8GB Never had a single problem with it, done everything i need, however if i were to pick up a Studio it would have to be 64GB ram wise.
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Deals: Apple's M1 Mac Mini Available for All-Time Low Price of $569.99 ($129 Off)
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I wonder how many people who need multible monitors would also opt for the M1 and not the more powerful chips.
The M1 Ultra is 2 M1 Max glued together. The M1 Pro is an M1 Max from which half the GPU cores and video engines are missing.
You must be a very light user, I don't know anybody that was happy with 4GB in 2021.
No, I was still running a lot of apps at the same time with no problem. Now on my main machine (2019 27" iMac I loaded it up with RAM because it was user-replaceable and therefore I could get it cheap, so why not? Doesn't hurt, obviously. But I never felt held back by 4GB on my 2012 MBA nor 8GB on my 2020 MBA or Mini.
If they don't release a Mini Pro with M1 Pro/Max, and the very options you're suggesting, then I will be very surprised. Two reasons:
1. There is currently no headless Mac with the M1 Pro chip.
2. They are still selling Intel Mini's with the extra ports, and the M1 chip doesn't support more ports.
More likely to be a Mac Mini Pro w M1 Pro/Max w up to 64GB RAM options. Can't see them putting 32GB RAM into the M2, purely for profits reasons, the insane upgrade Apple Tax must be hugely profitable.
Geezus, only $569 for a great headless server, fast, cool, and decent memory.
I am one of that big chunk.
I joined this site years ago, but my Apple products were limited to phones and iPads. I was a long time PC user.
The M1 Mac Mini was my first foray into a Mac. I figured it would be a cheap way to check it out, but my PC would be my main computer.
Within a month it became my primary computer. A couple of months later, my PC was in the closet. This thing easily and efficiently runs everything I throw at it. Well, except for games. It’s definitely not it’s forte. But other than running Flight Simulator, I can do everything I used my high powered PC with more Ram to do.
Well, the next config is 50% more, so... In my opinion this entry-level config isn't a real config at all, but mainly is marketing to sell you the next best config, which is 16gb and costs somewhere around 800-900.
That may be. But what many of us who own and use the 8gb models are trying to communicate, is that the base model is a great bargain for a great machine.
Mac Studio is already what a "Mac Mini Pro" would be.
I don't think we'll see any form of Mac Mini with more than 16GB RAM soon, as their pricing ladder will be upselling people to the Mac Studio who want more RAM.
There is a hole. I hope to see Apple do things differently than they have in the past. We've had too many years of under-powered Mac Mini, iMac as the only mid-level option, and Mac Pro being either too expensive (current gen at $6000) or not worth it considering the issues and limitations of it (trashcan). There were a few times where Mac Mini had some nice options -- e.g. when it had a discrete GPU or the quad-core server model, but then they reverted back to it being less powerful.
Mac Studio is an indication that they are willing to do things differently, with it being the effective "mid-level" machine that is not an iMac that is between Mac Mini and Mac Pro. It'd be great to see even more rungs in the pricing ladder, like as many as they have in the iPad & iPhone lines. But from Apple's perspective, they may make the calculation that they could canibalize Mac Studio sales by putting something in between.
Currently a maxed out Mac Mini is $1800. $200 more and you get a Mac Studio. Getting a $2000 Mac Studio reduces your SSD down to 512GB from the 2TB of a maxed out Mini, but that's not that different than the iPad pricing ladder.
Good points, but here's why I think there is still a Mac Mini Pro coming:
1. There is no headless Mac with an M1 Pro chip in it.
The Mini has the M1.
The Studio has the M1 Max and M1 Ultra.
Where is the M1 Pro chip?
2. They still sell the Intel Mini with extra ports. It's a place holder for the Mini with the extra ports that the M1 Pro/Max would give it.
This is similar to how they still sold the 16" Intel MBP after they released the 13" M1 MBP/MBA. As soon as the 14/16" M1 Pro/Max MBP was released, they stopped selling the 16" Intel MBP.
Thus, I think there is still a Mini Pro coming. It might be the same size as the M1 Mini, but also might be an in-between size between the Mini and the Studio. So an M1 Mini but with space for a fan, but not quite the huge fans and heatsinks in the Studio.
There will be no intermediate size. You are forgetting Steve Job's first lesson on return to Apple, the lesson of the quadrants. Apple is never going to slice production up into a zillion different custom form factors and lose their economies of scale. Instead if they see a need they'll add different options to existing form factors.
The current form factor of the mini probably won't work well for the larger and warmer M1 Pro. So if they want to release a M1 Pro in a headless form factor they'll put it in the Studio, and use the same aluminum cooling block (or maybe an even lighter cheaper one given less heat) as the M1 Max. They can slide it in midway between the $1100 16Gb RAM/500Gb SSD M1 Mini and the $1999 Studio Max at $1,499. This also gives them greater economy of scale for the Mac Studio enclosure and other components.
There are two reasons why they might not have done it already. First, they may have been limited on production capacity for Mac Studio components so launch with the higher gross profit versions first, and save the cheaper version for later. Or, they have something better coming down the pike soon and can relaunch the Studio with M2 processors where their M2 Pro is as fast as the M1 Max, and their M2 Max is much faster than the M1 Max, and M2 Ultra much better than M1 Ultra, etc.
Or they're happy that if an M1 Mini is not powerful enough, and since there is nothing with an M1 Pro in between, you're gonna pay for the M1 Max Studio.