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disappointed to see them still selling these with 8gb RAM. More than a dozen chrome tabs and a few discord servers has been enough to crash/significantly slow d

disappointed to see them still selling these with 8gb RAM. More than a dozen chrome tabs and a few discord servers has been enough to crash/significantly slow down my m1 mac mini edit: the ad says up to 24/32GB of ram, but seems like 8gb/16gb models are the only ones available for pre-order at the moment.

wilsonnb3 4y ago
Another anecdote: I have a M1 air and an m1 iMac both with 8GB and have never run into a problem. I think 8gb is still the sweet spot for casual users.
- cmatthias 4y ago
  Can you define "sweet spot" in this case? Usually I see that term used when the thing being considered is a pricey upgrade, and you need to strike a compromise between price and performance. In this case, we're talking about an extra 8GB of memory, which would add perhaps $10 in cost to the bill of materials for the machine (or maybe less in sufficient volume). Given that Apple is also overcharging by at least 3x current standard retail price for SSD upgrades, my guess is that there's some room to bump up the wholesale cost a bit. Not doing so is, IMHO, insulting to users, and given the non-upgradable nature of these machines, bad for the environment, counter to all of Apple's talk about being environmentally friendly.
  - deleted 4y ago
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  - threeseed 4y ago
    Majority of users are just going to be using web, email and photos. There is simply no need for more than 8GB for those use cases.
    - jghn 4y ago
      my personal machine is an 8GB M1 Air. I don't usually do dev work on it, but always have dozens of Safari tabs, often a bunch of Chrome tabs, a bajillion Slacks, and other apps. And I'll do light dev work on it, mostly for personal things. I even play the occasional game. In other words, I think I'm well beyond what you're even describing. And while I do wish I had bought the one with more RAM, but usually I don't notice it. The swapping is that good.
    - cmatthias 4y ago
      Why would you not want an extra 8GB? The point is that it's dirt cheap to add, and Apple's refusal to do so is an insult to its customers.
    - qwytw 4y ago
      Also it makes it much easier for Apple upsell upgrades and increase their margin through market segmentation. > There is simply no need for more than 8GB I don't really agree. But let's say that the case. Will it still be the same in 2-4 years? Possibly not? Great Apple can just sell another mac.
  - deleted 4y ago
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  - tracker1 4y ago
    Worth noting the M1 memory is MUCH faster and higher bandwidth than x86 options at launch (about 2x). That accounted for a lot of the difference in perception. At least for general usage... for Docker + containers, it definitely uses a bit more.
    - cmatthias 4y ago
      Did you intend to reply to a different comment? The speed of the memory has no bearing on the capacity, obviously, so I'm not sure how this is relevant to what I said.
      - simondotau 4y ago
        It's relevant because you are assessing value.
        cmatthias 4y ago
        The original M1 (I assume that's what GP meant by "at launch") uses LPDDR4x DRAM modules, the same as many x86 laptops that have soldered RAM. You can literally look up the part numbers based on the photos of the M1 CPU package. Maybe I'm misunderstanding but I'm not sure why it would be any more expensive than x86 laptops' memory, and it might even be less expensive just due to the volume that Apple is likely buying.
        tracker1 4y ago
        My point was the configuration with the M1 has much higher throughput (more channels) than typical laptop/desktop configurations. This allows for allocation/deallocation to go more quickly, so while working it is less noticeable for many workflows. It really depends on what you're doing though. The pricing structure Apple charges for more memory and storage is F'd up... I was just making a point that one doesn't need as much as you might think depending on the bandwidth and workflow.
- theshrike79 4y ago
  16GB M1 mini here. I've had memory issues exactly zero times. Current memory usage is at 15%. I've had games running with full on tab-hoarded browsers and IDEs open among with any other crap I haven't bothered to shut down.
  - chimerasaurus 4y ago
    I have a 16gb m2 MBA. I’ve hit memory issues exactly once. I had FF open with a ton of tabs, Capture One open, and I was stacking 400 frames in PixInsight. The fact I had to push that hard was immensely impressive.
- mathverse 4y ago
  I doubt that. Almost every app out there uses at least 200MB of memory. I would say 16GB is a sweet for casual users. 32 a minimum for devs/tech people and 64 an optimum if you happen to be using a lot of k8s/docker stuff.
  - tracker1 4y ago
    8gb might be okay for casual use on M1, given the higher memory bandwidth... but for Software dev, spot on. I've got 128gb in my desktop, and have gone over 64gb only once or twice with a lot of data loaded.
roebk 4y ago
And a whopping £200 to add an extra 8gb. Ouch.
- coder543 4y ago
  This is the real problem. M2 is just using LPDDR5. The memory modules themselves don't appear to be anything special; it's just the memory interface bus that is different. Apple is charging multiple times the actual cost per GB, and they do the same thing for SSDs. The entry-level product is a decent value, but the upgrades are ridiculous.
  - winter_blue 4y ago
    > Apple is charging multiple times the actual cost per GB, and they do the same thing for SSDs. Yup. I just checked Newegg, and laptop form factor DDR4 (not DDR5ᵃ) RAM is selling for $126 for 64 GB (2 x 32 GB). So market price for 1 GB of DDR4 small form factor RAM is $1.96 per GB. ᵃ DDR5 is almost twice the cost. Apple is charging 200/8 = $25 per GB. Apple charges 12 times the retail price of DDR4, and about 6 times the retail price of DDR5. It's crazy, but they get away with it by soldering these chips down. If we could legislate a working effective Right to Repair bill, we might be able to fix this predicament.
    - NavinF 4y ago
