For the price of the base mac mini most can afford to upgrade more often. You really dont need to keep it 7 years if the hardware doesnt keep up with the software demands.
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Six months later - how does everyone feel about 16GB of RAM on the base M4 Mac Mini?
- Thread starter Ishimura
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For the price of the base mac mini most can afford to upgrade more often. You really dont need to keep it 7 years if the hardware doesnt keep up with the software demands.
My opinion, and I say this without any malice ... since you will not buy from Apple, that leaves you with pretty much a non-custom, stock item. Thus, regardless of any advice given here, you have two choices based on that 16 GB memory. Find a discounted base, $USD 599 with 256GB storage, or find a discounted $USD 799 with 512GB storage.
As it appears, for you, this is more about the cost and not the capability.
Ishimura… most people in this thread have been telling you that 16GB of RAM should be fine. But it’s clear that you are beating yourself up over this - and have been (as you say) for months. That being the case, just buy an M4 Mini with 24GB of RAM and be happy. The upgrade isn’t that expensive - not like going to an M4 Pro chip and 32GB of RAM. Besides… we both know that if you opt for 16GB, you’ll be worried about it every day of your ownership.
This is good advice unless you’re planning to keep it for a long time. Then it would probably be a good idea to upgrade the RAM
I had 16GB on my M1 and went with 24GB on my M4. Ultimately the more memory you have the more you'll use, and it can be hard to identify the correct "base" amount. I do plan on using Apple Intelligence when it's ready so for me I prefer the extra headroom of the 24GB.
Heaviest stuff I have thrown at it so far, 20-tabs browser, SMOOTH, no problemo.
I hear Apple Intelligence will require 16G, hence.
I hear Apple Intelligence will require 16G, hence.
How much memory you need really depends on your workflow, but I don’t buy into the “if you need more, you’ll know” argument. Needs change, and it’s helpful to understand what different workloads actually require.
For many users, 16GB of RAM on an Apple Silicon Mac will be more than enough for the next several years-especially if you’re focused on office productivity, web browsing (even with lots of Chrome tabs), email, messaging, calendar apps, light photo editing, occasional light video editing, media consumption, and basic coding. macOS and most mainstream apps are highly optimised, so 16GB remains a safe baseline for these tasks.
My own experience backs this up. At home, my MacBook Air M2 with 16GB RAM and a 512GB SSD handles my workflow easily:
I run Capture One with 150MP files, edit 1GB+ TIFFs, do light DaVinci Resolve work, code with NodeJS and React, and keep several browser tabs, Obsidian, Claude/Perplexity, and VS Code open-all while pushing to a 4K monitor and using Sidecar with an iPad Pro. I haven’t even checked the memory pressure.
But as needs evolve, so do hardware requirements. I’d want 32GB if I started running local AI models, and for machine learning on sensitive data, I’d want as much RAM as possible.
At work, my MacBook Pro M4 Pro with 32GB RAM suddenly became under-specced as I began stitching together dozens of 1GB TIFFs for a project. I now expect to scale up to hundreds or thousands of these high end medium format files, and I’m waiting to see what the Mac Pro announcement brings, to see if we need to look into a new procurement to handle the need.
In short: 16GB is great for most users, but as soon as your ambitions or workflows grow—especially with creative, AI, or data-heavy project—more memory quickly becomes essential.
