Should I get 48GB RAM?

[GooseInTheCaboose]

I want to get a Mac Mini M4Pro. I'm unsure if I should get 24 or 48GB RAM.

Right now I use a MacBook Air (24GB RAM, extra GPUs) and am generally happy, but I wish that I could flip between previews/images in Lightroom at instantaneous speeds (I have to wait a little under a second) so I can check if my subjects are in focus etc very quickly rather than waiting for it to load. There is an ever so slight delay with this process even for the files in Finder when previewing them and it gets annoying when going through thousands of images.

My REAL concern is with video editing. I have a lot of 5k footage from my drone. Generally the videos are under 3 minutes long, but the performance scrubbing/scrolling through the video by moving the slider with my mouse leaves something to be desired, it can be just a little choppier than I'd like and that makes it hard for me to identify that 1-2 second period in the video where there is that AMAZING moment I want to edit, make into slow motion etc.

I want to clear up these issues by getting the Mac Mini.

When editing on my Air I have yet to actually saturate my 24GBs but I haven't tested it a whole lot. I like to just leave my apps open as I have many unfinished things.

Photography is my hobby but I also have a lot of files open for my work/studies (research), including some fairly big spreadsheets (100mb) and some verrrry large PDFs that are (rarely) up to 1gb, quite a few 50 or 100mb.

I want to be able to scroll through stuff instantaneously to get to the important information easily.

I'm unsure if the slowdowns I am experiencing will be resolved by just getting the base M4Pro Mac Mini, or if I should upgrade the RAM too.

So far my RAM on my MBA has gone into yellow (I think the max I hit was 21 or 22GB but AFAIK I have not gone over 24GB in my uses, yet (tho I have not been watching Activity Monitor super closely so it is possible it happened when I wasn't looking)

What should I get? M4Pro Base 24GB or add on 48GB?

I know 48 is better but I don't want to buy specs that will never be used.

 

[briloronmacrumo]

For me the answer is to measure current memory usage. Activity Monitor helps a little but most useful is iStat Menus. I put iStat Menu's memory task in my menu bar and it instantly shows not only current memory usage but usage for the past 24 hours and past 7 days. Even running Xcode builds and several other apps, my high water memory usage runs between 6% and 9% of total memory on my M2Pro Mac Mini with 32GB Ram. Having the menu app allows me to easily check memory usage. It also shows other key points like how much swap space is used; since swap space usage indicates your machine needed to go beyond installed Ram, it is a good metric to evaluate.

Of course, memory usage is only one factor of a mac purchase. Sometimes you want room to grow because apps and macOS tend to get bigger and require more speed and memory. My thought is to wait for a M4 Mac Studio but my needs go beyond memory usage. HTH.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

OP, you can’t exceed RAM you don’t have. Your description reads like you do need the upgrade. Remember, with modern Mac, you are not speccing for now but for life of device. If you are touching RAM limits in 2024, what will you be needing in 2027 and 2030 from this new one? High-res video editing would clearly benefit from abundant RAM.

Your description also reads like you actually need Mac Studio or MBpro. New Studio is probably only 3-4 months away. M4 PRO or MAX MBpro available now.

 

[PaulD-UK]

@GooseInTheCaboose " I have a lot of 5k footage from my drone. Generally the videos are under 3 minutes long, but the performance scrubbing/scrolling through the video by moving the slider with my mouse leaves something to be desired, it can be just a little choppier than I'd like and that makes it hard for me to identify that 1-2 second period in the video where there is that AMAZING moment I want to edit..."

If the drone video is still on the SD card from the drone, this is likely to be the main source of your problem...
It needs to be transferred to fast storage.

If you only have 3 minutes of video, then nothing about the playback performance relates to the amount of RAM.

The problem is entirely down to the highly compressed (codec) format that the drone is recording your video, and the complexity of decompressing the footage to make it viewable.
This is a CPU single thread speed problem.

To expect immediate fast-scrubbing through hundreds of frames of the footage to find an edit point is to expect this decompression to have happened extremely rapidly. This is a computer CPU speed problem.

Editing software like Final Cut Pro will enable the rendering process to convert the video into an easily decompressed format so that in the editing project you can scrub easily frame-by-frame with instantaneous viewability, and it's that rendering process that takes up RAM to store the render files.
But the amount of RAM available is only a limitation if you are working on much longer videos than a few minutes.