      Soldered chips are here to stay. DDR5 already struggles on 4-slot desktop mobos and laptops with SODIMM slots. You can use 2-slot mobos and CAMM to solve those problems for now, but I would be unsurprised if the DIMM/SODIMM DDR6 never sees wide adoption and everyone moves to soldered RAM by 2030.
      - winter_blue 4y ago
        > everyone moves to soldered RAM by 2030 This would be really horrible, and I hope it never happens. I was just readin up on CAMMᵃᵇ, and to me, CAM looks really promising. It solves the challenges with SODIMM, and the article says: > We mentioned the faster DDR5 speeds above, but it is thought that CAMM could really take off when DDR6 arrives. Another appealing variation might be for adding LPDDR(6) memory to laptops. Traditionally LPDDR memory is soldered, so the new spring contact fitting modules might mean much better upgradability for the thinnest and lightest devices which tend to use LPDDR memory. I'd like to see legislation passed (even if at the state/regional/provincial level) that forces laptop (and other device) manufacturers to use user-replaceable CAMM memory modules instead of solder-on modules (unless solder-on memory is absolutely needed/justified by a high technical need for it – and the bar for this should be high). Similar legislation for batteries, device screens, etc. – mandate standard interfaces and easy replacibility. This will likely increase BOM, but it shouldn't add more than $10 to the overall average retail price of various devices. ᵃ https://www.tomshardware.com/news/camm-to-usurp-so-dimm-laptop-memory-form-factor-says-jedec-member https://www.tomshardware.com/news/camm-to-usurp-so-dimm-lapt... ᵇ https://www.pcworld.com/article/693366/dell-defends-its-controversial-new-laptop-memory.html https://www.pcworld.com/article/693366/dell-defends-its-cont...
nerdponx 4y ago
Never had an issue with Firefox on M1. Time to give it a try?
austenallred 4y ago
1. You can add more 2. New RAM is not like old RAM. Macs are dramatically more optimized than they used to be. I have a MacBook Air (M1) with 16GB of RAM and it runs more smoothly than older systems that had twice that much. 8GB of RAM today feels like what 32GB of RAM used to. 8GB of RAM can handle very process-heavy tasks, like... running Chrome ;)
- dijit 4y ago
  Everything you said is true; I'll even add that MacOS is probably the best functioning Desktop OS under low memory conditions! However the parent is right, it's disgusting how much memory capacity is needed to run a basic environment. Maybe having exceptionally fast machines with limited ram will cause people to actually think about their resource usage.
  - davidy123 4y ago
    > the answer to bloated apps RAM is dirt cheap these days. Bloated apps are bad, but 8GB really is simply a joke that punishes many people for the sake of product categories, at least until RAM is indistinguishable from storage.
    - Tepix 4y ago
      Not all RAM is dirt cheap. RAM in DDR4 sockets is dirt cheap.
      - cmatthias 4y ago
        8GB of general-purpose RAM, regardless of form factor, is dirt cheap. In fact, not having the sockets might make it cheaper than socketed RAM in volume, since there are fewer parts in total.
        jimsmart 4y ago
        Except, with Apple's new kit here, the RAM isn't simply some external chip soldered to the main board, it's actually on-die with the CPU silicon (and everything else in that silicon: GPU, memory controllers, etc). So yes, arguably there are fewer parts (just one), but in the event of e.g. some bad RAM during manufacture, it's far more costly to throw out the chip containing that bad RAM.
coder543 4y ago
> edit: the ad says up to 24/32GB of ram, but seems like 8gb/16gb models are the only ones available for pre-order at the moment. I see both 24GB and 32GB configurations on the Apple Store configurator. Not sure what you're looking at.
arprocter 4y ago
Oof - once you bump the base model to 16GB RAM and 1TB of storage it doubles the price Apparently Mini RAM hasn't been user upgradable since the 2014 model https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205041#2020 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205041#2020
- shortformblog 4y ago
  It was upgradeable in 2018, but they the teardown to reach the RAM needlessly complicated: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQq4hLKv1Cc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQq4hLKv1Cc
- octotoad 4y ago
  The 2018 model has socketed RAM.
  - goosedragons 4y ago
    And could do 64GB too.
- peanuty1 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - jimsmart 4y ago
    I'm pretty sure your (repeated) comment here goes against HN guidelines — arguably: it's a shallow dismissal, it's snarky, it doesn't provoke thoughtful conversation, it supports an idealogical battle, etc., etc. Please don't do that! (This is not Reddit) https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- coder543 4y ago
  On the plus side, with a desktop like this that isn't going to be moving frequently, there's really no compelling need to upgrade the internal storage. You could attach an external 1TB (or bigger!) NVMe SSD and you should be able to install macOS on that. You could just use the internal SSD as an extra storage drive. AFAIK, you're not required to use the internal SSD at all.
wrldos 4y ago
16Gb is minimum on M1 I found. I hit problems on my 8Gb machine regularly. It’ll work fine but you do get heavy pauses. The thing to be careful of is if your custom config breaks then the turnaround to fix it can be a couple of months. Ergo only buy stock configs. That makes the market somewhat less friendly.
- smoldesu 4y ago
  Same here. I've heard people argue that 8gb is enough for web browsing, and while that is true, I genuinely struggle to imagine a use-case that doesn't max out the memory within 30 minutes of usage.
  - jeffbee 4y ago
    I have the 8G M1 and my typical use-case is building huge notebooks in Observable, including one I’m looking at right now that has over 100 million datapoints loaded from a USGS web service into hundreds of separate plots and it’s fine. I’ve never run into the supposed limits. I also have over 200 PDFs loaded in preview in the background, related to a law suit I’m researching. Still no issues. ETA: I’m likely to replace my m1 with the m2 since the m2 gets +30% scores in common web benchmarks and heavy JavaScript hacks are my main thing. That should bring it up to par with my Linux box that has the top of the line Intel CPU.
