Mac Mini loaded vs Mac Studio

[phrehdd]

The Mac Studio seems like overkill for me and I am in theory the kind of user the Mini is made for. I don't really do graphical/video work at all. However, I have an M1 MacBook Air with 16/512 and I've actually been surprisingly unhappy with the memory ceiling. I use large annotated PDFs and have many open at a time, in addition to many Chrome tabs. I find I need to restart more often than I'd like, when memory pressure develops in the Activity Monitor. Since a souped-up Mini is over $1,000, I'm tempted to buy a base Studio, which gives me the 32GB/512 I'd like and then I'd have no worries about future-proofing. But is it just pointless overbuying? Anothe rpossibility is I wait for a new Mini in a few months.

You are correct, you could buy the Studio now or wait and see if a future Mini will offer a 32 gig RAM configuration or remain at 16 gigs.

As for me, I loved everything about the M1 Mini except for the RAM limitations. This is the first time I had to switch to another Mac just to get some peace of mind and less frustration. I got the Studio just for the additonal RAM. I opted also to get a larger drive. My results - not so much an issue now about that memory ceiling. The system for me is not any faster/snappier in general use than the Mini. It does do certain application tasks faster. I don't regret my decision to move up. If there was a Mini with 32 or 64 RAM, I would have remained with the Mini. On an aside, I do believe the Mini should be more than capable with 16 gigs of RAM and not having to swap out as much. The lack of memory management with the OS or certain apps is well...a bit ridiculous. I don't see this problem getting better any time soon. This reminds me of Windows years ago where "reboot" was an accepted solution in some instances and killing apps open when they interfered with other apps.

 

[trevpimp]

Mac Studio sounds good coming in at the 32GB RAM option

I don't think anything below 16GB will be efficient enough anyways in the coming future

(If I am going to upgrade)

 

[pshufd]

Mac Studio sounds good coming in at the 32GB RAM option

I don't think anything below 16GB will be efficient enough anyways in the coming future

(If I am going to upgrade)

It definitely depends on your workload. I could easily make a case for 64 GB and 32 GPU cores for my workload.

 

[GDF]

Mac Studio sounds good coming in at the 32GB RAM option

I don't think anything below 16GB will be efficient enough anyways in the coming future

(If I am going to upgrade)

Why? In the past you could easily run Macs with 8mb of memory? I still have a late 2012 27 iMac going strong with 8mb of memory, but upgraded SSD drive. Why would 16gb continue to do well for 10 years too? Time for me to upgrade though, since os can’t be upgraded anymore, at least officially.

 

[pshufd]

Why? In the past you could easily run Macs with 8mb of memory? I still have a late 2012 27 iMac going strong with 8mb of memory, but upgraded SSD drive. Why would 16gb continue to do well for 10 years too? Time for me to upgrade though, since os can’t be upgraded anymore, at least officially.

macOS does a lot for you these days and that eats up RAM.

Your application may do a lot more for you or you may be doing 4k video today instead of HD.

I've used systems with more than 1 TB of RAM - everyone has different use cases.

 

[hoodlum90]

I have actually heard that the Mac Studio fan is bothersome to some people who have gotten used to the silence of the Silicon MacBooks and Minis. Thoughts from anyone on that?

I have decided not to get the Studio for this main reason. The bigger problem is that there have been multiple reports of the fan getting noisier after a few months. At that point you can no longer return the Studio and Apple is just saying that the noise meets specs so you will not get it RMA’d.

I will just wait for the M2 Mini or M2 MacBook. Hopefully the M2 Mini Pro will be an option. At least I know they will be silent or have very little fan noise.

 

[Boil]

I don't think anything below 16GB will be efficient enough anyways in the coming future

Why? In the past you could easily run Macs with 8mb of memory? I still have a late 2012 27 iMac going strong with 8mb of memory, but upgraded SSD drive. Why would 16gb continue to do well for 10 years too? Time for me to upgrade though, since os can’t be upgraded anymore, at least officially.

And that 2012 iMac also has dedicated memory for the GPU, whereas with an Apple silicon Mac the RAM is shared by the entire SoC...

I will just wait for the M2 Mini or M2 MacBook. Hopefully the M2 Mini Pro will be an option. At least I know they will be silent or have very little fan noise.

