And how many managers, secretaries, processors, customer service reps, etc require more than 8gb of RAM? I'm guessing 0. So when you sai "middle of the road work" those are your middle of the road people right? The only ones who need 16gb are at max 1% of the work force! My doctor doesn't need more than 8gb. He just needs a computer for tracking records. Anyone working at lunch local grocery store don't even access a traditional computer on a daily basis. Same with anyone else in retail. what about my garbage guys? My cleaning people?
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Mac Mini / Intel NUC shock
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In 2010 Apple machines had 2gb as standard. In 2012 they had 4gb as standard. Now they have 8gb as standard. Sorry, no, 8gb will shortly fall by the way side and your IT dept is being irresponsible in under specifying system memory for Apple machines from this point forward. You sound emotional with your response. I'm not really sure why this is upsetting you.
Note: I see the 2015 MBP 15" now only comes in 16gb flavors so Apple is starting the transition.
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Yeah the problem is OS X, despite Apple's claims of memory compression and optimisation etc OS X has consumed more and more RAM just to load with every release since 10.6. It used to be such a lean OS and Apple's OS update cycle were longer and much more stable. Yes, I get that we have more features and bells and whistles now but in all honesty Apple's bloating its OS to drive sales and force upgrades and they're soldering down the RAM to make sure you get your RAM from them. An Operating System is meant to be a stable, efficient platform.
If I was a newcomer to the Mac world today in 2016, I'd actually have to ask my self what the fuss is all about. Sure the hardware looks great but unless you are using an SSD and 8GB Ram or greater you'll get better performance elsewhere. As it stands I've been using OS X since 10.3 back when PowerPC was still a thing and like many, I've come to believe that Apple's software peaked at 10.6 and it's been downhill since then.
The reality that you need 8GB to have a halfway decent experience in OS X is quite frankly an insult.
I guess Macs only really look good if you're coming from bargain-basement hardware loaded up with OEM bloat and Malware, which is the reality for most consumers.
By contrast, Linux and even Windows are perfectly usable with 2GB for the casual user. Running Ubuntu 14.04, my laptop rarely uses more than 1GB of RAM and only utilises 400MB on a fresh boot. When you spend the same dollars on high end PC hardware as you would on Apple gear, you realise just how far OS X has fallen behind Linux and Windows.
If I was a newcomer to the Mac world today in 2016, I'd actually have to ask my self what the fuss is all about. Sure the hardware looks great but unless you are using an SSD and 8GB Ram or greater you'll get better performance elsewhere. As it stands I've been using OS X since 10.3 back when PowerPC was still a thing and like many, I've come to believe that Apple's software peaked at 10.6 and it's been downhill since then.
The reality that you need 8GB to have a halfway decent experience in OS X is quite frankly an insult.
I guess Macs only really look good if you're coming from bargain-basement hardware loaded up with OEM bloat and Malware, which is the reality for most consumers.
By contrast, Linux and even Windows are perfectly usable with 2GB for the casual user. Running Ubuntu 14.04, my laptop rarely uses more than 1GB of RAM and only utilises 400MB on a fresh boot. When you spend the same dollars on high end PC hardware as you would on Apple gear, you realise just how far OS X has fallen behind Linux and Windows.
Even regardless of all that, I would consider 8GB Ram and 500GB SSD the minimum for most people.
If we are talking about the average user, than they most definitely need more than 320GB of HD Space and more than 4GB of Ram.
2GB of RAM with Windows
, good luck with that. That is impossible, even more so after a few months with that machines. OS X has so many advantages over windows it actually saddens me when someone tries to argue against it. I use Windows machines at work and even the thought of using it outside of work scares me.
So many inconsistencies to start with, followed by the absolute need for an anti-virus, at minimum yearly maintenance if you want things running smoothly.
Something as simple as connecting to wifi can be so confusing because of driver problems, along with OEM software interfering with how SSID/Passwords are handles.
Not that anything is wrong with Windows, that is just the nature of having your software run on such a wide variety of hardware.
I like apple products but im going with the intel nuc even mac mini is the only thing I need to complete the circle.
There is a new NUC skylake and it should do movies 4k 60hz no problem.. Even the 5th generation NUC should do that.
So even the same specs and mac mini so much more expensive.... The nuc will run 4k 60hz and mini will not. Huge fail.
Some day in the future I will maybe get a mini but the htpc for my 4k tv the next 3 years will be a nuc or nuc alike thing
Same goes for the atv4...feel abit i wasted money on atv4. Got a shield tv 500gb as black friday deal....wtf was i thinking with the atv4?