- NavinF 4y ago
  Agreed, 16G on my 2021 M1 Pro macbook is just enough for software development. I'm definitely upgrading to 32G when the M2 Pro is released so I can have more headroom. Also worth mention that 64G is pretty cheap on desktop and that's what the Mac Mini should be compared to.
turtlebits 4y ago
Why take away consumer choice? They've always been available with at least 16GB. I'm perfectly happy with 8GB on my M1 and it was fine on my 2016 13" Pro.
- cmatthias 4y ago
  Because the alternative is to add literally a few dollars to the bill of materials for the machine, double the memory, and give everyone a better experience. This also means the machine will last longer and likely not end up in a landfill as soon. $200 to add 8GB of memory is _insane_, and framing it as "consumer choice" is bad when consumers are being gouged so badly. It's literally at least a 20x markup on the wholesale cost. You can buy 8GB of DDR4 at retail for $20 or less.
  - theshrike79 4y ago
    But this is an M series system, it's not running of off-the-shelf Kingston DDR4.
    - cmatthias 4y ago
      Yes, and? Apple's wholesale RAM cost is likely even lower than a computer with socketed RAM, due to economies of scale and fewer parts overall (RAM soldered directly vs. RAM on a separate PCB, plus a socket soldered to the main board).
    - JustSomeNobody 4y ago
      Then it's probably cheaper to add RAM.
  - jeffbee 4y ago
    You seem to believe that doubling (or quadrupling as suggested elsewhere) the installed DRAM has no energy cost. Adding several watts of mandatory 24x7 idle power consumption to a machine mostly celebrated for its energy efficiency seems odd.
    - 4y ago
Nextgrid 4y ago
> More than a dozen chrome tabs and a few discord servers has been enough to crash/significantly slow down my m1 Mac mini On the other hand, maybe there should be pushback against shitty inefficient software? I remember a decade ago being able to have a dozen browser tabs and instant messaging clients on 4GB of RAM just fine, and neither the web nor instant messaging experience has changed significantly enough to warrant the extra memory consumption (the majority of today's day-to-day browser-based tasks have been done just fine in 2010 on that era's hardware).
- melling 4y ago
  Yeah, people have been making the argument about inefficient software for about 4 decades now. I remember a decade ago buying a 16GB Mac Book Pro, and listening to people complain that 8GB wasn’t enough, so I’m not sure what world 4GB was enough. That same 16GB laptop still works great today.
- deno 4y ago
  What was the resolution a decade ago? Just having the Web in 4K is going to require significantly more memory. And something like Discord is not exactly comparable to an IRC client.
  - j5155 4y ago
    A lot of Discord’s memory usage is because it uses Electron/embedded Chromium. I agree that it does a lot more then IRC clients do, but I think it uses a lot more resources and is a lot less snappy then a native app.
- guestbest 4y ago
  I’m using a M1 and it is very performant with Brave and unlock origin with only 8gb ram and XCode opening in the background. I try to stay away from Discord and Slack on the desktop as years ago they would cause my system to slow down
  - Koshkin 4y ago
highwaylights 4y ago
I was really hopeful for these, but so disappointed. I have a triple monitor setup, and there's essentially a 117% surcharge to add support for the third display.
- phonon 4y ago
  There are workarounds. https://www.macworld.com/article/675869/how-to-connect-two-or-more-external-displays-to-apple-silicon-m1-macs.html https://www.macworld.com/article/675869/how-to-connect-two-o...
  - highwaylights 4y ago
    I know, but they all require granting full screen recording access to third party software on an ongoing basis, which is a complete non-starter in my case.
    - phonon 4y ago
      How does DisplayLink require recording access? https://www.reviewgeek.com/75284/everything-you-need-to-run-multiple-monitors-from-your-m1-macbook/ https://www.reviewgeek.com/75284/everything-you-need-to-run-...
      - highwaylights 4y ago
        Almost none of the YouTube/blogs recommending this mention it or seem to be aware (or have just clicked through and granted the permission without thinking about it), but it absolutely does require screen recording to operate. The DisplayLink driver requires your admin password to install, and installs itself as a background process that records the screen constantly in order to software render the extra display. There are other similar products, they all work this way. From DisplayLink’s own website: https://support.displaylink.com/knowledgebase/articles/1950940-macos-big-sur-11-screen-recording-permission https://support.displaylink.com/knowledgebase/articles/19509...
tyingq 4y ago
Maybe people still want 8gb models for affordable-ish CI/CD runner farms?
- qwytw 4y ago
  Well Apple could add the extra 8GB keep the same base price and still have higher margins than any other PC OEM. Of course why would they do this if they don't have to...
neighbor1 4y ago
> dozen chrome tabs and a few discord servers This is absolutely not normal...
- apetresc 4y ago
  Huh? It's completely normal (on the low range of normal, I'd wager), especially in the market of people buying desktop computers in 2023.
  - bfgoodrich 4y ago
    [dead]
- JustSomeNobody 4y ago
  Huh? I can easily have 40 - 50 tabs open. I don't know what a discord is though.
rsstack 4y ago
At checkout you can add memory, up to 32GB total.
phrz 4y ago
Running Chrome on an Apple product is downright wasteful.
crazygringo 4y ago
8 GB is perfectly fine for most people who just use the web, office software, and play media. Even when I have dozens of Chrome tabs open it's always been zero problem on my 8 GB M1 Air. Also, starting last month, Chrome aggressively unloads tabs in the background with its new "memory saver" feature [1]. So if you were having issues with 8 GB before because of your tabs, you might not anymore. [1] https://blog.google/products/chrome/new-chrome-features-to-save-battery-and-make-browsing-smoother/ https://blog.google/products/chrome/new-chrome-features-to-s...
bsg75 4y ago