Since it’s not always evident how much is enough, I have provided some use cases below:
RAM Use Cases
Low Demand Needs (16–24GB RAM)
• General office work, web browsing, email, and light coding
• Photo editing (non-commercial: Even handling thousands of modern RAW files), basic video editing (4K), and using cloud-based AI tools
• Running standard productivity apps and managing moderate multitasking
Medium Demand Needs (32GB RAM)
• Software development with Docker containers or light virtual machines
• Handling large documents, extensive spreadsheets, or multitasking with many browser tabs
• Working with mid-sized datasets in engineering or business analytics
• Running multiple creative apps simultaneously (e.g., Photoshop, Illustrator, and a browser)
High Demand Needs (64GB+ RAM)
• On-set media production and high-resolution video editing (4K/8K, ProRes workflows)
• 3D modeling, rendering, and animation in engineering, architecture, or game development
• Local AI/ML model experimentation and data science workflows
• High-end color grading and compositing for film/TVC
• Large-scale music production with extensive sample libraries and plugins
• Running several VMs for enterprise software testing, cybersecurity, or network simulation
Extreme Demand (96GB–128GB+ RAM)
• Scientific computing, simulations, and engineering analysis (e.g., finite element analysis, computational fluid dynamics)
• Big data analytics, running local databases, or managing large-scale datasets
• Machine learning research, training large models, or running local LLMs
• Corporate environments with heavy multitasking, multiple VMs, and resource-intensive enterprise tools
For many users, 16GB of RAM on an Apple Silicon Mac will be more than enough for the next several years-especially if you’re focused on office productivity, web browsing (even with lots of Chrome tabs), email, messaging, calendar apps, light photo editing, occasional light video editing, media consumption, and basic coding. macOS and most mainstream apps are highly optimised, so 16GB remains a safe baseline for these tasks.
My own experience backs this up. At home, my MacBook Air M2 with 16GB RAM and a 512GB SSD handles my workflow easily:
I run Capture One with 150MP files, edit 1GB+ TIFFs, do light DaVinci Resolve work, code with NodeJS and React, and keep several browser tabs, Obsidian, Claude/Perplexity, and VS Code open-all while pushing to a 4K monitor and using Sidecar with an iPad Pro. I haven’t even checked the memory pressure.
But as needs evolve, so do hardware requirements. I’d want 32GB if I started running local AI models, and for machine learning on sensitive data, I’d want as much RAM as possible.
At work, my MacBook Pro M4 Pro with 32GB RAM suddenly became under-specced as I began stitching together dozens of 1GB TIFFs for a project. I now expect to scale up to hundreds or thousands of these high end medium format files, and I’m waiting to see what the Mac Pro announcement brings, to see if we need to look into a new procurement to handle the need.
In short: 16GB is great for most users, but as soon as your ambitions or workflows grow—especially with creative, AI, or data-heavy project—more memory quickly becomes essential.
Since it’s not always evident how much is enough, I have provided some use cases below:
RAM Use Cases
Low Demand Needs (16–24GB RAM)
• General office work, web browsing, email, and light coding
• Photo editing (non-commercial: Even handling thousands of modern RAW files), basic video editing (4K), and using cloud-based AI tools
• Running standard productivity apps and managing moderate multitasking
Medium Demand Needs (32GB RAM)
• Software development with Docker containers or light virtual machines
• Handling large documents, extensive spreadsheets, or multitasking with many browser tabs
• Working with mid-sized datasets in engineering or business analytics
• Running multiple creative apps simultaneously (e.g., Photoshop, Illustrator, and a browser)
High Demand Needs (64GB+ RAM)
• On-set media production and high-resolution video editing (4K/8K, ProRes workflows)
• 3D modeling, rendering, and animation in engineering, architecture, or game development
• Local AI/ML model experimentation and data science workflows
• High-end color grading and compositing for film/TVC
• Large-scale music production with extensive sample libraries and plugins
• Running several VMs for enterprise software testing, cybersecurity, or network simulation
Extreme Demand (96GB–128GB+ RAM)
• Scientific computing, simulations, and engineering analysis (e.g., finite element analysis, computational fluid dynamics)
• Big data analytics, running local databases, or managing large-scale datasets
• Machine learning research, training large models, or running local LLMs
• Corporate environments with heavy multitasking, multiple VMs, and resource-intensive enterprise tools
That's pretty good, considering that system from Apple Refurb is going for $1,189 currently! Well done!
I suspect individual personality feeds into this issue, as well as 'doing the math' considerations like efficiency, performance, etc...
To that end, here is a question to ponder to get a sense of where you stand...
If you had a choice between buying a new $1,000 Mac every 3.5 years, or a new $2,000 Mac every 7 years, which would you choose?
My question factors in aiming to keep within the time window for getting security updates and new OS version compatibility. I figured many people would pick a base with 24 gig RAM and 512 gig SSD or similar, so not necessarily the minimum available, but if you want to substitute $600 and $1,200 or whatever, okay.
