps fits into system RAM, you can probably get away even with heavy multitasking. This makes 8GB and 16GB Apple Silicon machines definitely more useable in high memory pressure scenarios. However, if you are working with datasets that on their own don't fit into RAM you'll have hard time.

 

[Powerbooky]

My workload is currently on a 32gb iMac (which I need to replace) and it’s many web-tabs open, many, many PDF’s open, note taking etc. So all fairly light stuff but all open at the same time. I want a large screen for Netflix and the like and for having all these multiple apps open side by side. I am no longer using any video or image editing programs but would like a computer that can just about handle it if I ever get back into that (my imac could only just handle 4K video in Final Cut).

So what would you say - do I stick to my macbook pro 32mb, i7, or do I buy a mac mini 16gb (am worried it’s not enough) (or wait for an updated version of the mini), or do I go for the expensive mac studio?

(I wish I could afford the xdr display as films would look epic on that but that’s besides the point)

For watching Netflix and stuff, you could get an AppleTV 4K - works much more fluently in daily use. And its cheaper to get good TV's than a monitor.

For your Mac workload, an M1 with 16GB would be just fine. Only when you're really more into professional film/video/audio work you could consider the new Mac Studio if you have the budget for it. But maybe it is better to wait until the WWDC 2022 event if you really want more memory.

 

[orionquest]

Sounds like you are more interested in getting the new shiny, more then actually productivity need. And looking for a way to convince yourself to purchase it. Here you go.

Buy the new system. ?

 

[apple fan23]

Sounds like you are more interested in getting the new shiny, more then actually productivity need. And looking for a way to convince yourself to purchase it. Here you go.

Buy the new system. ?

Nope, for sure not. I am about to lose my beloved iMac 27" and need to replace it with something. I am wondering what with. The new Studio display seems the right choice and my question here on the forum was should I just connect it to my MacBook Pro i7 32gb, or would I be better off getting a Mac mini m1 16gb. No new shiny - although who doesn't like a new shiny.

 

[apple fan23]

For watching Netflix and stuff, you could get an AppleTV 4K - works much more fluently in daily use. And its cheaper to get good TV's than a monitor.

For your Mac workload, an M1 with 16GB would be just fine. Only when you're really more into professional film/video/audio work you could consider the new Mac Studio if you have the budget for it. But maybe it is better to wait until the WWDC 2022 event if you really want more memory.

Ah yes, a tv and a computer would be ideal, but I'm gonna need the all-in-one package so a monitor that can do both well. No heavy workloads going on here really just used to working with 32gb, but perhaps a 16gb would suffice just fine. Thanks

 

[gogogo2]

if your apps support arm M1, then go to M1, arm code is faster than x86,
it is not about ram, it is about code, arm code is much fast.

 

[DJLC]

Here's my firsthand experience:

Personally, I have a 2019 Mac mini, i5, 32GB RAM that was my daily driver until I bought a 14" MBP, M1 Pro 10/16, 16GB RAM to replace it. The mini continues life in my basement as a server and spare machine. I was worried about halving my RAM as I frequently open way too many tabs and would have high memory pressure on my mini. But over a month using this new MacBook Pro, I haven't once felt that it was slowing down or not keeping up. Truly an incredible machine in all ways. Very happy with this purchase. And compared to my work Mac — a 2019 13" MBA with an i7 — it's night and day. That MBA is hot, loud, and painfully slow, even with an i7.

Professionally, one of my clients is a small medical business. We switched to Mac back in 2011-2012 with a bunch of Intel Mac minis. We recently replaced all of them with new M1 minis, base model, 8GB RAM. They've been incredible for the office, and 8GB has been plenty for them. Their needs are pretty simple: couple browser tabs, Google Drive File Stream, and Acrobat Reader for those pesky federal PDF forms that just won't work in Preview. I was a bit worried about the RAM, but my concerns have proven to be unfounded. A few minor pains moving to a new processor architecture for sure, but no complaints or issues worth noting.

So overall, I say go for it!

 

[TechnoLawyer]

Yah cause in 2-3 years CPU speeds may be doubled, GPUs faster, video encoders better, and maybe the issues with OLED not being bright and subject to red shift and burn in might be fixed, and oh the new battery tech to improve battery performance might be out. Who would want any of that - because - ram?

I'd hope in 2-3 years the new hotness in monitors will be somewhat reasonably priced mini-LED panels. If the panels from the MacBook pros could be scaled up to desktop sizes... take my money now.

 

[apple fan23]

Here's my firsthand experience:

Personally, I have a 2019 Mac mini, i5, 32GB RAM that was my daily driver until I bought a 14" MBP, M1 Pro 10/16, 16GB RAM to replace it. The mini continues life in my basement as a server and spare machine. I was worried about halving my RAM as I frequently open way too many tabs and would have high memory pressure on my mini. But over a month using this new MacBook Pro, I haven't once felt that it was slowing down or not keeping up. Truly an incredible machine in all ways. Very happy with this purchase. And compared to my work Mac — a 2019 13" MBA with an i7 — it's night and day. That MBA is hot, loud, and painfully slow, even with an i7.

Professionally, one of my clients is a small medical business. We switched to Mac back in 2011-2012 with a bunch of Intel Mac minis. We recently replaced all of them with new M1 minis, base model, 8GB RAM. They've been incredible for the office, and 8GB has been plenty for them. Their needs are pretty simple: couple browser tabs, Google Drive File Stream, and Acrobat Reader for those pesky federal PDF forms that just won't work in Preview. I was a bit worried about the RAM, but my concerns have proven to be unfounded. A few minor pains moving to a new processor architecture for sure, but no complaints or issues worth noting.

So overall, I say go for it!

Thank you, that is really interesting. As I suspected the M1 can hold a bit more pressure despite it being half the ram. Amazing stuff.