If I buy a Mac Mini M2, with 8GB RAM, can I get Apple to put in more RAM later?

I respectfully disagree. I've owned the Mac Mini M2 with 8 GB memory for about 8 months now and while the M2 chip is blazingly fast (i can't believe how quickly i can encode video in HandBrake, for instance) the 8 GB memory is a hurdle. I receive "out of memory" errors relatively often, resulting from simply too many apps open at the same time. Yet they're apps I kind of need open, so it's frustrating.

I know that everyone says 8 GB RAM is not enough but believe me it is . . . unless you are a high end professional editing 8K all day long with tight deadlines.

I have been using a 2017 iMac with 8 GB RAM for the past 7 years editing 1080p and 4K videos with no problems in Final Cut Pro and DaVinci Resolve.

A month ago I got the cheapest M2 Mac mini and it blows the iMac out of the water being at least 3 times faster.

Don't worry about the small 256 GB SSD either as you can buy high quality USB 3.0 SSDs of 1 TB for £50 - £80.

If you buy an M2 with a 1 TB SSD installed it will set you back a further £400.

crichardva wrote:

Soldered? Really?

It’s fabricated into the chip.

Look at the picture in this article.

https://forums.appleinsider.com/discussion/232608/why-apple-uses-integrated-memory-in-apple-silicon-and-why-its-both-good-and-bad

You see a large die with the CPU, GPU, Neural Engine, etc. - and next to it, there are two black rectangles which contain the RAM. The RAM is located very close to the SoC, soldered onto the same board as the SoC. That is not by accident - shorter distances = lower speed of light delays. But while the dies are on the same board, and maybe even in the same plastic package, the RAM is not part of the SoC die.

The larger you make an individual processor die, or RAM die, the greater the chance that a manufacturing defect will force you to throw the whole thing away (or disable a CPU core, or disable a GPU core). Keeping RAM close to, but not actually part of, the SoC, would have the benefit of

• Minimizing the number of processor die and RAM die variants that had to be manufactured
• Allowing quick access to the RAM
• Maximize semiconductor yields, especially for large, high-end Max chips that are surrounded by lots of RAM

No. RAM is soldered in on all of the Apple Silicon Macs.

Order as much as you need, because you will not have the chance to add more later.

The cheapest ones available from a "known" company.

The i5 mini on the left was bought in 2014 together with the cheap Benq 24" 1080p monitor for about £100 and I got the M2 mini and Philips 27" 1080p monitor for £110.

If you compare them side by side with the 27" iMac 5K Retina screen they are not as good . . . big surprise! But when you are working at them you don't notice that they are much cheaper.

This is my setup . . . the SSDs are circled. I have 2 of them, both 1 TB. The small Samsung was £80 and the larger Crucial was £50.

I haven't tried a 4K monitor with my mini but there should be no problem.

I do have a 27" 5K Retina display on my 2017 iMac and compared with the 27" 1080p Philips monitor I use on the mini, the 5K is sharper and brighter but one would cost £1,499 whereas the other was just £110.

This difference is noticeable when the 2 computers are switched on side by side but when editing with the mini alone, the £110 monitor simply looks "normal" and you forget it's not quite as good as the 5K one.

Kirkwb wrote:

I’m looking to upgrade my 2019 iMac to the mini. I’d like to continue to use the iMac as a monitor but I’m being told by Apple Store employees that it is not possible. Any thoughts.

Your 2019 iMac doesn't support Target Display Mode. That went away when the first 27" 5K Retina iMac came out in Late 2014, and never returned. Apple Silicon Mac minis don't support using ANY iMac – even an old one – as a Target Display. Read the bad news here: Use your iMac as a display with target display mode - Apple Support .

Your 2019 iMac is recent enough that, when running Monterey or later, it can be set up as an AirPlay Receiver for AirPlay to Mac. This is a lower-quality connection method than Target Display Mode or a cabled connection to a real hardware monitor, and wouldn't let you use a 5K iMac's full resolution. But if you had both Macs anyway, it would be free to play with it.

Continuity features and requirements on Apple devices - Apple Support

Set up your Mac to be an AirPlay Receiver - Apple Support

It sounds as though you are using the M2 more heavily than I do as I have never had such a message with either the M2 or any of my other computers.

This is the type of thing I have found the M2 can do easily . . .

It is just a test project. This is the M2 editing 8 tracks of 4K footage effortlessly. The bottom 2 tracks are the speaker green screened over a testcard background and the other 6 tracks are native 4K displayed as Picture In Picture and have had their colour altered to make playback even harder.

There were 8 other apps including Da Vinci Resolve open at the same time although they were not doing anything.

Also the mini is booted off a cheap Crucial 1 TB SSD connected by USB 3.0

Obviously everyone's requirements are different but my examples should show that the basic M2 is probably good enough for 95% of users.

I don't know how tech savvy you are but I actually have the mini booted off one of the plugin SSDs so the internal SSD does not get any wear at all!

As the USB 3.0 SSDs are much slower than the mini's own SSD you would assume the computer would run slower but it doesn't.

Bench tests and real world editing are just as fast. The only thing that would be slower would be copying huge files but how often do you do that?

Thank you for this. I have a cheap monitor which looks really blurry with my M1 Air plugged in. I guess it's because it has a low PPI. I think I should search for something bigger with a higher pixel density.

Cheers

Ian R. Brown wrote:

I haven't tried a 4K monitor with my mini but there should be no problem.

I do have a 27" 5K Retina display on my 2017 iMac and compared with the 27" 1080p Philips monitor I use on the mini, the 5K is sharper and brighter but one would cost £1,499 whereas the other was just £110.

This difference is noticeable when the 2 computers are switched on side by side but when editing with the mini alone, the £110 monitor simply looks "normal" and you forget it's not quite as good as the 5K one.

The difference between a 27" 1920x1080 monitor and a 27" 2560x1440 monitor is quite noticeable when you're working with text. Text on the 1920x1080 monitor is uncomfortably large. The 2560x1440 monitor doesn't have that problem, and it also lets you see 77% more text-based content at a time. A 27" 4K or 5K monitor running in Retina "like 2560x1440" mode will have those same advantages.

If you have a Mac that's capable of driving a 6K monitor, it can probably run a 4K or 5K monitor in the Retina "like 3008x1692" mode. Here, text is starting to get small, but you get 145% more of it than on a 1920x1080 monitor.

No, you must order the new silicon Mac mini with more RAM.

To do that, go to > Buy Mac mini - Apple

Hi Saka87

You can connect most any 4K or 5K display to the M2 Mac mini's HDMI or TB/USB-C port.

see > Connect a display to Mac mini - Apple Support