However, (as said above) if the drone video is still on the SD card the best solution to that is to copy the whole SD card onto the SSD in you Mac before you work on it in FCP.
And keep your current Project storage in your User folder, as this is the fastest storage available.

So the limiting factor is going to be the amount of SSD space you have on a new M4 Pro Mac.
Get enough to cope.
A 1TB+ M4 Pro has a faster SSD, so is better.

Once you have finished each project you can offload all the files onto an external SSD (+external backup) so you don't fill your Mac's SSD storage up with old edits.

My take on your problem is that more RAM than 24GB isn't likely to be essential unless you start doing much longer format video editing. More will then help.
A Mac Studio won't be of huge benefit unless you start trying to produce videos on a fast turnaround to a deadline.

 

[GooseInTheCaboose]

@GooseInTheCaboose " I have a lot of 5k footage from my drone. Generally the videos are under 3 minutes long, but the performance scrubbing/scrolling through the video by moving the slider with my mouse leaves something to be desired, it can be just a little choppier than I'd like and that makes it hard for me to identify that 1-2 second period in the video where there is that AMAZING moment I want to edit..."

If the drone video is still on the SD card from the drone, this is likely to be the main source of your problem...
It needs to be transferred to fast storage.

If you only have 3 minutes of video, then nothing about the playback performance relates to the amount of RAM.

The problem is entirely down to the highly compressed (codec) format that the drone is recording your video, and the complexity of decompressing the footage to make it viewable.
This is a CPU single thread speed problem.

To expect immediate fast-scrubbing through hundreds of frames of the footage to find an edit point is to expect this decompression to have happened extremely rapidly. This is a computer CPU speed problem.

Editing software like Final Cut Pro will enable the rendering process to convert the video into an easily decompressed format so that in the editing project you can scrub easily frame-by-frame with instantaneous viewability, and it's that rendering process that takes up RAM to store the render files.
But the amount of RAM available is only a limitation if you are working on much longer videos than a few minutes.

However, (as said above) if the drone video is still on the SD card the best solution to that is to copy the whole SD card onto the SSD in you Mac before you work on it in FCP.
And keep your current Project storage in your User folder, as this is the fastest storage available.

So the limiting factor is going to be the amount of SSD space you have on a new M4 Pro Mac.
Get enough to cope.
A 1TB+ M4 Pro has a faster SSD, so is better.

Once you have finished each project you can offload all the files onto an external SSD (+external backup) so you don't fill your Mac's SSD storage up with old edits.

My take on your problem is that more RAM than 24GB isn't likely to be essential unless you start doing much longer format video editing. More will then help.
A Mac Studio won't be of huge benefit unless you start trying to produce videos on a fast turnaround to a deadline.

Thanks for this indepth perspective. So it sounds like the processor is my bottleneck?

That makes sense...i did some experiments today. Currently my library is mostly on icloud, which presents delays of its own. When I work on videos or photos however theyre downloaded to the mac.

I created a smaller test library on my macbook air's internal SSD and noticed that even when quickly flipping though photos (not even videos) there is a ~1 second lag to wait for the fine detail of the photo to appear, in the photos app. Most of the photo's general details are initially visible instantaneously but the fine detail takes this brief extra second to load, even when the whole library is on my internal ssd (m3 mba 512gb 24gb ram).


Maybe this lag will go away with the m4pro mac mini because of the processor alone?

Also: When I edit video in Final Cut Pro and scrub/scroll through the video with the mouse, on my MBA that is where I actually see the worst delays/choppiness. Scrubbing/scrolling through a video in finder etc is satisfactory but maybe the processor is not adequate for doing this smoothly in FCP.

I would appreciate if the 48gb is not necessary. One worry I have is: I am already getting into yellow ram utilization on activity monitor at ~22gb used at once when I start editing video.

I wonder, if the processor is moving quicker, will it move more stuff into RAM faster, thereby saturating the RAM? Another way to ask this is: is my current MBA, with its slower processor, giving me an underestimate of the RAM I would actually need if I were using a faster machine?