I'm not arguing which is 'right.' I'm asking which aligns with your personality. It might have a bearing on whether 24 gig is preferable to 16.
Instead of thinking about some "that 'one app.' that demands more" think about how many apps one uses at once (which may include that 'one app.' that demands more). Do you close Mail every time you open Photos? etc. Smooth movement among multiple apps is a key benefit of additional RAM. And many apps will be increasingly using AI integral to their operation, with concomitant demands on RAM.
Plus of course apps/OS are looking to use more RAM every year. All those folks who talk constantly about what they ran yesterday need to realize one buys a new box only for tomorrow. It is not "future proofing" that so many here disdain, it is planning a computer to fit its actual life cycle starting at some future date rather than what some user did in 2023 with his 8 GB RAM machine.
You ask
"If you had a choice between buying a new $1,000 Mac every 3.5 years, or a new $2,000 Mac every 7 years, which would you choose?"
The way I look at that is: Do you want a cheap tool new every 3.5 years or a top-of-the-line tool new every 7 years? For me the answer is easy and unequivocal. I prefer using better tools.
16 GB RAM is 8 GB RAM too much, according to all the Apple sycophants, IIRC.
3) What you're actually, physically getting for your $200 - which is just 8GB of LPDDR5x RAM probably "worth" about $50. Apple are kinda taking advantage of the fact that it's hard to get a comparison "retail" price for LPDDR5x RAM becauae it's only really available as wholesale surface mount, but about a year ago, Crucial were offering 32GB LPCAMM modules (containing 2-4 LPDDR5x chips) for $180 retail (the format seems to have died a death) - which (since it was a shiny new format only used in a couple of Lenovo models) is probably an over estimate of the retail cost of LPDDR5x. So - at best - Apple are selling RAM at 4 times normal retail (which is consistent with what they used to charge for regular DDR SODIMMs - but back then we had the choice of DIY upgrades).
Ultimately - that's the price of buying a Mac - you won't save money by choosing a different Mac so it comes down to whether you're prepared to switch to a PC (Windows isn't doing a lot to sell itself at the moment, but there's always Linux - personally, for many of the things I might get a mini PC for would work fine with Linux). The Mac Mini is very attractive c.f. the current crop of Mini PCs until you get to the elephant in the room of RAM and SSD expansion - when most of the competing PCs turn out to either come with 32GB RAM and 1TB SSD as standard or can be upgraded for a fraction of the price of Mac upgrades.
Long term I think Apple are harming themselves - I find that any discussion with PC users about the virtues of Mac comes to a shuddering halt when the cost/low base specs of RAM and SSD come up. Yes, Apple have always been expensive (and charged over the odds for upgrades) but the disparity between base RAM and SSD specs and base CPU and GPU power (both of which allow the computer to crunch more data faster, using more RAM and storage) has been growing over the years... Over the last decade or so, the computing power offered by a base Mac has probably quadrupled, 4k/220ppi displays have become mainstream (quadrupling the size of images, videos, framebuffers) while Apple have only just doubled the base RAM from 8 to 16GB.
Just leaving this here:
Sam Vimes ‘Boots’ Theory of Socio-Economic Unfairness | Terry Pratchett
Perhaps one of the most popular quotes from the Discworld series is Sam Vimes’s ‘Boots’ Theory of Socio-economic Unfairness, propounded in Men at Arms: The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. He earned...
terrypratchett.com
"you probably won't notice any difference unless you're fixated at staring at activity monitor all day & think that anything that isn't green is bad." No truer words have ever been said for the majority of computer users. Most are not doing the Federeighi shuffle from apple app to apple app.
Actually, I’d prefer to worry about it now before I buy the machine because I can’t upgrade it later.
Do you not understand that?
Thanks for your reply.
Can I ask about your usage in the situations where you eventually need to force quit apps?
What sort of apps are you running, how many apps? That sort of thing. That insight would be very useful.
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Of course I understand what the obvious choice is here, but the issue is that I am trying to balance competing concerns. Performance/capability against value/cost.
If 24GB is truly unnecessary then I don’t want to ‘waste’ the additional money it costs to get it.
