Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Wait for ARM mac mini or buy now?

M

mayakukla

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jun 14, 2010
166
2
I have a 2014 mac mini with 8gb and a quadcore i5 that is always running out of memory for me. It cannot handle parallels windows and the new OS at the same time. THings slow down here and there which is annoying.

Options are a 2018/2020 with 3.2ghz i7 with 64gb or wait for the ARM?

Problem is ARM could be a year away as the news says macbook pro and Imac will have the ARMs. Also concerned that apple will solder memory again in the ARM units making me pay Apple prices for 64gb which I refuse to do.

Thoughts?
 
As you point out, we don't know anything about the Apple Silicon Mini. If you like what is there today and it meets your needs buy it.

When Apple Silicon comes, you can make a more informed decision.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Marty_Macfly
It will be faster as they wouldn't release something worse. The problem is the timing.
 
mayakukla said:
I have a 2014 mac mini with 8gb and a quadcore i5 that is always running out of memory for me. It cannot handle parallels windows and the new OS at the same time. THings slow down here and there which is annoying.

Options are a 2018/2020 with 3.2ghz i7 with 64gb or wait for the ARM?

Problem is ARM could be a year away as the news says macbook pro and Imac will have the ARMs. Also concerned that apple will solder memory again in the ARM units making me pay Apple prices for 64gb which I refuse to do.

Thoughts?
Click to expand...

You note that you are running Windows under Parallels. As of right now, this will not be possible on AS Macs. Perhaps you were planning on using the Mini as a strictly Windows machine?

I run Windows 10 using Parallels on my 2018 Mini, i7 with 32 GB RAM, albeit for only a few items and not all that often. Performance has been fine for me. I expect that I'll eventually get an AS Mac and the Mini will become a Windows box.
 
MevetS said:
You note that you are running Windows under Parallels. As of right now, this will not be possible on AS Macs. Perhaps you were planning on using the Mini as a strictly Windows machine?

I run Windows 10 using Parallels on my 2018 Mini, i7 with 32 GB RAM, albeit for only a few items and not all that often. Performance has been fine for me. I expect that I'll eventually get an AS Mac and the Mini will become a Windows box.
Click to expand...

I was reading that ARMs won't allow direct boot of Windows but will continue to allow virtualization as parallels is doing now. I like having both open at the same time mostly for my dragon dictation software that does not work on MacOS.

I am evaluating the wisdom of dropping $1300 a top of the line mac mini now and then have an ARM one come out in 3 months or at the end of the year which would be signifigantly faster and allow virtualization.
 
Probably won't be able to swap RAM in the Arm Mini, so if you want 64GB in it then you'll be paying Apple's extreme markup
 
  • Like
Reactions: 762999
mayakukla said:
I was reading that ARMs won't allow direct boot of Windows but will continue to allow virtualization as parallels is doing now. I like having both open at the same time mostly for my dragon dictation software that does not work on MacOS.

I am evaluating the wisdom of dropping $1300 a top of the line mac mini now and then have an ARM one come out in 3 months or at the end of the year which would be signifigantly faster and allow virtualization.
Click to expand...

While AS Macs will support vitalization, it is pretty clear the it will be for ARM OSes, for example Linux, which if I recall correctly was demoed as part of the WWDC keynote, via Parallels, and Windows ARM, should Microsoft get its act together. x86 virtualization will not be supported (at least initially). Take a look at the Apple Silicon (ARM) Macs Forum for threads dealing with this: https://forums.macrumors.com/forums/apple-silicon-arm-macs.227/
 
mayakukla said:
I was reading that ARMs won't allow direct boot of Windows but will continue to allow virtualization as parallels is doing now. I like having both open at the same time mostly for my dragon dictation software that does not work on MacOS.
Click to expand...

It likely will be possible to run the ARM Windows 10 instance in Parallels. However, that doesn't necesaarily mean you get all of the your legacy x86 win32 apps to come across. If it is an older (or old-ish) 32-bit win32 app then then a decent chance of it running. A 64-bit x86 app would have issues on ARM Win 10.



I am evaluating the wisdom of dropping $1300 a top of the line mac mini now and then have an ARM one come out in 3 months or at the end of the year which would be signifigantly faster and allow virtualization.
Click to expand...

For large , RAM footprint workloads "faster" isn't necessarily measured in the 'sizzle' benchmarks the tech press and the forums spend lots of time obsessing over.

The more pressing issue is whether Apple is going to go back to assigning the Mac Mini "laptop" CPU packages or stick with the newer trade of "desktop" ones. Laptop probably would mean sinking back into soldered RAM. Apple desktop ones are likely coming later rather than sooner. iMacs and up they highly likely aren't soldering RAM. If the mini is bow waving on what those systems do then fine. If taking all cues from the laptops then that may be an issue.
 
I just bought a Mini i5 because I need it now.

Even if the ARM version was released tomorrow morning, do you want to buy the first gen of a new architecture? Remember the first Intel Mac Pros released in 2006 and 2007?

