Do I really need more than 8GB RAM with an M1 or M2 Mac mini?

IdrisSeabright wrote:

If it works for you, that's great. But, I stand by my advice that I've never heard anyone express regret at buying more RAM.

To quote Wallis Simpson, Duchess of Windsor: “You can never be too thin, too rich, or have too much RAM"

For truly light uses, 8GB may be ok. But you said you want to edit video, which is not exactly a light use. It may work but you may not be satisfied with the performance. There are an awful lot of 8GB Macs on the used market because people bought those low-end machines and then discovered they weren't happy with performance.

Another consideration is that on Apple Silicon, memory is "unified RAM" meaning that the CPU & GPU share the same pool of RAM; there is no dedicated VRAM any more, so that "8GB RAM" on an M1 or M2 is actually less available RAM than what came in earlier models like your 2015 iMac. (Your 2015 iMac has 8GB actual RAM plus additional 2GB VRAM.) This too makes a difference in overall performance.

All new Macs now come with at least 16GB RAM, which can be taken as a sign that 8GB base models just weren't satisfactory enough.

You should also consider the future ... as in future versions of macOS and apps, which history has proven trend to require more system resources with each new release. You experienced this yourself once you put Monterey on your 2015 iMac.

<< is there any reason to think an M1 or M2 mini would need more than 8GB RAM to do what my decade-old iMac could? >>

if you wanted to run ONLY older, obsolete versions of MacOS, the 8 GB would be fine.

If you want to run Monterey or anything later in an appropriately responsive way, Readers have discovered experimentally that requires MORE THAN 8GB of RAM. Otherwise you will need to revert to ONE-App-At-A-Time operation, are Restart many times a day to clear cached items.

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In addition, your old Intel iMac likely had added display RAM, used to store screen buffers and offscreen scratch images. With Apple-Silicon Unified memory, there is no separate display memory, everything is in main memory.

Think of a nominal 8GB Intel iMac as having a TOTAL of 12 GB or more, counting its specialized Display Memory.

<< I must be doing something wrong as I have never run out of RAM even when doing highly complex activities with multiple apps open. >>

You will never literally "run out of RAM" on a a machine with well-implemented Virtual Memory. When your Apps demand more than your available Physical RAM, the remainder will be simulated in a Virtual Memory partition on the Boot drive.

Because the Boot drive is very fast in modern Macs, you can over-commit your real RAM in a rather BIG way before it starts to really slow down and annoy you.

Especially when concentrating on Final Cut Pro OR Resolve Studio, results are likely to be perfectly adequate. This is especially true if you are used to running in a RAM-starved way.

But the computers you have could be finishing MUCH sooner and being FAR more responsive if you had More Real RAM.

Keep in mind that you cannot upgrade the memory after purchase. You are stuck with whatever you decide unless you buy a whole new computer.

Edit: Same goes for the internal SSD.

Three years ago, I needed a new computer in a hurry and bought an MBA with 8GB of RAM because it was what was available. I thought it would be fine. It wasn't. A year later I traded it in for an MBP with 18GB. Life is much easier. I know longer have to think about closing apps or monitoring memory pressure.

I've never heard of anyone regretting having more RAM than they thought they needed.

EDIT: This reply was intended for the author, not you John.

I added an M2 mini with 8GB RAM to my 2017 iMac and the only difference I noticed was that it was twice as fast as the old iMac at rendering and exporting 1080p and 4K videos in Final Cut Pro and Resolve and the whole handling of apps was more responsive.

For the past quarter century I have been hearing how you must get as much RAM as possible and it's all baloney unless you are doing indescribably complex procedures with multiple apps.

This year I added a basic M4 with 16GB RAM to my collection and that is even faster. Nothing to do with the RAM, just a faster processor.

Incidentally if you live in the UK the M4 is currently £530 instead of £599.

Ian R. Brown wrote:

For the past quarter century I have been hearing how you must get as much RAM as possible and it's all baloney unless you are doing indescribably complex procedures with multiple apps.

As much RAM as possible? Probably not. But definitely more than 8GB these days. I would say that a safe recommendation is to not buy whatever the base option is but rather the next one up.

I don't do anything complex. I tend to have a ridiculous number of windows and tabs open and am always running two different users. 8GB was not enough.

I must be doing something wrong as I have never run out of RAM even when doing highly complex activities with multiple apps open.

When I bought computers in 2005, 2008 and 2014 I automatically bought third part RAM to double the existing stuff.

In 2017 when I got my 27" Imac with 8GB RAM I fully intended to double that as well but for some reason I hung back and suddenly realised it could do everything I needed with just 8GB.

So I was quite content to get 8GB RAM in my M2 mini and as mentioned earlier it did not disappoint even with the latest versions of FCP and Resolve Studio.

Of course the M4 comes with a minimum of 16GB which is more than I have ever needed but is fine for those who like high specs.

I think the reason Apple boosted the RAM to 16GB was nothing to do with it being insufficient for normal tasks but they needed that much to enable Apple Intelligence to work efficiently.

The reason many people have problems with computers is that they don't use them properly. You could give some folk a top of the range Mac Studio and they would still have problems . . . you see that regularly on these forums.

Ian R. Brown wrote:

I must be doing something wrong as I have never run out of RAM even when doing highly complex activities with multiple apps open.

If it works for you, that's great. But, I stand by my advice that I've never heard anyone express regret at buying more RAM.

Ian R. Brown wrote:

So I was quite content to get 8GB RAM in my M2 mini and as mentioned earlier it did not disappoint even with the latest versions of FCP and Resolve Studio.

It would be interesting to see how much Swap is being used on your 8GB Macs and if any memory compression is active. Your M2 has an onboard SSD, so its swap usage would not seem to impose a performance hit like it would have on a traditional hard drive.

Probably time for a new Mac anyway but I would not be that concerned about lack of security updates on your present iMac. I have several old Macs (and new ones) and never had any security issues with any version and all are still in use.

Do I really need more than 8GB RAM with an M1 or M2 Mac mini?

Apple no longer sells any new Macs with less than 16 GB RAM, so there's that.