Or does it work exactly the opposite way and actually the M4Pro should in fact *reduce* the amount of RAM I need compared to my MBA because it is so fast that it will clear the stuff out of the RAM, whereas on my MBA stuff accumulates in RAM because the processor is slow??

Hmm now im confused

 

[ISignedUpToAskThis]

If you're using FCP, I've read/watched a few tests now that suggest the M4 Pro is so efficient with memory that 24GB ram is more than enough in most cases - but instead to buy the 20 core GPU. One guy compared a Mac Studio (M2 Max, 38 core GPU, 64GB ram) and a mac mini M4 Pro (16 core GPU, 24GB ram) and the M4 Pro outperformed the Studio in almost every area apart from rendering speed, which was down to the additional GPU cores. None of the tasks he performed used anywhere near the capacities of the 24GB or 64GB ram of both macs.

This only applies to FCP though.

This article in particular goes into detail:

Configure an M4 Mac for Video Editing | Larry Jordan

 

[smirking]

I would appreciate if the 48gb is not necessary. One worry I have is: I am already getting into yellow ram utilization on activity monitor at 22gb or so used at once.

The color of your RAM chart is one of the most misinterpreted measures on this site. MacOS tends to be greedy with available memory. Unused RAM is wasted RAM so it will claim it even when it doesn't need it. I got stuck on an 8GB M1 for a couple of weeks once and it never left the yellow and was sometimes running in the red. Even still, there were very seldom any signs that it wasn't able to keep up.

The color of your RAM chart only matters if it affects your performance. MacOS's swap utilization on Silicon Macs is amazingly efficient.

 

[waloshin]

I want to get a Mac Mini M4Pro. I'm unsure if I should get 24 or 48GB RAM.

Right now I use a MacBook Air (24GB RAM, extra GPUs) and am generally happy, but I wish that I could flip between previews/images in Lightroom at instantaneous speeds (I have to wait a little under a second) so I can check if my subjects are in focus etc very quickly rather than waiting for it to load. There is an ever so slight delay with this process even for the files in Finder when previewing them and it gets annoying when going through thousands of images.

My REAL concern is with video editing. I have a lot of 5k footage from my drone. Generally the videos are under 3 minutes long, but the performance scrubbing/scrolling through the video by moving the slider with my mouse leaves something to be desired, it can be just a little choppier than I'd like and that makes it hard for me to identify that 1-2 second period in the video where there is that AMAZING moment I want to edit, make into slow motion etc.

I want to clear up these issues by getting the Mac Mini.

When editing on my Air I have yet to actually saturate my 24GBs but I haven't tested it a whole lot. I like to just leave my apps open as I have many unfinished things.

Photography is my hobby but I also have a lot of files open for my work/studies (research), including some fairly big spreadsheets (100mb) and some verrrry large PDFs that are (rarely) up to 1gb, quite a few 50 or 100mb.

I want to be able to scroll through stuff instantaneously to get to the important information easily.

I'm unsure if the slowdowns I am experiencing will be resolved by just getting the base M4Pro Mac Mini, or if I should upgrade the RAM too.

So far my RAM on my MBA has gone into yellow (I think the max I hit was 21 or 22GB but AFAIK I have not gone over 24GB in my uses, yet (tho I have not been watching Activity Monitor super closely so it is possible it happened when I wasn't looking)

What should I get? M4Pro Base 24GB or add on 48GB?

I know 48 is better but I don't want to buy specs that will never be used.

No you do not need 24 gigabytes and I doubt you even need a M4 Pro…

 

[PaulD-UK]

@GooseInTheCaboose "So it sounds like the processor is my bottleneck?"

No. The M4 CPUs are about as fast as it gets at the moment.
The problem is that your 5K drone footage is probably isn't recorded with a codec (file compression format) that is compatible with the hardware Video encode/decode engines in Apple's M series chips.

The solution to this is to convert your drone footage to a format that is compatible.
Apple call this format 'optimised':

Create optimized and proxy files in Final Cut Pro for Mac

In Final Cut Pro for Mac, create optimized and proxy versions of your media files to increase editing performance and conserve storage space.

support.apple.com

 

[GooseInTheCaboose]

@GooseInTheCaboose "So it sounds like the processor is my bottleneck?"

