Looking to upgrade my 2018 mac mini to new M4 or M4 Pro. How much unified memory should i be getting? My current mini is 32gb I'm trying to decide between 24GB or 48GB on the new M4 mini. Not sure how it correlates and compares to the intel based ones?
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How much unified memory to get?
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No difference. Apply the same considerations as before.
I would not go from 32gb "downwards" to 24.
I WOULD go "up" from 32 to 48.
Or... from 32 to 32.
With the m4pro Mini, you can only "jump up" from 24 to 48. No "32" option offered (may be due to chip architecture).
With the m4 Mini, you CAN get 32.
Personal experience:
I'm considering moving from a 2018 Mini (16gb) to either an M4pro or "regular" M4 Mini.
I hadn't been including the m4 Mini as a possible choice UNTIL I had one of those "duh-oh!" moments when I realized that for most applications I would be using (nothing "too heavy") there would be little difference between m4 and m4pro because the apps would be utilizing only a "single core" -- AND, there's essentially no difference in single core speeds between the m4 and m4pro.
The biggest difference between the two (for me) might be the fan noise. Coming from a wind-tunnel mirror door g4, the silence of my first Mini (2012) was ... an awakening.
So...
I'm leaning towards the m4 this time, BUT... with plenty of RAM and SSD to make it seem like an actual "upgrade" from my current 2018.
I'll go for 32gb of RAM and a 1tb SSD, which ought to be enough for at least 5-7 years.
I'm also one of the only members of this forum (THE only one?) who DISABLES VM disk swapping and forces the Mac to use only "real, physically-installed" RAM. Works GREAT for me.
Final thought on RAM:
I'm thinking that each upcoming verison of the OS is going to be "hungrier" for RAM than the preceding one. So buying 16 (or 24) today will be only "the baseline" when viewed in terms of what will be coming down the road in the next 5 years.
For that reason, I'm thinking that the wise choice (now) is to get at least 32gb.
My prediction is that by 2030, 32gb will barely constitute "the new baseline" for Mac RAM.
That's what I see and I'm stickin' to it...!
I WOULD go "up" from 32 to 48.
Or... from 32 to 32.
With the m4pro Mini, you can only "jump up" from 24 to 48. No "32" option offered (may be due to chip architecture).
With the m4 Mini, you CAN get 32.
Personal experience:
I'm considering moving from a 2018 Mini (16gb) to either an M4pro or "regular" M4 Mini.
I hadn't been including the m4 Mini as a possible choice UNTIL I had one of those "duh-oh!" moments when I realized that for most applications I would be using (nothing "too heavy") there would be little difference between m4 and m4pro because the apps would be utilizing only a "single core" -- AND, there's essentially no difference in single core speeds between the m4 and m4pro.
The biggest difference between the two (for me) might be the fan noise. Coming from a wind-tunnel mirror door g4, the silence of my first Mini (2012) was ... an awakening.
So...
I'm leaning towards the m4 this time, BUT... with plenty of RAM and SSD to make it seem like an actual "upgrade" from my current 2018.
I'll go for 32gb of RAM and a 1tb SSD, which ought to be enough for at least 5-7 years.
I'm also one of the only members of this forum (THE only one?) who DISABLES VM disk swapping and forces the Mac to use only "real, physically-installed" RAM. Works GREAT for me.
Final thought on RAM:
I'm thinking that each upcoming verison of the OS is going to be "hungrier" for RAM than the preceding one. So buying 16 (or 24) today will be only "the baseline" when viewed in terms of what will be coming down the road in the next 5 years.
For that reason, I'm thinking that the wise choice (now) is to get at least 32gb.
My prediction is that by 2030, 32gb will barely constitute "the new baseline" for Mac RAM.
That's what I see and I'm stickin' to it...!
Light lightroom usage, browsing, 3d modeling (fusion 360, shapr3d), Slicer, office etc. Memory usage from last 30 days attached.