I will go a step further and state that they appear to top out at 32GB which is asinine. These are not manilla envelope laptops, but semi-compact bricks where the form factor in other brands can commonly take 64GB or more. Its sad for me that my initial reaction to this is where previously a corp Windows laptop was for email and MS Office, and the Mac was for "actual work", now Mac's are headed to the "email and Office" role, and a halfway decent machine running Linux is where "real work" happens.
- coob 4y ago
  I'm sure Apple would point you in the direction of a Mac Studio instead…
  - trynewideas 4y ago
    That's kind of a problem, too. A top-spec M2 Pro Mini on CPU and RAM (12-core CPU, 19-core GPU, 32GB unified RAM) is $1,999. A bottom-spec M1 Max Mac Studio (10-core CPU, 24-core GPU, 32GB unified RAM) is $1,999. Since the low-end Studio has 10Gb Ethernet and four Thunderbolt ports at the same price, and neither has upgradable RAM, there's no reason to buy the high-end Mini.
    - coder543 4y ago
      > and four Thunderbolt ports The Mac mini with M2 Pro includes four Thunderbolt ports too, just FYI.
      - trynewideas 4y ago
        I know — the only thing a new M2 mini might've theoretically brought is going all-in on Thunderbolt ports vs. the Studio, even at the cost of the HDMI or built-in LAN ports, but it doesn't do that either. Same RAM, same performance, slower built-in LAN, less storage expansion, same price. Is the smaller form factor really worth it? If not, why would anyone who'd consider that spec not get a Studio (or wait for an M2 Studio bump to get a M2 Max)?
FollowingTheDao 4y ago
"disappointed to see them still selling these with 8gb RAM. " I can assure you that the shareholders are not disappointed. The premium you pay for more RAM (and SSD) is insane. Besides that fact that no one is making a computer for the ordinary user anymore. Hardly anyone needs that much power in a computer.
dutchbrit 4y ago
Indeed, but then again, it says more about the apps really. No real reason why they should consume so much memory.
incanus77 4y ago
I run an M1 mini with 16GB with 10 discord servers and hundreds of Safari tabs. Chrome is the hog here.
tracker1 4y ago
You have to pick the higher CPU variant apparently.
GeekyBear 4y ago
> disappointed to see them still selling these with 8gb RAM Doesn't Microsoft still sell laptops with 4 GB of RAM?
- cmatthias 4y ago
  This is whataboutism, but yes, the Surface Go 2 base model has 4GB of RAM. It's shameful, but that laptop is also half the price of the cheapest Mac laptop, and doesn't absolve either company of blame for ridiculously high memory and storage prices.
vlunkr 4y ago
It feels like they're always wasting the potential of the Mac Mini. I assume the whole point of the product is to be the cheaper desktop option (I could be wrong), but when you compare it to any Windows desktop, it's a bad value. The base model has lame specs, if you upgrade to something reasonable, it's no longer competitive on price, and most components can't be upgraded later, which is half the appeal of buying a cheaper desktop.
- scarface74 4y ago
  The mini hasn’t been meant to be cheaper in over a decade. The mini is meant to be for the odd use cases.
- jbverschoor 4y ago
  If you're looking only at idle power usage, the difference is around 20 watt compared to an idle pc. That's 0.5KWh. With the currency energy prices in NL (40ct/kwh, subsidized by the gov btw, because it's actually around 70ct now), this will save you €73 per year when idling, and even more when it's in use. So the macmini essentially for free after a few years compared to your windows machine
  - NavinF 4y ago
    meh, only if you run it 24/7 and only if you live in Europe with very high energy prices. If the machine sleeps for 16 hours a day while the user goes to sleep or goes outside, you'll never break even. There's also no guarantee that next year will be as shitty as the last one regarding electricity.
    - jbverschoor 4y ago
      If you're actually using it 8 hours a day then it's 30 watts for the mba, and 150 for the pc + 30 for the display. So the difference is 1.2kwh per day. For 200 days of work in europe, that's 2001.2.4 = 96 per year. In the US that's 235 working days per year at around $0.20 (13 - 25ct), so about $50 per year.
JustSomeNobody 4y ago
Only thing tighter than Apple is a frog's butt and that's water tight. They really should be upping this to 16GB RAM. There's just no reason not to.
gnicholas 4y ago
Before buying my M2 MBA, I had the opportunity to try one out that had 8 GB of RAM and another that had 16 GB of RAM. I set up each as a restore of my main laptop, which included hundreds of browser tabs, slack, email, messages, calendar, notes, keynote open at all times. There was no noticeable difference whatsoever. I ended up getting the 16 GB machine (my RAM usage was around 12 GB most times, and never north of 15 GB), but I would be fine recommending an 8 GB machine to my parents. Even from a future-proofing perspective, their use is so lightweight (some photo editing, web browsing, and email) that they would never need more than this. I could see a case for offering the new version with 16 GB and up, but keeping around an old M1 version with just 8 GB. But I don't think it's necessarily in everyone's interest to pay more for that much RAM.
jillesvangurp 4y ago
Once you start adding memory and ssd, it makes more sense to just get a mac studio. You basically get less for more with the mac mini. Once you max out the memory and CPU, the entry level mac studio is cheaper and comes with the M1 Max instead of the M2 Pro. A bit of a toss up which is faster but for 230 euro extra you jump to 32 GPU cores, which is not an option with the mini.
Zanfa 4y ago
My 8GB M1 Air kicks my 64GB 10-core iMac’s ass in most scenarios. Don’t think I even know how to use less than 30+ tabs open at the same time. Smooth as butter.
pwinnski 4y ago
I have more than 18 servers in discord, 8 tabs in iTerm, Textual IRC, iMessage, Music, Signal, TextEdit, VSCode, and two different browsers running right now on an 8GB M1 Mac mini, with no issues. Then again, neither browser is Chrome. Safari has twelve tabs open across two windows, and Arc has sixteen tabs open. Checking "memory pressure," I'm in the yellow zone, so I definitely agree that 8GB is not enough. But perhaps you should look at alternatives to Chrome in the meantime.