There is a new NUC skylake and it should do movies 4k 60hz no problem.. Even the 5th generation NUC should do that.
So even the same specs and mac mini so much more expensive.... The nuc will run 4k 60hz and mini will not. Huge fail.
Some day in the future I will maybe get a mini but the htpc for my 4k tv the next 3 years will be a nuc or nuc alike thing
Same goes for the atv4...feel abit i wasted money on atv4. Got a shield tv 500gb as black friday deal....wtf was i thinking with the atv4?
2GB of RAM with Windows
I've got a got a circa 2007 desktop that runs Windows with an AMD processor processor and 2GB. It runs Windows 7, Office 2010, latest Chrome, Firefox and Adobe CS4. I use it because it's the only computer I have that will run CS4, which I have a licence for.
I don't particularly like Windows, but it's a functional work horse for the occasions I need to use proprietary software at home. Like most people I have to use it in work too, at least for exchange and office, my actual work is done on an Ubuntu VM.
Actually, I wasn't arguing that Windows has advantages over OS X and I was also talking about Linux. However, both Linux and Windows have their respective advantages over OS X just OS X has advantages too.
If listening to someone making a rational argument makes you sad, I think perhaps it's time you reassessed your relationship with technology.
The Mac's key selling point, for a great many technical people back in the day was it was a stable UNIX-based system that could also run proprietary software for the creative industries. Then came iLife, iOS and the mass market appeal and Apple lost interest in the technical, creative and professional markets in favour of selling lifestyle appliances. That's cool too -- heck, it's where the money is obviously.
Today, many creative industries are moving to Windows because Apple is no longer delivering on that core foundation. The Adobe CS is the same on both platforms and quite frankly, who cares if Windows is aesthetically unappealing; it's an operating system not a Rembrandt.
Linux meanwhile is moving from strength to strength and as of 2015 is very stable with a rich software library. Linux is gaining an awful lot of developer mindshare and is the backbone of the cloud. Apple knows this hence they launched Swift for Linux.
Apple is losing interest in the desktop
Certainly, I agree with that and it does come with a performance overhead.
Linux though has the same advantage in this regard as OS X i.e. it's immune to Windows malware.
Plenty of people on this forum have whinged about wifi issues with Macs too and my iOS devices with iOS 9 can't even connect to a hidden wifi network.
Commodity hardware isn't exactly terrible; it's brought costs down for everyone - even Apple was forced to rethink their pricing. Back in the early 2000s when I first switched to OS X, a 12 inch powerbook cost circa $2500-3000 AUD.
Apple hardware isn't without issues too but at least when Apple's hardware/software combination fouls up we have a single entity to blame. Untangling that on the PC side is much more of an issue, I agree.
That said, I've encountered OS quirks with third-party hardware with each OS. Apple are also known to artificially limit what users can do with otherwise capable hardware. Case in point, my 2011 Mac mini with should be able to work with Handoff (it has BT 4.0 LE) and Metal (it has AMD graphics with the requisite Open GL support) but Apple decided to draw a line at the 2012 models and later. Apple either couldn't be arsed writing the drivers or it's yet another example of planned obsolescence.
When I run Linux and Windows on my Mac mini by contrast, the only limitations are those dictated by the hardware itself, not then vendor.
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I'm not sure the comparison between OSX and Linux in RAM usage is a good one. OSX uses more RAM by a LONG shot but Linux is build for people that would pay attention to stuff like that. It generally doesn't enable daemons by default and it doesn't offer the plethora of stuff that OSX does by default or at all in some cases.
I'm using 2.5GB with 15 chrome tabs and evolution open that's not particularly impressive IMHO. I don't have a Mac handy to test that on it for a comparison so take it for what it's worth.
I'm using 2.5GB with 15 chrome tabs and evolution open that's not particularly impressive IMHO. I don't have a Mac handy to test that on it for a comparison so take it for what it's worth.
OS X has some major memory leaks when running Facebook as an example. Leave it running a day or two then you'll need to quit the app to reclaim memory. If you monitor safari for long enough it eventually leads to compressed memory then swapping occurs. It's terrible.
Linux has the advantage in that the X Window System is pretty efficient relative to the OS X Windows manager. OS X also has layers and layers of toolkit so that gobble memory. Now these are sandboxes it is worse.