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Based on your screenshots you are at the most using half of the RAM you have. 24GB would likely suit you more than fine.
I used iStat menu as well to monitor 30-day memory use and noticed I only used 50% of the 36GB RAM on average on my M3 Max. When I went to an M4 Pro I configured it with 24GB and have no regrets.
If anything, the M3 Max taught me an expensive lesson about overbuying and falling for the "future proof" angle. While I never fully utilized the RAM nor power of the M3 Max, I had to endure the reduced battery life everyday. I originally convinced myself that getting the higher-end config meant I could use this machine for 10 years, similar to my 8-year-old 2015 rMBP 13 at the time. But the flipside meant I felt compelled to keep it longer just because I spent so much on it, and would miss out on other new innovations.
In the end, I started to see the wisdom of those that said buy the base or mid-level machine and upgrade more frequently as you see fit. I was fortunate to find a buyer for my M3 Max and the proceeds fully funded my M4 Pro MBP with nano-texture with impressive performance and much better battery life than my M3 Max. I still kept storage at 1TB and am glad I didn't waste money on 48GB RAM upgrade.
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Note that since you show a history of keeping a Mac for at least 7 years with your 2018, a part of this decision is not looking at your RAM graphs now and then rationalizing only a modest amount more. Instead, you need to try to add into the consideration how much RAM you will be using in 2032, assuming you'll keep this Mini for as long as you've been using the 2018. Why? Because you can't add RAM later.
So while your charts imply immediate uses would fit nicely with 24GB, can you anticipate demanding more from your Mac in the NEXT 7 years? If so, add some fudge factor to that. Similarly, I suspect this starter A.I. will only fatten macOS over the next decade as more and more A.I. is piled on. One might try to rationalize that they won't use it but I suspect many of the Mac apps will develop dependencies on it to "force" A.I. to be "ON." Since we can't know how much "fatter" macOS will grow in terms of RAM demand, I'd add fairly significant "fudge" to that estimate too.
If you were shopping only 7+ months ago, both Apple and Apple fans were passionately presenting 8GB RAM as "enough for nearly everyone." But then A.I. hit, Apple immediately doubles the baseline to accommodate it (and Fan arguments move right with Apple in lockstep). Could additional A.I. in the coming years need to do that again? If so, baseline very well may become 32GB as Fisherrman suggests back in #4. I would not be very quick to dismiss that potential. So existing 12GB used now + fudge factor + 16GB as existing baseline + fudge factor + your own uses of Mac growing over the next 7 years seems to make a pretty good case for 48GB to me. I'd be a bit shaky on "only 32GB" unless I was fine with potentially having to replace this Mac sooner than 2032.
I'd absolutely NOT consider "only 24GB" given how close your 2025 use is now with the above considerations... UNLESS, again, you are prepared to replace the entire Mac sooner than 2032+ in case you embrace 24GB and then find yourself needing more in the next few years because macOS needs more... or your own uses expand.
Lastly, I'm not one of these unpaid Apple salespeople pushing upgrades to benefit AAPL (they don't need ANY of us doing that... they do just fine on their own). I consider Apple's upgrade pricing shameful at 3X-5X market rates for comparable RAM. But if you must buy a Mac, they are the only source of RAM, so they can fully exploit being lone seller. In other threads like this, I've suggested some people consider going PC where a fraction of the RAM upgrade pricing could buy the same amount of RAM or much more. It's the same situation with internal storage, also at 3X-5X market. If one needs a lot of either and their key apps exist on PC, some may do better to jump to PC until Apple opts to deliver more value for the upgrade money.
So while your charts imply immediate uses would fit nicely with 24GB, can you anticipate demanding more from your Mac in the NEXT 7 years? If so, add some fudge factor to that. Similarly, I suspect this starter A.I. will only fatten macOS over the next decade as more and more A.I. is piled on. One might try to rationalize that they won't use it but I suspect many of the Mac apps will develop dependencies on it to "force" A.I. to be "ON." Since we can't know how much "fatter" macOS will grow in terms of RAM demand, I'd add fairly significant "fudge" to that estimate too.