A M2 Pro Mac mini will be perfect for a lot of folks looking for a bit more processing power & RAM, but not needing to bump up all the way to a base Mn Max Mac Studio...!

 

[GDF]

I have decided not to get the Studio for this main reason. The bigger problem is that there have been multiple reports of the fan getting noisier after a few months. At that point you can no longer return the Studio and Apple is just saying that the noise meets specs so you will not get it RMA’d.

I will just wait for the M2 Mini or M2 MacBook. Hopefully the M2 Mini Pro will be an option. At least I know they will be silent or have very little fan noise.

The good thing is if you want to try it now, it would qualify for the Holiday return policy - right?

 

[hoodlum90]

The good thing is if you want to try it now, it would qualify for the Holiday return policy - right?

Yes, but the noise can show up after 4 months.

 

[EugW]

I won't buy a Mac Studio at retail, as it's overkill for me. I looked at used Mac Studios on eBay, but the pricing from US sellers is too high, partially because it's priced higher at retail in the US than in Canada. (Yes we in Canada get a break on Apple's pricing once in a while.) Used Canadian units are few and far between, and the last one sold for 90% of edu retail, for a non-returnable item with potential for fan whine and only partial warranty, sold by someone with 0 feedback. People are nuts.

However, I found a good price on a used M1 Mac mini with 1 TB SSD and 16 GB RAM and bought that instead. 16 GB is likely fine for me, but the original plan was to wait for the 24 GB M2, since I would keep it a long time, and I am used to 24 GB RAM in my iMac. However, at CA$1100 / US$822 shipped, I was willing to compromise. The last Canadian used base Mac Studio I saw went for CA$2025 / US$1514 shipped, which is ridiculous since Apple sells them for CA$2249 / US$1681 edu/refurb. (Add CA$225 / US$168 for 1 TB storage.)

CA$2249 / US$1681 for a new base Mac Studio is an excellent value, but I don't need all that so the used Mac mini with more storage for less than half the price made sense. However, besides memory, the other big caveat is the lack of ports, so I also bought a Thunderbolt 4 / USB 4 hub. (For the Americans, that Plugable 5-in-1 Thunderbolt 4 Hub is US$135 for Cyber Monday and includes a 4K HDMI 2.0 dongle. Get them while they're hot.)

As always, it comes down to needs vs. price. My needs are light to moderate, so I went with the lower priced but less capable machine. For those wanting only to buy new and who have more computing needs, then the base Mac Studio makes a lot of sense, especially at Apple refurb or edu pricing.

 

[phrehdd]

I won't buy a Mac Studio at retail, as it's overkill for me. I looked at used Mac Studios on eBay, but the pricing from US sellers is too high, partially because it's priced higher at retail in the US than in Canada. (Yes we in Canada get a break on Apple's pricing once in a while.) Used Canadian units are few and far between, and the last one sold for 90% of edu retail, for a non-returnable item with potential for fan whine and only partial warranty, sold by someone with 0 feedback. People are nuts.

However, I found a good price on a used M1 Mac mini with 1 TB SSD and 16 GB RAM and bought that instead. 16 GB is likely fine for me, but the original plan was to wait for the 24 GB M2, since I would keep it a long time, and I am used to 24 GB RAM in my iMac. However, at CA$1100 / US$822 shipped, I was willing to compromise. The last Canadian used base Mac Studio I saw went for CA$2025 / US$1514 shipped, which is ridiculous since Apple sells them for CA$2249 / US$1681 edu/refurb. (Add CA$225 / US$168 for 1 TB storage.)

CA$2249 / US$1681 for a new base Mac Studio is an excellent value, but I don't need all that so the used Mac mini with more storage for less than half the price made sense. However, besides memory, the other big caveat is the lack of ports, so I also bought a Thunderbolt 4 / USB 4 hub. (For the Americans, that Plugable 5-in-1 Thunderbolt 4 Hub is US$135 for Cyber Monday and includes a 4K HDMI 2.0 dongle. Get them while they're hot.)

As always, it comes down to needs vs. price. My needs are light to moderate, so I went with the lower priced but less capable machine. For those wanting only to buy new and who have more computing needs, then the base Mac Studio makes a lot of sense, especially at Apple refurb or edu pricing.

