The ONLY problem with Macs are price SSD/RAM

[jonh229]

What exactly do you envision you can do with 32GB of unified memory but not with 24GB?

What I don't really understand is the difference, if any, between unified mem and Intel ram usage.
My 2017 i7 iMac has 40GB ram. I am not doing anything intensive at the moment and my memory usage is 30GB w/ 10 cached and no swap. If I reboot the mem usage may go down to 21GB which is where it was yesterday.

When I start up my image editing program (I am scanning and 'repairing' a few thousand 45 year old slides) my mem usage adds several GB. This all leads me to believe 32GB may be a better choice since my 'project' as been underway for several years and I expect it to take several more years.

I'm trying to convince myself that I can get away with ordering a 24GB M4 mini and am hoping someone posts a comparison of ram usage between an intel machine and the M4 mini so I can decide if I should bite the bullet and spend more. I can afford to do that but I don't want to throw $$$ out unnecessarily. If unified memory uses less ram than an Intel machine for comparable operation maybe 24 would do it.

 

[JouniS]

Right, but what you're referring to is entirely different from the context my exchange with that poster. I was replying to a poster who was noting that a decked-out Intel Mac Pro was $50k, and I replied that if you built a PC workstation with the same specs you'd be in the same ballpark.

My point was that there can be different reasons for the high price.

Maybe the price is high, because the manufacturer charges substantially more than the market price for the components. Apple tends to do that, as do other big corporations.

Maybe the price is high, because some specific options are expensive for the moment. In my example, 768 GB of DDR5 was $5k, while 1 TB was $12k. But because 128 GB DDR4 modules are cheaper than 96 GB DDR5 modules, this is clearly a temporary issue.

Maybe the price is high, because some of the components are really expensive. The highest-end workstation CPUs and GPUs cost more now than in 2019.

Or maybe the price is high, because there are truly high-end options available. Triple-GPU vs. dual-GPU, quad-SSD vs. dual-SSD, and so on.

If you just blindly click to add highest-end components, you may end up paying a price that does not reflect the current market prices very well.

 

[Pressure]

What I don't really understand is the difference, if any, between unified mem and Intel ram usage.
My 2017 i7 iMac has 40GB ram. I am not doing anything intensive at the moment and my memory usage is 30GB w/ 10 cached and no swap. If I reboot the mem usage may go down to 21GB which is where it was yesterday.

When I start up my image editing program (I am scanning and 'repairing' a few thousand 45 year old slides) my mem usage adds several GB. This all leads me to believe 32GB may be a better choice since my 'project' as been underway for several years and I expect it to take several more years.

I'm trying to convince myself that I can get away with ordering a 24GB M4 mini and am hoping someone posts a comparison of ram usage between an intel machine and the M4 mini so I can decide if I should bite the bullet and spend more. I can afford to do that but I don't want to throw $$$ out unnecessarily. If unified memory uses less ram than an Intel machine for comparable operation maybe 24 would do it.

The operating system will purge memory if an active application needs it.

When it has in abundance it will use it to cache recently opened applications for faster loading.

The computer don't need 40GB of RAM to scan old slides ...

 

[jonh229]

The computer don't need 40GB of RAM to scan old slides ...

I agree with that but to clarify, I am not just scanning but processing & editing (cleaning up defects) in those slides. The scan action has minimal effect on my system. Not being the only app running, it is on top of the 15-20GB already running. Certainly I can close everything else before editing photos but I’d rather not be so extreme (frugal?). That is why I’m wondering how, given a specific work load of say 25GB on an Intel, would appear on a M4 Mini.

Still seeking to understand how unified mem responds differently than my 2017 intel iMac and maybe that is not related at all?

 

[Abazigal]

I have always suspected that Apple prices their Macs relative to what an equivalent Windows PC would cost, rather than the cost of ram in a vacuum.

Yes, everyone points to how the price of ram modules is dirt cheap these days. But the thing is that unified ram functions both as ram and graphics memory, meaning that when you pay for more ram, you are also paying for a better GPU (indirectly)?

Or to put it another way, the cost of RAM to Apple is a totally different affair from what that RAM is worth to the end user, and the discrepancy in pricing reflects this. Maybe it sucks, and that's business for you.

 

[JouniS]

I have always suspected that Apple prices their Macs relative to what an equivalent Windows PC would cost, rather than the cost of ram in a vacuum.