If you compare SL to Yosemite then SL had a spec of 1gb of ram but Yosemite needs 2gb of ram. It's become bloated over time has OS X.
Dude, you're running Gnome and Chrome which are both well known ram hogs! Replace those with Mate and Midori and rerun your test!
Joking aside, I agree tha OS X ships with a lot of stuff running but default and has a lot of UI and social features out of the box.
El Capitan uses 2.25gb after a clean boot with no user apps running. If I then open chrome with a half dozen tabs and mail.app the mini starts f****ing paging.
Mate will cut 400MB out of that figure it's actually what I normally use. I installed gnome because of a discussion I was having here about RAM usage
I've just been to lazy to switch back. I will say that it is better than the last time I used it which was 3.11 and its probably a more fair comparison to OSX because its more feature rich.I need to install 10.11 and check out its RAM usage none of the Mac's have it cause I'm lazy.
Exactly, that was one of the points I was trying to make. Snow leopard was a fabulous OS, stable, lean on the resources with enough features to make it the basis for a great productivity platform.
Every release since has required more resources but that hasn't been the case for Linux. You can have a usable desktop experience with current distros on a Raspberry Pi 2. My Chromebook running Ubuntu 14.04 (with Unity for crying out loud) with a Celeron CPU and 2GB of RAM is more responsive than my Mac mini.
I like OS X and it's got a couple of features I would be loathed to leave, but I don't delude my self for a moment that it's the best tool for every job and in raw performance Linux and Windows has it beat in almost every measurable benchmark on the same hardware and that's been the case for years. Graphics performance under OS X is garbage, the file system is an antiquated liability and CoreAudio (once the best sound system of any OS) has been broken for several releases.
OS X is a great out-of-box experience and that's it's appeal. But the cost of entry is high given it's commodity PC hardware sealed in a fancy aluminium enclosure. To stay current with all features usually requires a new machine. Soon, upgrading the RAM or storage is going to require a new machine. Apple weren't dumb when they made the OS gratis; that happened when they started adding the bloat.
To get back on topic, a Nuc by contrast is opened with a Phillips head screwdriver and a five year old could install the parts. It runs the latest version of Linux and Windows (and BSD I believe) out of the box and it will deliver more bang for the buck than one of the 2014 minis. You can choose a model to suit your needs and budget and fill it with the RAM and storage to suit. They make great media centres, small servers, general purpose workstations and have a lot of potential application as business, retail and industrial machines.
A 2014 Mac mini is only worth it if you are already invested in the Apple ecosystem or giving it to someone who's had a really rough time using Windows on garbage bargain-basement OEM hardware loaded with equally garbage OEM bloat.
Mate will cut 400MB out of that figure it's actually what I normally use. I installed gnome because of a discussion I was having here about RAM usageI've just been to lazy to switch back. I will say that it is better than the last time I used it which was 3.11 and its probably a more fair comparison to OSX because its more feature rich.
I need to install 10.11 and check out its RAM usage none of the Mac's have it cause I'm lazy.
Gnome and OS X are pretty close these days in terms of their features, I agree. A testament really to far user land and desktop Linux has come. A well themed Gnome 3.16 or later makes OS X look like dated garbage. Apple's heart and soul just aren't in the Mac anymore, despite Cook's assertions; I actually enjoy using iOS more these days and I think it no secret that's were Apple want the world to go. Given Swift is now on Ubuntu, I wouldn't be shocked (surprised certainly) if XCode was ported to Ubuntu and Apple let OS X die a slow death.
I'm ranting a bit (why, not it's Macrumors
) El Capitan is slightly better than Yosemite but it's not 'Snow Leopard good'
"dogslobber said: ↑
If you compare SL to Yosemite then SL had a spec of 1gb of ram but Yosemite needs 2gb of ram. It's become bloated over time has OS X."
When I was shopping for and deciding on RAM level for a buying 2013 MB Air last week, I read here that after Mavericks, OS's were less memory hogs than previously and that would be the case going forward. Something about better incorporated memory management in the new OS's. So I pulled the trigger on a base 4GB i5 MB Air. I seem to be reading hear the opposite, that post Snow Leopard OS's require more Ram not less. The MBA is certainly not my main machine and I doubt I would have wanted to pay another ≈$150 and w a i t for a base MBA w/ 8Gb to show up... But this discussion is making twinge slightly at 4GB when I get several years down the road.
If you compare SL to Yosemite then SL had a spec of 1gb of ram but Yosemite needs 2gb of ram. It's become bloated over time has OS X."