I think the M1 Mini is a great device. What is not great is that Apple has not contended with the free for all where RAM is concerned. At present, I have just this page open and my Mem Diag tool read over 5 gigs of RAM used by Safari. I have had other pages open previously. The challenge (for some) is the real lack of memory management. 16 gigs of RAM should be plenty for typical use but alas, it often proves inadequate in the face of no way to timely flush out memory automatically or perhaps have tools to limit how apps use RAM. Given this challenge and no M1 Mini with greater than 16 gigs, I did make the move to the Studio and feel a bit taken. I can avoid the RAM issue and honestly, the system doesn't feel any snappier than the M1 Mini in most cases where my apps are concerned.

 

[EugW]

I think the M1 Mini is a great device. What is not great is that Apple has not contended with the free for all where RAM is concerned. At present, I have just this page open and my Mem Diag tool read over 5 gigs of RAM used by Safari. I have had other pages open previously. The challenge (for some) is the real lack of memory management. 16 gigs of RAM should be plenty for typical use but alas, it often proves inadequate in the face of no way to timely flush out memory automatically or perhaps have tools to limit how apps use RAM. Given this challenge and no M1 Mini with greater than 16 gigs, I did make the move to the Studio and feel a bit taken. I can avoid the RAM issue and honestly, the system doesn't feel any snappier than the M1 Mini in most cases where my apps are concerned.

Sometimes, if the app is misbehaving, even 32 GB won't be enough, even for a consumer app. This is Photos on my 24 GB iMac, >100 GB RAM used, with >70 GB swap. 🤯

It seems like a memory leak though. It happened when I tried to export all my Photos originals. IMO, this shouldn't happen, since there isn't actually any photo processing going on. All I wanted Photos to do was to copy all the original Photos from its database to an external directory. Interestingly though, memory pressure was only yellow. 🤨

 

[Boil]

I think the M1 Mini is a great device. What is not great is that Apple has not contended with the free for all where RAM is concerned. At present, I have just this page open and my Mem Diag tool read over 5 gigs of RAM used by Safari. I have had other pages open previously. The challenge (for some) is the real lack of memory management. 16 gigs of RAM should be plenty for typical use but alas, it often proves inadequate in the face of no way to timely flush out memory automatically or perhaps have tools to limit how apps use RAM. Given this challenge and no M1 Mini with greater than 16 gigs, I did make the move to the Studio and feel a bit taken. I can avoid the RAM issue and honestly, the system doesn't feel any snappier than the M1 Mini in most cases where my apps are concerned.

If mostly single core activity, then all the M1 family of SoCs would perform equally, since they all have the same CPU cores clocked at the same speeds...

Move to multicore CPU work, or GPU work, or anything that can take advantage of the increased UMA bandwidth; then the Mac Studio is the better option...

 

[HDFan]

have actually heard that the Mac Studio fan is bothersome to some people who have gotten used to the silence of the Silicon MacBooks and Minis. Thoughts from anyone on that?

I have decided not to get the Studio for this main reason. The bigger problem is that there have been multiple reports of the fan getting noisier after a few months. At that point you can no longer return the Studio and Apple is just saying that the noise meets specs so you will not get it RMA’d.

Have never heard the fan on my Studio Ultra and I've had it over 4 months. Frequently max CPU and GPU. Have a lot of other fan noise though which might mask it.

 

[phrehdd]

Have never heard the fan on my Studio Ultra and I've had it over 4 months. Frequently max CPU and GPU. Have a lot of other fan noise though which might mask it.

I have had no real issue with the Studio save for some previously noted items likely related to OS.

 

[ecdh]

Well I'm glad I waited because the new Minis basically fill the exact hole I was looking to fill, between the Mini and the Studio. I was almost willing to buy the M1 Mini with 16gb of memory but didn't like that the dual display support was wonky -- only one could be Thuderbolt, the other HDMI. Now you can have dual Thunderbolt displays even with the M2 base model, and the M2 Pro is a near-Studio level machine for somewhat less. And the fact that's a more compact form actually counts for something for me, because I want to mount the Mini on the back of my monitor. Lots of third party and Etsy solutions for this. I use monitor arms so that I can have the desk space under the display(s), so it's a shame to then need to occupy that space with a computer.