What about the software on top? MacOS will probably be fine (Apple probably has had internal builds for ARM for a while now) but what about the rest? How long will it take Adobe to port over? Microsoft office? Other professional packages?

Personally, I'll wait for gen3 before considering buying.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Suspenders and AlphaCentauri
So I decided to just make the jump and buy it, will sell it for a loss once ARM gets good. I got a new 2018 mini with 3.2ghz i7 with 256GB SSD from B&H photo for $1099,no tax. I get 2TB of online storage with iCloud. I then bought 64gb of memory from OWC for $300. Total is $1400 for new components.
 
  • Like
Reactions: monkeybongo and steve217
mayakukla said:
So I decided to just make the jump and buy it, will sell it for a loss once ARM gets good. I got a new 2018 mini with 3.2ghz i7 with 256GB SSD from B&H photo for $1099,no tax. I get 2TB of online storage with iCloud. I then bought 64gb of memory from OWC for $300. Total is $1400 for new components.
Click to expand...

I think you did well
It will take probably 2 years for all the vendors to catch up on the ARM capabilities (We still don't know if Windows will be able to run on it)

Unless something changes drastically, I think this machine will serve you for another 3 years
(I would go with the 512GB SSD, as windows and parallels take a lot of space)
I learned the hard way that the more RAM I got I want to run more VM and test stuff, the and the 256GB was not enough
 
  • Like
Reactions: steve217
mayakukla said:
So I decided to just make the jump and buy it, will sell it for a loss once ARM gets good. I got a new 2018 mini with 3.2ghz i7 with 256GB SSD.....
Click to expand...

And if 256GB is not enough, you can add an external SSD and put your VMs there. Works well for me using a Samsung T5 for my VMs (and photos).
 
The problem with buying now is the loss of apps due to Catalina. It’s not even like you could buy now and know that you’re good to go for the next 4 or 5 years while ARM gets sorted.
 
mayakukla said:
how much memory out of 64 should I give to each machine?
Click to expand...

There is no hard and fast rule. It really depends on what Apps are running in the VMs. I have a Windows VM which runs very happily with 4GB RAM, and 2 cores and a 60GB virtual disk, but I only use it for a few apps and usually with one app at a time. If you need to run something which needs more resources, give it more. Only requires a VM shutdown to change RAM and cores, but it pays to be generous with disk as it is harder to make out bigger.
 
mayakukla said:
I have a 2014 mac mini with 8gb and a quadcore i5
Click to expand...

There's no such thing as a quad-core 2014 Mini. ;)

I think you'll be happy with your new Mini, I got an i7/64gb/2tb Mini exactly a month ago and I love it. I'm running Parallels with a GIS application and it's much faster than it ever was on my old Windows PC. I also use Parallels to run MacOS Sierra and Mountain Lion virtual machines. These work great and have given my very expensive legacy Mac software a new life. Again, these old CAD, 3d and database programs (Vectorworks, Strata 3d cx, FileMaker Pro) run better than they ever did on my old Macs.

Regarding memory and disk for VM's, I have allocated very little disk because Parallels lets you access files directly on Mac disks. I have 16gb allocated to Windows because I work with very large files in GlobalMapper. Only using 4gb each for my Sierra and Mountain Lion VM's, because that was considered a lot of RAM back when those legacy apps were introduced and a 32-bit app can only access 4gb anyway. FWIW, you need the pro version of Parallels to use more than 8gb in a VM.

Enjoy your new Mini!
 
  • Like
Reactions: cltd, gilby101 and MevetS
mayakukla said:
Problem is ARM could be a year away as the news says macbook pro and Imac will have the ARMs.
Click to expand...

Which ARM macs will be first is purely speculation. I would wait if I already had capable mac mini.

2018/2020 with 3.2ghz i7
Click to expand...

It's literally too hot. Wouldn't consider such CPU in the tiny case of mini, it clearly wasn't designed to work in such conditions. But then again, I think that entire 2018 family was lame.
 
Last edited:
I am evaluating the wisdom of dropping $1300 a top of the line mac mini now and then have an ARM one come out in 3 months or at the end of the year which would be signifigantly faster and allow virtualization.
Click to expand...

Well, I highly doubt it will be significantly faster, or even faster at all. I actually think it will be slower, except GPU part. ARMs shold be ideal for casual computing, not for those who need massive computing power for whatever reason.
 
mayakukla said:
I was reading that ARMs won't allow direct boot of Windows but will continue to allow virtualization as parallels is doing now. I like having both open at the same time mostly for my dragon dictation software that does not work on MacOS.
Click to expand...
The ARM Macs won't be able to run Windows or your Dragon software. There is no Windows on ARM build that would work with Parallels (it's Windows for Snapdragon, not generic ARM) and the Dragon software is x86. So it's a dead-end for Windows VMs.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Krevnik
Any chance we get a new intel mini this year? 9th or 10th Gen chips? I want an 8 core i7 mini.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back