No. The M4 CPUs are about as fast as it gets at the moment.
The problem is that your 5K drone footage is probably isn't recorded with a codec (file compression format) that is compatible with the hardware Video encode/decode engines in Apple's M series chips.

The solution to this is to convert your drone footage to a format that is compatible.
Apple call this format 'optimised':

Create optimized and proxy files in Final Cut Pro for Mac

In Final Cut Pro for Mac, create optimized and proxy versions of your media files to increase editing performance and conserve storage space.

support.apple.com

Ah, thats possible. the videos are primarily DLOG from a DJI Air 2S.

I do encounter maybe a 1 second lagtime when flipping through photos to reveal their fine detail. Do you think this would disappear with the new M4Pro?

So basically, I would likely be OK with 24GB?

 

[PaulD-UK]

@GooseInTheCaboose
Photos are another matter.
Taken with what camera?
Apple tends to support the formats that the iPhone uses.
Other camera manufacturers may use file formats that need supporting software to handle them.
Too many unknowns to give an answer...

 

[Fishrrman]

From your use case above, sounds like you might actually NEED more than 24gb of RAM.

Simple answer:
If you can afford the extra $$ for the 48gb of RAM, then GET it.

Fearless, fearless prediction:
If you do this, you won't ever regret having done so.

 

[rezwits]

I was thinking this was contemplation over 48 or 64! Which I went thru I went with 64! But if you are debating 24 or 48, I would definitely go with 48!

2¢

 

[MacCheetah3]

So far my RAM on my MBA has gone into yellow (I think the max I hit was 21 or 22GB but AFAIK I have not gone over 24GB in my uses, yet (tho I have not been watching Activity Monitor super closely so it is possible it happened when I wasn't looking)

The Memory Pressure graph lets you know if your computer is using memory efficiently.

• Green memory pressure: Your computer is using all its RAM efficiently.
• Yellow memory pressure: Your computer might eventually need more RAM.
• Red memory pressure: Your computer needs more RAM.

If memory pressure is yellow, red, or has spikes, check to see if an app is using up memory and causing the memory pressure to increase. If you no longer need to have the app running, you should quit the app.

Your computer’s memory pressure is accurately measured by examining the amount of free memory available, the swap rate, and the amount of wired and file cached memory to determine if your computer is using RAM efficiently.

Check if your Mac needs more RAM in Activity Monitor

Use Activity Monitor on your Mac to see if memory is being used efficiently and if you need more memory (RAM).

support.apple.com

My REAL concern is with video editing. I have a lot of 5k footage from my drone. Generally the videos are under 3 minutes long, but the performance scrubbing/scrolling through the video by moving the slider with my mouse leaves something to be desired, it can be just a little choppier than I'd like and that makes it hard for me to identify that 1-2 second period in the video where there is that AMAZING moment I want to edit, make into slow motion etc.

I don’t know how much it will help but I did a simple, brief test. I found some DJI Air 2S sample footage on YouTube — the creator allows and provides free download, imported it to FCPX, added a variety of transition effects between the clips as well as a couple of music files.

Here is with background rendering off — and, yes, it makes a noticeable difference; for example, pay attention to the initial transition effect's choppiness.

The content is shorter because I didn’t want huge files, not sure how well they’d cooperate being uploaded to the forum.

* Obviously, I was screen recording while demoing. Additionally, I use FCP in a secondary account on my Mac — in other words, system resources were spread over multiple accounts.

 

[Papanate]

I want to get a Mac Mini M4Pro. I'm unsure if I should get 24 or 48GB RAM.

Right now I use a MacBook Air (24GB RAM, extra GPUs) and am generally happy, but I wish that I could flip between previews/images in Lightroom at instantaneous speeds (I have to wait a little under a second) so I can check if my subjects are in focus etc very quickly rather than waiting for it to load. There is an ever so slight delay with this process even for the files in Finder when previewing them and it gets annoying when going through thousands of images.

My REAL concern is with video editing. I have a lot of 5k footage from my drone. Generally the videos are under 3 minutes long, but the performance scrubbing/scrolling through the video by moving the slider with my mouse leaves something to be desired, it can be just a little choppier than I'd like and that makes it hard for me to identify that 1-2 second period in the video where there is that AMAZING moment I want to edit, make into slow motion etc.