wilsonnb3 4y ago

Another anecdote: I have a M1 air and an m1 iMac both with 8GB and have never run into a problem. I think 8gb is still the sweet spot for casual users.

cmatthias 4y ago
Can you define "sweet spot" in this case? Usually I see that term used when the thing being considered is a pricey upgrade, and you need to strike a compromise between price and performance. In this case, we're talking about an extra 8GB of memory, which would add perhaps $10 in cost to the bill of materials for the machine (or maybe less in sufficient volume). Given that Apple is also overcharging by at least 3x current standard retail price for SSD upgrades, my guess is that there's some room to bump up the wholesale cost a bit. Not doing so is, IMHO, insulting to users, and given the non-upgradable nature of these machines, bad for the environment, counter to all of Apple's talk about being environmentally friendly.
- deleted 4y ago
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- threeseed 4y ago
  Majority of users are just going to be using web, email and photos. There is simply no need for more than 8GB for those use cases.
  - jghn 4y ago
    my personal machine is an 8GB M1 Air. I don't usually do dev work on it, but always have dozens of Safari tabs, often a bunch of Chrome tabs, a bajillion Slacks, and other apps. And I'll do light dev work on it, mostly for personal things. I even play the occasional game. In other words, I think I'm well beyond what you're even describing. And while I do wish I had bought the one with more RAM, but usually I don't notice it. The swapping is that good.
  - cmatthias 4y ago
    Why would you not want an extra 8GB? The point is that it's dirt cheap to add, and Apple's refusal to do so is an insult to its customers.
  - qwytw 4y ago
    Also it makes it much easier for Apple upsell upgrades and increase their margin through market segmentation. > There is simply no need for more than 8GB I don't really agree. But let's say that the case. Will it still be the same in 2-4 years? Possibly not? Great Apple can just sell another mac.
- deleted 4y ago
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- tracker1 4y ago
  Worth noting the M1 memory is MUCH faster and higher bandwidth than x86 options at launch (about 2x). That accounted for a lot of the difference in perception. At least for general usage... for Docker + containers, it definitely uses a bit more.
  - cmatthias 4y ago
    Did you intend to reply to a different comment? The speed of the memory has no bearing on the capacity, obviously, so I'm not sure how this is relevant to what I said.
    - simondotau 4y ago
      It's relevant because you are assessing value.
      - cmatthias 4y ago
        The original M1 (I assume that's what GP meant by "at launch") uses LPDDR4x DRAM modules, the same as many x86 laptops that have soldered RAM. You can literally look up the part numbers based on the photos of the M1 CPU package. Maybe I'm misunderstanding but I'm not sure why it would be any more expensive than x86 laptops' memory, and it might even be less expensive just due to the volume that Apple is likely buying.
        tracker1 4y ago
        My point was the configuration with the M1 has much higher throughput (more channels) than typical laptop/desktop configurations. This allows for allocation/deallocation to go more quickly, so while working it is less noticeable for many workflows. It really depends on what you're doing though. The pricing structure Apple charges for more memory and storage is F'd up... I was just making a point that one doesn't need as much as you might think depending on the bandwidth and workflow.
theshrike79 4y ago
16GB M1 mini here. I've had memory issues exactly zero times. Current memory usage is at 15%. I've had games running with full on tab-hoarded browsers and IDEs open among with any other crap I haven't bothered to shut down.
- chimerasaurus 4y ago
  I have a 16gb m2 MBA. I’ve hit memory issues exactly once. I had FF open with a ton of tabs, Capture One open, and I was stacking 400 frames in PixInsight. The fact I had to push that hard was immensely impressive.
mathverse 4y ago
I doubt that. Almost every app out there uses at least 200MB of memory. I would say 16GB is a sweet for casual users. 32 a minimum for devs/tech people and 64 an optimum if you happen to be using a lot of k8s/docker stuff.
- tracker1 4y ago
  8gb might be okay for casual use on M1, given the higher memory bandwidth... but for Software dev, spot on. I've got 128gb in my desktop, and have gone over 64gb only once or twice with a lot of data loaded.

roebk 4y ago

And a whopping £200 to add an extra 8gb. Ouch.