If you were shopping only 7+ months ago, both Apple and Apple fans were passionately presenting 8GB RAM as "enough for nearly everyone." But then A.I. hit, Apple immediately doubles the baseline to accommodate it (and Fan arguments move right with Apple in lockstep). Could additional A.I. in the coming years need to do that again? If so, baseline very well may become 32GB as Fisherrman suggests back in #4. I would not be very quick to dismiss that potential. So existing 12GB used now + fudge factor + 16GB as existing baseline + fudge factor + your own uses of Mac growing over the next 7 years seems to make a pretty good case for 48GB to me. I'd be a bit shaky on "only 32GB" unless I was fine with potentially having to replace this Mac sooner than 2032.
I'd absolutely NOT consider "only 24GB" given how close your 2025 use is now with the above considerations... UNLESS, again, you are prepared to replace the entire Mac sooner than 2032+ in case you embrace 24GB and then find yourself needing more in the next few years because macOS needs more... or your own uses expand.
Lastly, I'm not one of these unpaid Apple salespeople pushing upgrades to benefit AAPL (they don't need ANY of us doing that... they do just fine on their own). I consider Apple's upgrade pricing shameful at 3X-5X market rates for comparable RAM. But if you must buy a Mac, they are the only source of RAM, so they can fully exploit being lone seller. In other threads like this, I've suggested some people consider going PC where a fraction of the RAM upgrade pricing could buy the same amount of RAM or much more. It's the same situation with internal storage, also at 3X-5X market. If one needs a lot of either and their key apps exist on PC, some may do better to jump to PC until Apple opts to deliver more value for the upgrade money.
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To the OP, I went from 32gb (2017 iMac) to M4 base 16gb. My user experience (primarily Lightroom, Mac apps, and Excel along) is much better on the new machine. Just because I went 8 yrs on the old machine does not mean I will go 8 yrs on the new machine. Tastes and strategies change with time. Currently not bothering with Apple Intelligence nonsense. Not getting into any more wasteful spending on unnecessary RAM.
I actually bought it in april 2020 refurb one. Before that I had Old Mac Pro
Good Info. I can't really do base as I need 1tb storage option. I might get base M4 or M4 with 32gb ram and do the ssd swap myself
The flash storage is soldered onto the logic board so it won't be a simple SSD swap that you're accustomed to. It has been this way for several years now.
As for the AI argument from earlier posts, that's still not a good justification for an unreasonable RAM upgrade today. If you're worried about AI needing more RAM in the next few years then Apple will also surely improve the Neural Engine in subsequent generations of the M SoC so you'll miss out on all of that too, and other new innovations, regardless of your extra RAM today. Buy what you need now and maybe a little extra memory or performance but don't try to anticipate your needs 8 years from now. Some people don't even stay in the same car or neighborhood for 8 years. Too many unknowns in life that far into the future. As they say in the stock market, past performance is no guarantee of future performance.
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Im kind of wondering the same thing for me, going to order either a mac mini or mbp M4 Pro and wondering whether I get 24gb or 48gb...the most I might have open is 1-2 intellij (coding) projects open, Visiual studio with a dev server running, 2-3 excel and word docs open, a dozen or 2 tabs open and I like have mail and messages open. On my intel 2019 mbp with 16gb ram, Im using 1.5gb swap....leading me to believe 24gb is going to be more than enough but I maybe may start building mobile apps and I know emulating phones takes up a nice 5-6gb of ram...really wish we had the option for 36gb bc I think it would be nice future proof without being overkill...what do you guys think, 24 or 48gb?
Also binned or unbinned 12c/20g chip? I plan on it being my main/only Civ 7 playing machine (its the only game i play)...those extra 4 gpu cores might come in handy but I know civ 6 ran just fine on M1's..
