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Need advice 16GB or 8GB

DjAT

DjAT

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Nov 5, 2021
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Hi I'm newbie to Mac and I'm planing to buy Mac mini m1.
But I m bit confused about what am I need buy 8gb or 16gb. My main purpose is running Photoshop, XD , and illustrator. Because I'm freelance graphic designer. Partially need small video rendering. Also I'm with minimum budget. I want to expert advice what is gud. Is 8gb ok for my purposes or no?
 
You can compensate easily enough for limitations like a small internal SSD (by using external drives), or not enough ports (by using an external hub). Can be a bit of a pain, but can be done.

Much harder to compensate for not enough RAM. Max the RAM as your first priority.
 
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DjAT said:
Hi I'm newbie to Mac and I'm planing to buy Mac mini m1.
But I m bit confused about what am I need buy 8gb or 16gb. My main purpose is running Photoshop, XD , and illustrator. Because I'm freelance graphic designer. Partially need small video rendering. Also I'm with minimum budget. I want to expert advice what is gud. Is 8gb ok for my purposes or no?
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goto 16gb . small rendering and small photoshop enough for but since ram is soldered better 16gb. 8gb only for minor touch up.
 
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My thoughts are unless you only check email or browse web then 16gb is a must.

8gb will soon be the 4gb of now. Many phones already have 8gb ram.

As the m1 processors are so fast, there will be a wave of unoptimised software in the next year or two. It always happens.
 
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Some will claim that 8GB = 16GB but reality is 8GB is insufficient and will hamper performance when running software under virtualization and emulation with Rosetta 2, Parallels and Crossover which you'll need since there aren't many native ARM software.
 
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This might give you some idea why 16GB might not even be enough. My safari tab group suffers refresh even for tabs that were actively working on 1 second ago, if I switch to another tab group.
 

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I will also recommend going with 16GB. You can add external storage. You can stretch your money further by getting a refurbished unit if that option is available to you.

You might want to check out other apps e.g. Pixelmator Pro and Affinity apps.
 
I would go for 16 GB RAM. My M1 Max with 32 GB RAM even sometimes has to use swap.
 
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