coder543 4y ago
This is the real problem. M2 is just using LPDDR5. The memory modules themselves don't appear to be anything special; it's just the memory interface bus that is different. Apple is charging multiple times the actual cost per GB, and they do the same thing for SSDs. The entry-level product is a decent value, but the upgrades are ridiculous.
- winter_blue 4y ago
  > Apple is charging multiple times the actual cost per GB, and they do the same thing for SSDs. Yup. I just checked Newegg, and laptop form factor DDR4 (not DDR5ᵃ) RAM is selling for $126 for 64 GB (2 x 32 GB). So market price for 1 GB of DDR4 small form factor RAM is $1.96 per GB. ᵃ DDR5 is almost twice the cost. Apple is charging 200/8 = $25 per GB. Apple charges 12 times the retail price of DDR4, and about 6 times the retail price of DDR5. It's crazy, but they get away with it by soldering these chips down. If we could legislate a working effective Right to Repair bill, we might be able to fix this predicament.
  - NavinF 4y ago
    Soldered chips are here to stay. DDR5 already struggles on 4-slot desktop mobos and laptops with SODIMM slots. You can use 2-slot mobos and CAMM to solve those problems for now, but I would be unsurprised if the DIMM/SODIMM DDR6 never sees wide adoption and everyone moves to soldered RAM by 2030.
    - winter_blue 4y ago
      > everyone moves to soldered RAM by 2030 This would be really horrible, and I hope it never happens. I was just readin up on CAMMᵃᵇ, and to me, CAM looks really promising. It solves the challenges with SODIMM, and the article says: > We mentioned the faster DDR5 speeds above, but it is thought that CAMM could really take off when DDR6 arrives. Another appealing variation might be for adding LPDDR(6) memory to laptops. Traditionally LPDDR memory is soldered, so the new spring contact fitting modules might mean much better upgradability for the thinnest and lightest devices which tend to use LPDDR memory. I'd like to see legislation passed (even if at the state/regional/provincial level) that forces laptop (and other device) manufacturers to use user-replaceable CAMM memory modules instead of solder-on modules (unless solder-on memory is absolutely needed/justified by a high technical need for it – and the bar for this should be high). Similar legislation for batteries, device screens, etc. – mandate standard interfaces and easy replacibility. This will likely increase BOM, but it shouldn't add more than $10 to the overall average retail price of various devices. ᵃ https://www.tomshardware.com/news/camm-to-usurp-so-dimm-laptop-memory-form-factor-says-jedec-member https://www.tomshardware.com/news/camm-to-usurp-so-dimm-lapt... ᵇ https://www.pcworld.com/article/693366/dell-defends-its-controversial-new-laptop-memory.html https://www.pcworld.com/article/693366/dell-defends-its-cont...

nerdponx 4y ago

Never had an issue with Firefox on M1. Time to give it a try?

austenallred 4y ago

1. You can add more 2. New RAM is not like old RAM. Macs are dramatically more optimized than they used to be. I have a MacBook Air (M1) with 16GB of RAM and it runs more smoothly than older systems that had twice that much. 8GB of RAM today feels like what 32GB of RAM used to. 8GB of RAM can handle very process-heavy tasks, like... running Chrome ;)

dijit 4y ago
Everything you said is true; I'll even add that MacOS is probably the best functioning Desktop OS under low memory conditions! However the parent is right, it's disgusting how much memory capacity is needed to run a basic environment. Maybe having exceptionally fast machines with limited ram will cause people to actually think about their resource usage.
- davidy123 4y ago
  > the answer to bloated apps RAM is dirt cheap these days. Bloated apps are bad, but 8GB really is simply a joke that punishes many people for the sake of product categories, at least until RAM is indistinguishable from storage.
  - Tepix 4y ago
    Not all RAM is dirt cheap. RAM in DDR4 sockets is dirt cheap.
    - cmatthias 4y ago
      8GB of general-purpose RAM, regardless of form factor, is dirt cheap. In fact, not having the sockets might make it cheaper than socketed RAM in volume, since there are fewer parts in total.
      - jimsmart 4y ago
        Except, with Apple's new kit here, the RAM isn't simply some external chip soldered to the main board, it's actually on-die with the CPU silicon (and everything else in that silicon: GPU, memory controllers, etc). So yes, arguably there are fewer parts (just one), but in the event of e.g. some bad RAM during manufacture, it's far more costly to throw out the chip containing that bad RAM.

coder543 4y ago

> edit: the ad says up to 24/32GB of ram, but seems like 8gb/16gb models are the only ones available for pre-order at the moment. I see both 24GB and 32GB configurations on the Apple Store configurator. Not sure what you're looking at.

arprocter 4y ago

Oof - once you bump the base model to 16GB RAM and 1TB of storage it doubles the price Apparently Mini RAM hasn't been user upgradable since the 2014 model https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205041#2020 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205041#2020

shortformblog 4y ago
It was upgradeable in 2018, but they the teardown to reach the RAM needlessly complicated: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQq4hLKv1Cc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQq4hLKv1Cc
octotoad 4y ago
The 2018 model has socketed RAM.
- goosedragons 4y ago
  And could do 64GB too.
peanuty1 4y ago
[flagged]
- jimsmart 4y ago
  I'm pretty sure your (repeated) comment here goes against HN guidelines — arguably: it's a shallow dismissal, it's snarky, it doesn't provoke thoughtful conversation, it supports an idealogical battle, etc., etc. Please don't do that! (This is not Reddit) https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
coder543 4y ago
On the plus side, with a desktop like this that isn't going to be moving frequently, there's really no compelling need to upgrade the internal storage. You could attach an external 1TB (or bigger!) NVMe SSD and you should be able to install macOS on that. You could just use the internal SSD as an extra storage drive. AFAIK, you're not required to use the internal SSD at all.

wrldos 4y ago

16Gb is minimum on M1 I found. I hit problems on my 8Gb machine regularly. It’ll work fine but you do get heavy pauses. The thing to be careful of is if your custom config breaks then the turnaround to fix it can be a couple of months. Ergo only buy stock configs. That makes the market somewhat less friendly.

smoldesu 4y ago
Same here. I've heard people argue that 8gb is enough for web browsing, and while that is true, I genuinely struggle to imagine a use-case that doesn't max out the memory within 30 minutes of usage.
- jeffbee 4y ago
  I have the 8G M1 and my typical use-case is building huge notebooks in Observable, including one I’m looking at right now that has over 100 million datapoints loaded from a USGS web service into hundreds of separate plots and it’s fine. I’ve never run into the supposed limits. I also have over 200 PDFs loaded in preview in the background, related to a law suit I’m researching. Still no issues. ETA: I’m likely to replace my m1 with the m2 since the m2 gets +30% scores in common web benchmarks and heavy JavaScript hacks are my main thing. That should bring it up to par with my Linux box that has the top of the line Intel CPU.
NavinF 4y ago
Agreed, 16G on my 2021 M1 Pro macbook is just enough for software development. I'm definitely upgrading to 32G when the M2 Pro is released so I can have more headroom. Also worth mention that 64G is pretty cheap on desktop and that's what the Mac Mini should be compared to.