Also binned or unbinned 12c/20g chip? I plan on it being my main/only Civ 7 playing machine (its the only game i play)...those extra 4 gpu cores might come in handy but I know civ 6 ran just fine on M1's..
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Hmm, seems the older version works, and the newer version, 7, is broken on my M4 Mac Mini Pro.
Anyone else?
Not for the M4 mini. There's already aftermarket 2TB upgrades for it!
I would not buy an Intel mac for anything for any price, though. The M series blows them all out of the water.
If you plan on keeping your new machine as long as you have kept your previous machine, it's best to get the most memory you can afford. Memory/storage consumption always grows, and the $200 price difference is practically meaningless over 5+ years of ownership.
My uses are lighter than yours, and I'm opting for 24GB of RAM to get 5-7 years out of my next Mac. Given your stated uses, I would go 32GB (M4) or 48 (M4 Pro).
Work out how much memory you need for apps and add at least 8 gigs for video memory/apple intelligence.
The sweet spot for most people now is probably 24-32gb for “normies” in terms of price vs long term capabilities.
As usual for most “normal” people with Apple specs, for long term ownership at least one upgrade tier above standard is about right and will give you a much more pleasant ownership experience. The baseline Apple offers is based on the “starting from” marketing price. Which is historically a little tight.
If you have more advanced requirements adjust to suit.
The sweet spot for most people now is probably 24-32gb for “normies” in terms of price vs long term capabilities.
As usual for most “normal” people with Apple specs, for long term ownership at least one upgrade tier above standard is about right and will give you a much more pleasant ownership experience. The baseline Apple offers is based on the “starting from” marketing price. Which is historically a little tight.
If you have more advanced requirements adjust to suit.
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Well, Apple says 24Gb on their systems is like 24Tb on Wintel, but I would get 48Gb if planning to keep the M4 for a long time.
Average is a poor measure for RAM over 30 days. Identify the spikes in memory during your intense workflows. Either you have enough RAM or you don’t. If your memory requirements spike for short intervals, you may see crashes. Also, depends on how long you keep the machines, and your budget. You can anlways add external storage but can’t upgrade the Ram later. If you can afford go for 48 GB.
Depending on your RAM requirements, the following tip may be useful.
In Canada, the entry level M4 Mac mini with 16GB RAM is 800 dollars. Upgrading the RAM to 32GB adds another 500 dollars to the total. That's 62.5% of the base system cost for a simple 16GB RAM upgrade.
It may make more sense to always get the baseline model and upgrade every five years instead of paying for more RAM and hoping the computer will be useful for a decade. Look at the computing power difference between the M1 and the M4. And it hasn't even been five years yet.
I would save that 500 dollars for a future M6, M7 or even M8 Mac mini replacement in a five years. And who knows, maybe at some point the base RAM will increase to 24GB or even 32GB, we just don't know yet.
As others have said, however, this new 16GB baseline may or may not be enough for macOS, especially with "Apple Intelligence". If it can be completely disabled then it's different. And since RAM can't be upgraded later, going with 24GB may not be a foolish decision after all.
In Canada, the entry level M4 Mac mini with 16GB RAM is 800 dollars. Upgrading the RAM to 32GB adds another 500 dollars to the total. That's 62.5% of the base system cost for a simple 16GB RAM upgrade.
It may make more sense to always get the baseline model and upgrade every five years instead of paying for more RAM and hoping the computer will be useful for a decade. Look at the computing power difference between the M1 and the M4. And it hasn't even been five years yet.
I would save that 500 dollars for a future M6, M7 or even M8 Mac mini replacement in a five years. And who knows, maybe at some point the base RAM will increase to 24GB or even 32GB, we just don't know yet.
As others have said, however, this new 16GB baseline may or may not be enough for macOS, especially with "Apple Intelligence". If it can be completely disabled then it's different. And since RAM can't be upgraded later, going with 24GB may not be a foolish decision after all.
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