Again, all of this is only occurring because Apple makes their upgrades prohibitively expensive to the point where you feel you’ll be wasting your money opting for any of them. In fact, you worry that you’re just allowing yourself to be get ripped-off.
It’s less about overall cost for me than it is about the value of what I spend. I wouldn’t stress at all about spending £999 on this if that got me 2-4TB of SSD storage and 32GB of RAM compared to 24/512. I would push the overall spend higher if that higher spend represented decent value.
To your point I would not be ‘happy’ paying a whopping £999 RRP for an M4 Mini with 24/512 because it is almost universally agreed that at that price the value proposition of the M4 Mini is destroyed by the upgrades. You’re getting taken for a ride.
Would I be happy with that spec for £800? Yes.
Also, hard disagree that the upgrade isn’t expensive. It’s $200 for 8GB of RAM.
That is expensive (understatement), there’s just no way around that. It’s, what, over four times the market rate at least?
If the 8GB additional RAM were $50 or $100, I wouldn’t even be thinking about it. But there’s only so much price-gouging one can accept, regardless of the ‘Apple premium’.
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Did no one read what I posted in reply 40 above?
With REAL numbers?
At least tell me where I'm wrong.
With REAL numbers?
At least tell me where I'm wrong.
Very good post, the effort here is appreciated.
I am definitely in the Low Demand Needs category, I’m very clear on that.
It’s also pretty clear that 16GB would probably be enough for me (most of the time), for now. But would it be the in the years ahead?
I want to be able to run plenty of normal light applications simultaneously and not worry about quitting stuff. If I get this Mac and I need to start managing how many apps I have open I’ll be very annoyed about that.
For me it is completely and unambiguously clear that the 256 SSD is going to be a constant source of irritation so I’ve long since decided that I would be getting the 512 upgrade and just get another SSD down the line if I find it too annoying to manage that size.
But the RAM has remained a concern. It certainly sounds like sufficient - more than sufficient - but not quite comfortable with reasonable overhead to grow.
Seeing specific workflows like yours that are working fine in 16GB is helpful.
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Hi, I read it. It’s an interesting post.
Why do you choose to disable virtual memory? Presumably it is over this concern about the degradation of the SSD.
I am telling you. The differences in real time between tasks that overload 16 GB RAM that would be better served with 32 GB RAM is still so fast for the 16GB of RAM that it doesn't matter anyway. Who cares if compiling something takes an extra few minutes when you do it twice a year? And most of the time it is even faster than that.
Now if you are a professional video editor who messes with terabytes of 8k video all day long, then get what you need, and it will be more than 16GB or even 32GB.
Now realize that like less than 1 percent of us actually qualify for this.
I have found my BASE M4 Mac Mini 16GB/512GB is the same as my RTX 4060 i7-13700HK 32GB RAM machine for everything I do and more--with the exception of gaming. This M4 is so fast. Ridiculously fast. Given the Apple upgrade prices, I don't regret tossing like $699 at this thing. I could upgrade in like 3 years and still be ridiculously happy with the price I paid for the performance.
But don't just take my word for it.
There are more.
Think about it this way, @Ishimura. Given you (admittedly) are more in the low usage category and are more worried about years down the road, just get what you need now. In the (unlikely) event that regular usage is that impacted by RAM (and only where 32 would have mattered that much over 16), then you can trade it in--get some of the cash back, and be good for another 3-4 years.
If the difference was like $50 (like it should be), then absolutely! Get all the RAM you can. But given the cost effectiveness is in the base unit, just stay at that price and upgrade if needed in a few years.
I think you will find that it is working great like 4 years from now.
For instance, I have a Surface Pro 8 i5 with 8GB of RAM. It still works great with Obsidian, Scrivener, Chrome, etc., and that is WAY slower than the M1 Mac line that is over 4 years old now. 16 GB will be fine for your needs.
I mostly agree with this, but only if people really understand that they could do all the stuff a tier lower and see only a mild performance hit (mostly things would take longer when processing/compiling/etc.,) but would honestly work fine even for that. It just wouldn't be lightning fast as it would if you add the RAM from the tier one is in for that task.
And most people really do fit in the Low demand task category.