01-27-2005, 02:50 PM

Is 512MB enough or is 1GB needed? I'm talking about for normal usage, not massive photoshop stuff. How much do you need to keep the Mac from hitting swap?

01-27-2005, 03:49 PM

The Macs Only site ran a series of tests to benchmark the mini with different amounts of RAM. The report is at: http://www.macsonly.com/arch00501.html. The end result is that they concluded that 256 mgs is sufficient for most users and that there is no worthwhile improvement (for most users) by going above 512 mgs.

01-27-2005, 04:15 PM

What do you think about the argument of getting the 1.25 machine over the 1.42. Do you think it makes much difference for things like photoshop or handling movies or PDFs? Is it worth going the extra bit?

01-27-2005, 05:29 PM

Originally Posted by richieg

What do you think about the argument of getting the 1.25 machine over the 1.42. Do you think it makes much difference for things like photoshop or handling movies or PDFs? Is it worth going the extra bit?

I'm getting the 1.42, but my personal opinion is that a BTO 1.25 with an 80GB harddrive is just as good, thats really why I upgraded, I just didnt want to delay my shipping anymore with BTO. Apparently though a lot of those people are getting them right on time so turns out I coulda saved some bucks, oh well. It would probobly improve high end applications like Photoshop a tad I'd imagine though.

01-27-2005, 05:45 PM

Originally Posted by ped

Is 512MB enough or is 1GB needed? I'm talking about for normal usage, not massive photoshop stuff. How much do you need to keep the Mac from hitting swap?

According to tests i have seen, 512 seems to be the sweet spot for the mini. 256 is not enough and you will find it running a bit laggy if you try and multitask much, but it seems to smooth out and run fine with 512. So unless you plan on doing video editing and such i would go with the 512 for every day normal type usage. With 256 the mini has to do to much swaping and that will certainly slow it down.

I know when i brought my wifes iMac G5 home it only had 256 in it and i could see a difference, but when i added another 512 it smoothed right out and runs very well.

01-27-2005, 05:56 PM

Originally Posted by richieg

What do you think about the argument of getting the 1.25 machine over the 1.42. Do you think it makes much difference for things like photoshop or handling movies or PDFs? Is it worth going the extra bit?

I got the 1.42 Ghz machine. And don't forget it comes with twice as large a HD too.

01-27-2005, 05:58 PM

Originally Posted by James

According to tests i have seen, 512 seems to be the sweet spot for the mini. 256 is not enough and you will find it running a bit laggy if you try and multitask much, but it seems to smooth out and run fine with 512. So unless you plan on doing video editing and such i would go with the 512 for every day normal type usage. With 256 the mini has to do to much swaping and that will certainly slow it down.

I know when i brought my wifes iMac G5 home it only had 256 in it and i could see a difference, but when i added another 512 it smoothed right out and runs very well.

That's what I was thinking too. I am a power user and do multitask a lot and just using it last night for the first night I had it choking on 256MB so I got a Corsair 512MB today. I'll post up how it works after I get it installed.

01-27-2005, 06:02 PM

Originally Posted by richieg

What do you think about the argument of getting the 1.25 machine over the 1.42. Do you think it makes much difference for things like photoshop or handling movies or PDFs? Is it worth going the extra bit?

Besides the faster processor the only difference is the hard disk size. Given that the 1.42 is slightly faster and has double the HD space it seems to be worth the extra $$$.

01-28-2005, 10:26 AM

With the stock 256 Megs it would be fine for just using Mail and maybe Safari but if you try to multitask with more than one application running it will start swapping to the HDD and make things slow way down. Like James said, 512 apears to be a sweet spot and would be fine for most usage with many programs running. If you intend to do large jobs like Video Editing and such I would go all the way to 1Gig RAM. 512Megs will be fine though for most users even if they run several normal everyday apps at once. I used my G4 for a while with Panther and 512 and it was pretty snappy till I started doing editing of large audio and Video files then I upped it to 1.5 Gigs for the crazy stuff I do!

01-28-2005, 11:28 AM

I "upped" my mac mini to a 1Gig. As mentioned in an earlier thread, when running several applications I noticed a little bit of lag with the 256MB . After the switch, it's like "night and day." You don't notice if you're using Safari, but once you have several applications running the difference is clear.

I'm sure the 512MB would've been fine in my situation, but you just can't beat 1 Gig :cool:

VJ

01-28-2005, 12:57 PM

I got 512 , just in-case

02-02-2005, 11:21 PM

I have 256 and it def. does lag when I have a few apps open.. What kind of RAM should I buy for this and where can I get it for the cheapest? I really wanna upgrade to 512. Any good online stores runing specials?

02-03-2005, 07:56 AM

i upgraded from 256MB to 1GB and WOW what a difference it was like having a whole new mac mini!!

02-03-2005, 10:25 AM

Originally Posted by JohnWasHere

I have 256 and it def. does lag when I have a few apps open.. What kind of RAM should I buy for this and where can I get it for the cheapest? I really wanna upgrade to 512. Any good online stores runing specials?

Don't buy the ram too cheap its best to stick to makes like Kingston.

02-03-2005, 10:44 AM

Originally Posted by Mr Bobbins

Don't buy the ram too cheap its best to stick to makes like Kingston.

kingston, crucial, ocz, corsair, samsung they are the makes to generally stick with, coz cheapo ram will usually just casue errors, or HD corruption