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motrek

macrumors 68030
Sep 14, 2012
2,613
305
Yes, but as I stated then the difference between bandwidth and real world difference (i.e. how much faster does a video encode, frames per second in a game, etc) is negligible. I proved that by providing my own benchmarks. I ran benchmarks on my brand new quad core mini with 4GB of RAM at 1600mhz vs 16GB of 1333mhz and the 1333mhz RAM was almost as fast as the 1600mhz. Video benchmarks were a hair faster, as was the memory bandwidth (obviously), but for handbrake the difference was a second or two (well within a magin of error). So again, the overall system speed is barely affected by faster RAM.

Yes, this makes perfect sense if you know how software typically accesses memory. First of all, software tends to access the same memory over and over, so that data gets cached in the processor chip itself (processors have several megabytes of cache these days) and thus the speed of your RAM is irrelevant. Second, software tends to access small amounts of memory in a basically random fashion, which stresses the *latency* of RAM chips and not *bandwidth*. It's entirely possible, if not common, for "faster" RAM (1600MHz) to have the same or even higher latency than slower RAM.

So basically, yes, it should not surprise anybody that "faster" RAM makes little to no difference in performance in almost all typical use cases.

It amuses me that people burn so many calories trying to figure out what RAM is fastest and what SSDs are fastest. The speed of SSDs is similarly usually irrelevant since when people copy large files to/from SSDs it's usually from much slower hard drives. No point in being able to write 500 MB/s to an SSD when you can only read it at 90 MB/s from your hard drive.
 

Miat

macrumors 6502a
Jul 13, 2012
851
805
I have the same machine, for general purpose use (browsing, watching movies, small amount of video encoding/processing, etc).

Went for 16GB, no regrets about spending the extra few bucks.
 

Donka

macrumors 68030
May 3, 2011
2,842
1,439
Scotland
Do you plan to leave your mini powered on all the time? If so, and if you care about power usage, 16gb will use twice the power of 8gb (on the ram side) so just wanted to throw that out there. Not a massive difference but Eco friendly people will want to bear that in mind. For the OPs needs, 8gb will certainly be sufficient - I'm doing a lot more with mine and never had any page outs using 8gb.
 

Santabean2000

macrumors 68000
Nov 20, 2007
1,883
2,044
Do you plan to leave your mini powered on all the time? If so, and if you care about power usage, 16gb will use twice the power of 8gb (on the ram side) so just wanted to throw that out there. Not a massive difference but Eco friendly people will want to bear that in mind. For the OPs needs, 8gb will certainly be sufficient - I'm doing a lot more with mine and never had any page outs using 8gb.

Man, there are a million things you can do differently in your day-to-day life that will make a much more significant difference to your carbon footprint than how much RAM you have installed.

Like the sentiment, mind.;)
 

Donka

macrumors 68030
May 3, 2011
2,842
1,439
Scotland
Man, there are a million things you can do differently in your day-to-day life that will make a much more significant difference to your carbon footprint than how much RAM you have installed.

Like the sentiment, mind.;)

Completely agree but as the saying goes - 'every little helps'.
For the record, I have just ordered 16GB RAM for a new quad core Mac Mini. I'm specifically planning to have this machine do much more with the quad core so think the larger RAM will give it more breathing room. My previous i5 was already doing more than the OPs intended purpose and working absolutely fine with 8GB.
 

MaxinMusicCity

macrumors regular
Mar 20, 2013
187
69
Nashville
In upgrading your memory in a mac mini, be very careful with the retaining clips.

Although I've had years of hardware experience, I accidently bent a retainging clip in my new MacMini as I was trying to replace the memory. This happened in spite of my best efforts to avoid it. The memory sticks were just a little difificult to seat. Luckily, it didn't affect the performance and I haven't had any further issues.

Memory upgraded from 4GB to 16GB :cool:
 

scottsjack

macrumors 68000
Aug 25, 2010
1,906
311
Arizona
I've got my new mini 2.3 i7 running with EyeTV recording an HD broadcast, iPhoto open and Apperture 3 open. Activity Monitor shows physical memory at 16GB and and memory used as 7.12GB.

Eight gigs of RAM are just not going to cut it, especially when 16GB cost $140.00.
 

Miat

macrumors 6502a
Jul 13, 2012
851
805
Do you plan to leave your mini powered on all the time? If so, and if you care about power usage, 16gb will use twice the power of 8gb (on the ram side) so just wanted to throw that out there. Not a massive difference but Eco friendly people will want to bear that in mind. For the OPs needs, 8gb will certainly be sufficient - I'm doing a lot more with mine and never had any page outs using 8gb.

Fair point about the extra power use, though if you are down to having to take account of that tiny amount in your power budget, you probably really have power supply issues to deal with rather than power usage. Time to add that third solar panel kind of thing.

Should say I do run 'purge' every so often, mainly during/after video processing.

Also I am not running Mavericks yet with it's magic RAM management. Maybe Mavericks would make 8GB enough.
 

Meister

Suspended
Oct 10, 2013
5,456
4,310
I have the same machine, for general purpose use (browsing, watching movies, small amount of video encoding/processing, etc).
Went for 16GB, no regrets about spending the extra few bucks.
Why is memory so cheap where you guys live?
Here 8gb will cost me 80€ while 16gb are 130€.
I dont find either option too cheap. For 40€ i would buy 16gb just for the hell of it.
 

xraydoc

Contributor
Oct 9, 2005
10,788
5,243
192.168.1.1
I have 16GB in my 2011 2.5GHz i5 mini (with the AMD Radeon graphics). I have no regrets at all.

It my Mac-at-the-office machine (I bought it for myself since I can't stand the POS Windows XP machines everyone else is forced to use). While I don't do much heavy lifting on it (video, graphics editing, etc.), I do frequently have multiple browsers windows & tabs open, Word, Keynote, Pages, the Citrix client with multiple windows and sometimes a Windows virtual machine. All open at the same time. All respond instantly.

With the 16GB and a cheap 120GB SSD for the OS and apps, I essentially never see the spinning beach ball. Even on the relatively anemic dual-core 2.5GHz i5. I see no reason I can't get another two years of office-type apps out of the machine if I wanted/needed to.
 

RAWphenom

macrumors member
Nov 4, 2010
78
1
606/859, KY
Why is memory so cheap where you guys live?
Here 8gb will cost me 80€ while 16gb are 130€.
I dont find either option too cheap. For 40€ i would buy 16gb just for the hell of it.

.....did you not notice that you were replying to someone who revived a thread that had been dead for over a year?? And the comment you quoted was from Jan 24, 2013. RAM used to be priced way low; it started to rocket back up late-ish last year.
 

Meister

Suspended
Oct 10, 2013
5,456
4,310
.....did you not notice that you were replying to someone who revived a thread that had been dead for over a year?? And the comment you quoted was from Jan 24, 2013. RAM used to be priced way low; it started to rocket back up late-ish last year.
:D no i didnt notice it.
The month fits but they continued this thread one year later. :)
 
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