When I was shopping for and deciding on RAM level for a buying 2013 MB Air last week, I read here that after Mavericks, OS's were less memory hogs than previously and that would be the case going forward. Something about better incorporated memory management in the new OS's. So I pulled the trigger on a base 4GB i5 MB Air. I seem to be reading hear the opposite, that post Snow Leopard OS's require more Ram not less. The MBA is certainly not my main machine and I doubt I would have wanted to pay another ≈$150 and w a i t for a base MBA w/ 8Gb to show up... But this discussion is making twinge slightly at 4GB when I get several years down the road.
2GB of RAM with Windows
OS X has so many advantages over windows it actually saddens me when someone tries to argue against it. I use Windows machines at work and even the thought of using it outside of work scares me.
So many inconsistencies to start with, followed by the absolute need for an anti-virus, at minimum yearly maintenance if you want things running smoothly.
Something as simple as connecting to wifi can be so confusing because of driver problems, along with OEM software interfering with how SSID/Passwords are handles.
Not that anything is wrong with Windows, that is just the nature of having your software run on such a wide variety of hardware.
My company bought me a surface 3 with 2gb ram and its works flawlessly, no issues at all.
Personally I would have bought the one with 4gb just to future proof a bit more but it does the job
My mum has a desktop that has just been upgraded to Windows 10 and its works flawlessly and that has 2gb ram
I agree with this. I used one of these a couple of week's ago (only 2Gb ram) and it was really responsive. Not a device I'd use for photo editing, but for opening and editing Office documents, email and web browsing on the go it is phenomenally good. Similar to the Surface you can use it as a small laptop or as a tablet, build quality was surprisingly good too.
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The moment you try to do any real work on there, you will start to notice the difference. The reason it may seem flawless is because the SSD does help with the lack of ram.
Don't get me wrong, no modern OS should be run on 2GB of ram. It may be fine for basic browsing and documents but will fall VERY quickly when it comes to multitasking.
Look, more RAM is always better, everyone is going to agree with that, but making a blanket statement saying no modern OS should be run on 2GB is just nonsense. By that rationale should we landfill something just because it can't be upgraded or keep users of those systems on older - and often unsupported -- operating systems?
Here's a screenshot of my laptop running Ubuntu 14.04 (supported until 2019) with Unity thanks to a Celeron CPU and 2GB of ram. I don't know what your definition of multitasking is but in the screenshot I'm running Firefox (3 tabs), LibreOffice Writer, Thunderbird, two terminals and Scrivener for Linux. RAM utilisation is sitting just over 1100MB with about 100MB of swap used. I'm pushing a second, larger display with HDMI and using Intel graphics so I lose some RAM to the GPU as well.
It's perfectly usable for writing/office work, browsing, email, basic photo editing, watching HD movies with GPU acceleration, playing music etc, etc, etc.
Just because OS X blows on 2GB (I know, my wife has a 2010 MBA with 2GB), doesn't mean that all operating systems are the same. Note the software I'm using: Unity, OpenOffice, Firefox, these are all RAM hogs. Leave aside that I can use lighter-weight alternative apps (Midori/Abiword) if I want with Linux, I can replace the UI - Unity - with something much lighter weight like Mate or XFCE and claw back hundreds of MBs of RAM.
Apple is deliberately bloating OS X to force us to buy more/better/faster hardware because that's how they make their money. Linux and Windows operate under a different paradigm: it is not in the Linux community's nor Microsoft's interest to limit the hardware their operating systems can run on.
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Why wouldn't you want a Mac mini with a PCIe SSD and 16 GB of RAM though? You might be able to get by on 8 GB (I am right now) but the PCIe SSD is practically mandatory.
The Skylake Intel NUCs have DDR4 memory. Does that make much of a difference in regular tasks I wonder?
The Skylake Intel NUCs have DDR4 memory. Does that make much of a difference in regular tasks I wonder?
Impressive results for the new NUC i3 Skylake: http://nucblog.net/2016/01/skylake-nuc-review-nuc6i3syh-benchmarks/
The i5 model comes with intel 540 graphics
One of the i5 models with ddr4 2x8gb and a samsung m2 2000mbs drive is on my wishlist
Look, more RAM is always better, everyone is going to agree with that, but making a blanket statement saying no modern OS should be run on 2GB is just nonsense. By that rationale should we landfill something just because it can't be upgraded or keep users of those systems on older - and often unsupported -- operating systems?