turtlebits 4y ago

Why take away consumer choice? They've always been available with at least 16GB. I'm perfectly happy with 8GB on my M1 and it was fine on my 2016 13" Pro.

cmatthias 4y ago
Because the alternative is to add literally a few dollars to the bill of materials for the machine, double the memory, and give everyone a better experience. This also means the machine will last longer and likely not end up in a landfill as soon. $200 to add 8GB of memory is _insane_, and framing it as "consumer choice" is bad when consumers are being gouged so badly. It's literally at least a 20x markup on the wholesale cost. You can buy 8GB of DDR4 at retail for $20 or less.
- theshrike79 4y ago
  But this is an M series system, it's not running of off-the-shelf Kingston DDR4.
  - cmatthias 4y ago
    Yes, and? Apple's wholesale RAM cost is likely even lower than a computer with socketed RAM, due to economies of scale and fewer parts overall (RAM soldered directly vs. RAM on a separate PCB, plus a socket soldered to the main board).
  - JustSomeNobody 4y ago
    Then it's probably cheaper to add RAM.
- jeffbee 4y ago
  You seem to believe that doubling (or quadrupling as suggested elsewhere) the installed DRAM has no energy cost. Adding several watts of mandatory 24x7 idle power consumption to a machine mostly celebrated for its energy efficiency seems odd.
  - 4y ago

Nextgrid 4y ago

> More than a dozen chrome tabs and a few discord servers has been enough to crash/significantly slow down my m1 Mac mini On the other hand, maybe there should be pushback against shitty inefficient software? I remember a decade ago being able to have a dozen browser tabs and instant messaging clients on 4GB of RAM just fine, and neither the web nor instant messaging experience has changed significantly enough to warrant the extra memory consumption (the majority of today's day-to-day browser-based tasks have been done just fine in 2010 on that era's hardware).

melling 4y ago
Yeah, people have been making the argument about inefficient software for about 4 decades now. I remember a decade ago buying a 16GB Mac Book Pro, and listening to people complain that 8GB wasn’t enough, so I’m not sure what world 4GB was enough. That same 16GB laptop still works great today.
deno 4y ago
What was the resolution a decade ago? Just having the Web in 4K is going to require significantly more memory. And something like Discord is not exactly comparable to an IRC client.
- j5155 4y ago
  A lot of Discord’s memory usage is because it uses Electron/embedded Chromium. I agree that it does a lot more then IRC clients do, but I think it uses a lot more resources and is a lot less snappy then a native app.
guestbest 4y ago
I’m using a M1 and it is very performant with Brave and unlock origin with only 8gb ram and XCode opening in the background. I try to stay away from Discord and Slack on the desktop as years ago they would cause my system to slow down
- Koshkin 4y ago

highwaylights 4y ago

I was really hopeful for these, but so disappointed. I have a triple monitor setup, and there's essentially a 117% surcharge to add support for the third display.

phonon 4y ago
There are workarounds. https://www.macworld.com/article/675869/how-to-connect-two-or-more-external-displays-to-apple-silicon-m1-macs.html https://www.macworld.com/article/675869/how-to-connect-two-o...
- highwaylights 4y ago
  I know, but they all require granting full screen recording access to third party software on an ongoing basis, which is a complete non-starter in my case.
  - phonon 4y ago
    How does DisplayLink require recording access? https://www.reviewgeek.com/75284/everything-you-need-to-run-multiple-monitors-from-your-m1-macbook/ https://www.reviewgeek.com/75284/everything-you-need-to-run-...
    - highwaylights 4y ago
      Almost none of the YouTube/blogs recommending this mention it or seem to be aware (or have just clicked through and granted the permission without thinking about it), but it absolutely does require screen recording to operate. The DisplayLink driver requires your admin password to install, and installs itself as a background process that records the screen constantly in order to software render the extra display. There are other similar products, they all work this way. From DisplayLink’s own website: https://support.displaylink.com/knowledgebase/articles/1950940-macos-big-sur-11-screen-recording-permission https://support.displaylink.com/knowledgebase/articles/19509...

tyingq 4y ago

Maybe people still want 8gb models for affordable-ish CI/CD runner farms?

qwytw 4y ago
Well Apple could add the extra 8GB keep the same base price and still have higher margins than any other PC OEM. Of course why would they do this if they don't have to...

neighbor1 4y ago

> dozen chrome tabs and a few discord servers This is absolutely not normal...

apetresc 4y ago
Huh? It's completely normal (on the low range of normal, I'd wager), especially in the market of people buying desktop computers in 2023.
- bfgoodrich 4y ago
  [dead]
JustSomeNobody 4y ago
Huh? I can easily have 40 - 50 tabs open. I don't know what a discord is though.

rsstack 4y ago

At checkout you can add memory, up to 32GB total.

phrz 4y ago

Running Chrome on an Apple product is downright wasteful.

crazygringo 4y ago

8 GB is perfectly fine for most people who just use the web, office software, and play media. Even when I have dozens of Chrome tabs open it's always been zero problem on my 8 GB M1 Air. Also, starting last month, Chrome aggressively unloads tabs in the background with its new "memory saver" feature [1]. So if you were having issues with 8 GB before because of your tabs, you might not anymore. [1] https://blog.google/products/chrome/new-chrome-features-to-save-battery-and-make-browsing-smoother/ https://blog.google/products/chrome/new-chrome-features-to-s...

bsg75 4y ago

I will go a step further and state that they appear to top out at 32GB which is asinine. These are not manilla envelope laptops, but semi-compact bricks where the form factor in other brands can commonly take 64GB or more. Its sad for me that my initial reaction to this is where previously a corp Windows laptop was for email and MS Office, and the Mac was for "actual work", now Mac's are headed to the "email and Office" role, and a halfway decent machine running Linux is where "real work" happens.

