4 ms·
2x 16GBx256GB Mac minis cost $1 cheaper than a single 32GBx512GB Mac mini
- dajonker 2y agoRAM and storage upgrades have always been absurdly expensive at Apple. It never stopped millions of people from buying them anyway.
- gnabgib 2y agoPreviously (10 points) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42040972 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42040972
- nickpp 2y agoSo the 16GBx256GB Mac Minis are discounted?
- Joker_vD 2y agoOr the 32GiBx256GB ones are overpriced.
- nickpp 2y agoI think the base configuration recently jumped from 8GB to 16GB while keeping the same price.
- thefz 2y agoWow, Apple finally entered 2015.
- goosedragons 2y agoIt costs $400 just to get 32GB RAM on the M4 mini. Retail 32GB DDR5 kits are about $100, 64GB kits about $200. Yes, yes, technically it's LPDDR5 and whatever.
- ThatMedicIsASpy 2y agoI paid 380€ for 96G DDR5 6400. Decent RAM was around 120€ per 32GB a year ago.
- grahamj 2y agoRealistically the BOMs are nowhere near the retail prices in either case. It's likely that if upgrades were sold at their BOM difference the lower end machines would be more expensive. In other words the low end machines are subsidized by the upgrades. As this makes them more accessible I think this is ok, but only if the base model has serviceable specs. I'm glad they finally do.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- bluesign 2y agobasic answer is yes; essentially you are getting more memory bandwidth compensated by people buying higher RAM.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- throw32432223 2y agoAI bubble is finally forcing companies like Apple to upgrade memory. 8GB RAM is now not enough, but 32GB RAM is still a luxury! Finally I will not have provide support for "development workstation" with 8GB RAM! Some people do data analytics on such machine, because M1 Macs are suppose to be fast! Then soldered SSD melts from swapping and write wear. We had similar situation with Windows Vista. Hardware makers with 512MB or even 256MB RAM were finally forced to upgrade!
- aitchnyu 2y agoI feel 16G Mac is singlehandedly stopping the arms race of bloated apps and beefier machines, especially since things become progressively slow (RAM compression and swapping) instead of crashing.
- lostlogin 2y agoIs that actually helpful? More requirements & more ram. Doesn’t this leave you where you started? Or maybe you aren’t very interested in the AI stuff and you just get a better machine.
- graemep 2y agoMarket segmentation. The people who want the extra RAM and storage will pay. Others will make do, or use external storage.
- nazgu1 2y agoIn old times there were an option to upgrade ram and storage using stock parts form hardware store, but now everything is soldered.
- astrange 2y agoWell you don't need to let that stop you.
- dietr1ch 2y agoAFAIK now the ram gets to be way closer this way (which is why the M series gets to destroy everyone on benchmarks where it can show off that). I think that it'd be cool to have that memory become an L4 cache and still have cheaper ram as a backing store with more capacity to fence off the CPU from the abysmal latencies that SSDs and, satan forbids, HDDs have.
- spwa4 2y agoIntel Lunar Lake is proving this is not necessary.
- angoragoats 2y agoThere is no technical reason that forced Apple to make the RAM soldered. They could have easily made a proprietary but replaceable socket/connector, but chose not to because of the sweet, sweet markups.
- colejohnson66 2y agoLPDDR is not allowed/available in DIMM form.
- angoragoats 2y agoThis is true but not at all relevant to anything I said, as I was not talking about DIMMs.
- phonon 2y ago
- lproven 2y agoSounds like someone has yield problems...
- high_na_euv 2y agoThats why we need current x86 ecosystem where youre free to match hardware with any other compatible parts you want. Except for memory of Lunar Lakes, but they confirmed that they will not continue this soldered memory fashion. It was just to prove that x86 can fight against ARM when it comes to energy efficiency
- Pet_Ant 2y ago> Thats why we need current x86 ecosystem where youre free to match hardware with any other compatible parts you want. Let's remember that this ecosystem is a mistake that no party would willing recreate again. Given the chance to improve the x86 with 64-bit capability, Intel chose to form a cabal and create a patent-locked monstrosity that no one else could approach. IBM didn't want to create an open-platform, they just did want someone else to set the standard and knew that they were too slow to create something from scratch so they had to grab off-the-shelf parts. On their second attempt they tried to create their own OS (/2) and bus standard (MCA) with egregious terms. Sony memory sticks have been cut open to be found to be micro-SD cards with extraneous packaging. Sun tried to open up SPARC... and then close it up again with UltraSPARC... and only reopening it as a 11th hour hail-Mary. That is why both RISC-V and GNU/Linux are so special. They are really the only systems from the get-go designed and intended to be open. We should really appreciate and support those because these things don't usually happen on purpose and are not easily replaced.
- 7e 2y agoVertical scaling is usually more expensive than horizontal scaling. This is not a surprise. What surprises me is that it’s only $1 more expensive here. I suppose that’s because you don’t get double the number of CPUs in the vertical case.
- Joker_vD 2y agoWell, maybe it's a wrong analogy, but when you see a 1l glass bottle of stuff selling for almost exactly twice the price of a 0.5l glass bottle of the same stuff, then there is something off because glass bottles themselves ain't free either.
- shusaku 2y agoOf course, when it comes to bottled water my experience is the bigger bottle is cheaper than the small one!
- addaon 2y ago> Well, maybe it's a wrong analogy Yep. Try comparing the price of a 1 L bottle with 1 kg of water to a 1 L bottle with 2 kg of water. Vertical scaling can be very, very expensive.
- grahamj 2y agoThat's great! You're getting an SoC, chassis, power supply, cooler, ports etc. for free! :D
- karmakaze 2y agoI don't really care how they price different spec'd models, as long as desktop units are user-upgradable for both memory and storage. I thought I'd be excited for the Mac Mini announcement but when I heard it, I wanted to be excited but couldn't really see a use for me. If I want a beefy AI GPU machine I wouldn't buy from Apple, similarly for a gaming PC. Otherwise I'd use a MacBook or Linux desktop/server.
- goosedragons 2y agoThey aren't though. Everything is soldered down or uses custom stuff that's hard to replace.
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- pjmlp 2y agoThose days are long gone in Apple land.
- saaaaaam 2y agoIf you were buying a beefy AI gpu machine today would you get? I’m in the market and because I’m quite Mac based was considering a MacBook Pro M4 Max but they are painfully expensive. So then I was considering the Mac mini as “chuck stuff at this box” but keep my existing Mac laptop. But if I’m just chucking stuff at the box it doesn’t really need to be a Mac at all…
- yunohn 2y ago32GB RAM is not enough for AI either - the problem is that they lock down any user upgradeability and over price every possible change.
- akimbostrawman 2y agoOne of the many apple taxes people seem to love overpaying for