I want to clear up these issues by getting the Mac Mini.

When editing on my Air I have yet to actually saturate my 24GBs but I haven't tested it a whole lot. I like to just leave my apps open as I have many unfinished things.

Photography is my hobby but I also have a lot of files open for my work/studies (research), including some fairly big spreadsheets (100mb) and some verrrry large PDFs that are (rarely) up to 1gb, quite a few 50 or 100mb.

I want to be able to scroll through stuff instantaneously to get to the important information easily.

I'm unsure if the slowdowns I am experiencing will be resolved by just getting the base M4Pro Mac Mini, or if I should upgrade the RAM too.

So far my RAM on my MBA has gone into yellow (I think the max I hit was 21 or 22GB but AFAIK I have not gone over 24GB in my uses, yet (tho I have not been watching Activity Monitor super closely so it is possible it happened when I wasn't looking)

What should I get? M4Pro Base 24GB or add on 48GB?

I know 48 is better but I don't want to buy specs that will never be used.

Yes.

 

[zedsdead]

I think you would benefit from 48gb.

 

[Populus]

Check if your Mac needs more RAM in Activity Monitor

Use Activity Monitor on your Mac to see if memory is being used efficiently and if you need more memory (RAM).

support.apple.com

I don’t know how much it will help but I did a simple, brief test. I found some DJI Air 2S sample footage on YouTube — the creator allows and provides free download, imported it to FCPX, added a variety of transition effects between the clips as well as a couple of music files.

View attachment 2467231

Here is with background rendering off — and, yes, it makes a noticeable difference; for example, pay attention to the initial transition effect's choppiness.

View attachment 2467234

The content is shorter because I didn’t want huge files, not sure how well they’d cooperate being uploaded to the forum.

* Obviously, I was screen recording while demoing. Additionally, I use FCP in a secondary account on my Mac — in other words, system resources were spread over multiple accounts.

I have a short, very simple question. When you’re working on a video editing software and you see that choppiness on the preview, with a really low fps, is the actual result, the edited video, affected? Or it will just be rendered fine (although it may take longer)?

 

[GooseInTheCaboose]

I have a short, very simple question. When you’re working on a video editing software and you see that choppiness on the preview, with a really low fps, is the actual result, the edited video, affected? Or it will just be rendered fine (although it may take longer)?

eh as far as i kno the result is not affected, it is just an inconvenience, makes the editing process more difficult. I had an experience where i crashed during FCP editing but that hasnt happened again after i restarted

 

[MacCheetah3]

I have a short, very simple question. When you’re working on a video editing software and you see that choppiness on the preview, with a really low fps, is the actual result, the edited video, affected? Or it will just be rendered fine (although it may take longer)?

eh as far as i kno the result is not affected, it is just an inconvenience, makes the editing process more difficult. I had an experience where i crashed during FCP editing but that hasnt happened again after i restarted

Indeed, it shouldn’t be. Again, as can be seen in the two versions, when you allow FCP to 'pre-render’ (i.e., background render), it already helps greatly. Even background render doesn’t process everything. The export process will do a final, full render of every layer in the project.

 

[Populus]

Thank you! I’ve already decided I’m sticking to the M4 Pro 24GB model. Now I’m pondering if I pay for the upgrade to the 20 core GPU.

 

[CalMin]

Thank you! I’ve already decided I’m sticking to the M4 Pro 24GB model. Now I’m pondering if I pay for the upgrade to the 20 core GPU.

You don't need 48GB RAM or a 20 Core GPU based on your stated use case above. That said, MacOS and your apps will utilize them if available. Whether or not that will make a material difference to your life can only be determined by you.

If you have the money and it won't cause hardship then just spend it, otherwise you will always wonder. I wanted an M4 mini and while my needs were well served with the base model, I jumped up to M4Pro because, why not and it will help me when I move my main laptop from an M1 Pro to the M4 Air when it comes out (i.e. I keep a 'Pro' CPU in the family). Most of the time, the M4Pro is going to be doing work that an M4 can crush - even Multicam 4K editing that I used to do on an M2 Air.

Life is short. Debating these options is fun, but don't overthink it. Get your Mac mini M4 Pro and start enjoying it. They are amazing!