coob 4y ago
I'm sure Apple would point you in the direction of a Mac Studio instead…
- trynewideas 4y ago
  That's kind of a problem, too. A top-spec M2 Pro Mini on CPU and RAM (12-core CPU, 19-core GPU, 32GB unified RAM) is $1,999. A bottom-spec M1 Max Mac Studio (10-core CPU, 24-core GPU, 32GB unified RAM) is $1,999. Since the low-end Studio has 10Gb Ethernet and four Thunderbolt ports at the same price, and neither has upgradable RAM, there's no reason to buy the high-end Mini.
  - coder543 4y ago
    > and four Thunderbolt ports The Mac mini with M2 Pro includes four Thunderbolt ports too, just FYI.
    - trynewideas 4y ago
      I know — the only thing a new M2 mini might've theoretically brought is going all-in on Thunderbolt ports vs. the Studio, even at the cost of the HDMI or built-in LAN ports, but it doesn't do that either. Same RAM, same performance, slower built-in LAN, less storage expansion, same price. Is the smaller form factor really worth it? If not, why would anyone who'd consider that spec not get a Studio (or wait for an M2 Studio bump to get a M2 Max)?

FollowingTheDao 4y ago

"disappointed to see them still selling these with 8gb RAM. " I can assure you that the shareholders are not disappointed. The premium you pay for more RAM (and SSD) is insane. Besides that fact that no one is making a computer for the ordinary user anymore. Hardly anyone needs that much power in a computer.

dutchbrit 4y ago

Indeed, but then again, it says more about the apps really. No real reason why they should consume so much memory.

incanus77 4y ago

I run an M1 mini with 16GB with 10 discord servers and hundreds of Safari tabs. Chrome is the hog here.

tracker1 4y ago

You have to pick the higher CPU variant apparently.

GeekyBear 4y ago

> disappointed to see them still selling these with 8gb RAM Doesn't Microsoft still sell laptops with 4 GB of RAM?

cmatthias 4y ago
This is whataboutism, but yes, the Surface Go 2 base model has 4GB of RAM. It's shameful, but that laptop is also half the price of the cheapest Mac laptop, and doesn't absolve either company of blame for ridiculously high memory and storage prices.

vlunkr 4y ago

It feels like they're always wasting the potential of the Mac Mini. I assume the whole point of the product is to be the cheaper desktop option (I could be wrong), but when you compare it to any Windows desktop, it's a bad value. The base model has lame specs, if you upgrade to something reasonable, it's no longer competitive on price, and most components can't be upgraded later, which is half the appeal of buying a cheaper desktop.

scarface74 4y ago
The mini hasn’t been meant to be cheaper in over a decade. The mini is meant to be for the odd use cases.
jbverschoor 4y ago
If you're looking only at idle power usage, the difference is around 20 watt compared to an idle pc. That's 0.5KWh. With the currency energy prices in NL (40ct/kwh, subsidized by the gov btw, because it's actually around 70ct now), this will save you €73 per year when idling, and even more when it's in use. So the macmini essentially for free after a few years compared to your windows machine
- NavinF 4y ago
  meh, only if you run it 24/7 and only if you live in Europe with very high energy prices. If the machine sleeps for 16 hours a day while the user goes to sleep or goes outside, you'll never break even. There's also no guarantee that next year will be as shitty as the last one regarding electricity.
  - jbverschoor 4y ago
    If you're actually using it 8 hours a day then it's 30 watts for the mba, and 150 for the pc + 30 for the display. So the difference is 1.2kwh per day. For 200 days of work in europe, that's 2001.2.4 = 96 per year. In the US that's 235 working days per year at around $0.20 (13 - 25ct), so about $50 per year.

JustSomeNobody 4y ago

Only thing tighter than Apple is a frog's butt and that's water tight. They really should be upping this to 16GB RAM. There's just no reason not to.

gnicholas 4y ago

Before buying my M2 MBA, I had the opportunity to try one out that had 8 GB of RAM and another that had 16 GB of RAM. I set up each as a restore of my main laptop, which included hundreds of browser tabs, slack, email, messages, calendar, notes, keynote open at all times. There was no noticeable difference whatsoever. I ended up getting the 16 GB machine (my RAM usage was around 12 GB most times, and never north of 15 GB), but I would be fine recommending an 8 GB machine to my parents. Even from a future-proofing perspective, their use is so lightweight (some photo editing, web browsing, and email) that they would never need more than this. I could see a case for offering the new version with 16 GB and up, but keeping around an old M1 version with just 8 GB. But I don't think it's necessarily in everyone's interest to pay more for that much RAM.

jillesvangurp 4y ago

Once you start adding memory and ssd, it makes more sense to just get a mac studio. You basically get less for more with the mac mini. Once you max out the memory and CPU, the entry level mac studio is cheaper and comes with the M1 Max instead of the M2 Pro. A bit of a toss up which is faster but for 230 euro extra you jump to 32 GPU cores, which is not an option with the mini.

Zanfa 4y ago

My 8GB M1 Air kicks my 64GB 10-core iMac’s ass in most scenarios. Don’t think I even know how to use less than 30+ tabs open at the same time. Smooth as butter.

pwinnski 4y ago

I have more than 18 servers in discord, 8 tabs in iTerm, Textual IRC, iMessage, Music, Signal, TextEdit, VSCode, and two different browsers running right now on an 8GB M1 Mac mini, with no issues. Then again, neither browser is Chrome. Safari has twelve tabs open across two windows, and Arc has sixteen tabs open. Checking "memory pressure," I'm in the yellow zone, so I definitely agree that 8GB is not enough. But perhaps you should look at alternatives to Chrome in the meantime.