Here's a screenshot of my laptop running Ubuntu 14.04 (supported until 2019) with Unity thanks to a Celeron CPU and 2GB of ram. I don't know what your definition of multitasking is but in the screenshot I'm running Firefox (3 tabs), LibreOffice Writer, Thunderbird, two terminals and Scrivener for Linux. RAM utilisation is sitting just over 1100MB with about 100MB of swap used. I'm pushing a second, larger display with HDMI and using Intel graphics so I lose some RAM to the GPU as well.
It's perfectly usable for writing/office work, browsing, email, basic photo editing, watching HD movies with GPU acceleration, playing music etc, etc, etc.
Just because OS X blows on 2GB (I know, my wife has a 2010 MBA with 2GB), doesn't mean that all operating systems are the same. Note the software I'm using: Unity, OpenOffice, Firefox, these are all RAM hogs. Leave aside that I can use lighter-weight alternative apps (Midori/Abiword) if I want with Linux, I can replace the UI - Unity - with something much lighter weight like Mate or XFCE and claw back hundreds of MBs of RAM.
Apple is deliberately bloating OS X to force us to buy more/better/faster hardware because that's how they make their money. Linux and Windows operate under a different paradigm: it is not in the Linux community's nor Microsoft's interest to limit the hardware their operating systems can run on.
Are you running i386? This is mine after a day with some Chrome, TB, Twitter, and Liferea.
Now this is interesting!
http://nucblog.net/2016/01/intel-reveals-some-skull-canyon-nuc-details-skylake-i7-nuc/
Quad core Skylake i7 NUC. Configure your own memory and storage. Hackintoooosh!!!
No info on pricing yet though. However, if Intel are placing a quad core i7 into a NUC, I guess there is a change Apple may do the same with a Mac Mini again. I would prefer to buy a Mac Mini rather than go the Hackintosh route (however, this also brings us back to the massive upgrade price Apple charge for memory and storage), time will tell I guess.
http://nucblog.net/2016/01/intel-reveals-some-skull-canyon-nuc-details-skylake-i7-nuc/
Quad core Skylake i7 NUC. Configure your own memory and storage. Hackintoooosh!!!
No info on pricing yet though. However, if Intel are placing a quad core i7 into a NUC, I guess there is a change Apple may do the same with a Mac Mini again. I would prefer to buy a Mac Mini rather than go the Hackintosh route (however, this also brings us back to the massive upgrade price Apple charge for memory and storage), time will tell I guess.
I've decided that having now used a computer with a SSD installed, I never want to buy another machine without one as its regular boot drive (external hard disk drives for extra storage/backup are a different entity).
I use Macs at home and work, and also use Windows for work and as a media server at home. Although I prefer Mac OS, Windows 10 is turning out to be really good. If I had to use a Windows machine every day then I'm OS agnostic enough to switch for personal use.
I have a Mac Mini already and love the form factor. My media server is an old Intel NUC, which whilst tiny, has a large external power brick. However, the latest NUCs have a power brick the size of a mobile phone charger - i.e. tiny! I decided to do a performance and cost comparison.
I was expecting the Mac to be more expensive (and the Apple premium is something I have happily paid many times over the years), but I was not expecting the price difference to be of this margin..!
Mac £1759
NUC £828
Difference : £931
This massive price difference did come as a shock. The NUC has a 3.1Ghz i7 processor, the Mac is a 3.0Ghz i7 processor. Both specced with the same size SSD and RAM and all other specs are much the same (inc. graphics chip) apart from the obvious (OS). As you can see from the Geekbench scrores, they perform to a relatively similar level.
I strongly feel Apple needs to look at the price it charges for the SSD and RAM. SSDs are fast becoming ubiquitous in the bracket of the market they sell too (i.e. the premium end of the market), as is a greater allocation of RAM to a new machine, and this price difference for me is too great to simply make a choice based on OS preference now.
There is some problem in this comparison. The model of NUC is not clear and consistent across the post, either for price or for performance comparison. At places it mentions i3, at others i5, and in the shopping basket no model is mentioned. Assuming that the discounted price that shopping basket shows is for the i7 version, the price seems too low, considering the present prices.
Further, how can one compare a product, assembled with discounted components to one fully integrated product?
Only problem with mac mini is that it is 2014 product which Apple has forgotten (apparently). I will still go for Mac Mini as it can run both Mac OS and Windows, and therefore I have best of both worlds.
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