The base models are competitively priced, while upgrades are overpriced. But if you are considering upgrades, you see that you could then get a higher-end model for just a little bit more. Such as Mx Pro instead of Mx, or Mac Studio instead of Mac Mini. Which is probably the point.

The Windows/Linux world is different, because you can usually get the components for the market price. I was just checking workstation prices a couple of days ago. The price gap between a high-end Ryzen workstation and a more-or-less equivalent low-end Threadripper workstation was usually at least $2k. But you didn't really get anything for that money. Only the promise that the computer could be better, if you chose to spend even more money.

Artificially inflated RAM / SSD prices smoothen out the price curve and make higher-end Macs look more cost-effective. And you may then end up buying a more powerful computer than you intended.

 

[Suxamethonium]

The base models are competitively priced, while upgrades are overpriced. But if you are considering upgrades, you see that you could then get a higher-end model for just a little bit more. Such as Mx Pro instead of Mx, or Mac Studio instead of Mac Mini. Which is probably the point.

The Windows/Linux world is different, because you can usually get the components for the market price. I was just checking workstation prices a couple of days ago. The price gap between a high-end Ryzen workstation and a more-or-less equivalent low-end Threadripper workstation was usually at least $2k. But you didn't really get anything for that money. Only the promise that the computer could be better, if you chose to spend even more money.

Artificially inflated RAM / SSD prices smoothen out the price curve and make higher-end Macs look more cost-effective. And you may then end up buying a more powerful computer than you intended.

I mean yeah it's basically why I went for the 'non-binned' MacBook Pro M4 Pro option. I needed 1TB of internal storage, and by the time I optioned a binned M4 Pro I might as well get the non-binned configuration, even if the performance delta between the two isn't exactly massive.

So I guess the tactic works from Apple's point of view.

 

[theorist9]

My point was that there can be different reasons for the high price.

Maybe the price is high, because the manufacturer charges substantially more than the market price for the components. Apple tends to do that, as do other big corporations.

Maybe the price is high, because some specific options are expensive for the moment. In my example, 768 GB of DDR5 was $5k, while 1 TB was $12k. But because 128 GB DDR4 modules are cheaper than 96 GB DDR5 modules, this is clearly a temporary issue.

Maybe the price is high, because some of the components are really expensive. The highest-end workstation CPUs and GPUs cost more now than in 2019.

Or maybe the price is high, because there are truly high-end options available. Triple-GPU vs. dual-GPU, quad-SSD vs. dual-SSD, and so on.

If you just blindly click to add highest-end components, you may end up paying a price that does not reflect the current market prices very well.

Yes, but you're not telling me anything I don't already know. My point is that while your post makes perfect sense in terms of general info., it makes no sense as a "correction" to my post, since mine was specifically, and only, in response to a post about the seemingly outrageously high price of a decked-out Mac Pro.

If you wanted to properly respond to my post, here would be a good way to do it:

"I understand you were specifically responding to a post about the price of the top-end Intel MP by correctly noting the price of a comparatively-equipped PC workstation would be similar. But, as you of course know, most people don't buy those. So I'd like to, separately, attempt a comparison of a more real-world build, as follows....."

That way you don't come off like you're correcting or instructing me (which you weren't in any position to do, since nothing I said was technically wrong), but are instead simply expanding the topic.

 

[Pressure]

I agree with that but to clarify, I am not just scanning but processing & editing (cleaning up defects) in those slides. The scan action has minimal effect on my system. Not being the only app running, it is on top of the 15-20GB already running. Certainly I can close everything else before editing photos but I’d rather not be so extreme (frugal?). That is why I’m wondering how, given a specific work load of say 25GB on an Intel, would appear on a M4 Mini.

Still seeking to understand how unified mem responds differently than my 2017 intel iMac and maybe that is not related at all?

I am doing 100+ year old glass plates that I scan to 1200 DPI at around 100MPixel per plate. I also restore them. I don't need 40GB of RAM to do that as I can do it on the base M2 Max Mac Studio or an M1 MacBook Pro with 16GB of unified memory.

The memory subsystem in Apple Silicon has lower latency (as the memory sits physically closer to the SoC) and much higher bandwidth. RAM is RAM. If you need a certain amount you will still need that when going to Apple Silicon.