Man, if they had the same ports (including) power on either of the M1 MacBooks as they have on the M1 Mini, I'd be buying one......

One port can do the work of many... or other options

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Edited 999 time(s). Last edit at 12:08PM by jdc.

This is the first mini I've ever been tempted by.

Isn't everything soldered (RAM and SSD)? And does it really max out at 16GB of RAM?

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ka jowct
Isn't everything soldered (RAM and SSD)? And does it really max out at 16GB of RAM?

From what I understand, the RAM is not soldered, but it's actually internal to the SOC.

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ka jowct
Isn't everything soldered (RAM and SSD)? And does it really max out at 16GB of RAM?

most macs have been this way for years and year and years?

But mostly irrelevant for the bottom rug mac.

IF you need a mac with more than 16 GB, its not for you.

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Edited 999 time(s). Last edit at 12:08PM by jdc.

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freeradical

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ka jowct
Isn't everything soldered (RAM and SSD)? And does it really max out at 16GB of RAM?

From what I understand, the RAM is not soldered, but it's actually internal to the SOC.

This is the way.

(sorry)

But, yeah; see the spate of other articles throughout the forum. There's a paradigm shift on what RAM is, so to speak, with these new chips.

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jdc
One port can do the work of many... or other options

There's also this curiosity on Kickstarter, which also has up to 4TB of internal memory. Interesting.

[www.kickstarter.com]

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/17/2020 11:28PM by Zoidberg.

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freeradical

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ka jowct
Isn't everything soldered (RAM and SSD)? And does it really max out at 16GB of RAM?

From what I understand, the RAM is not soldered, but it's actually internal to the SOC.

It's external to the SOC but mounted on the same module as the SOC die.

Would be kinda cool if you could DIY your own drive in the hub.

otherwise... its just eliminating something like a Samsung T7 or DIY NVMe flash/case.

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Edited 999 time(s). Last edit at 12:08PM by jdc.

I have many port when one port do?

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So is this the end of upgradeable RAM then? Sure seems like it to me, but maybe they could build a side module on the MacPro to allow for more RAM, of course not as fast as the RAM within the SOC module, but maybe faster than paging to the slower flash storage?

Another thought- I wonder if there is any potential for a dual M1 mac? I'm sure it wasn't built that way, and M2 is probably already on the way.

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freeradical
This is the first mini I've ever been tempted by.

Same, and I went for it. The M1 maxed out Mini I purchased arrives mid-December and I'm also still looking for the best hub to expand its ports. I'll report back with pics once I have the setup.

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M1 2020 Mac mini (16G 2T) • Monterey 12.x • Dual 25" Acer 1440p LCDs • M1 2020 13" MBAir (256G 8G) •

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mikebw
So is this the end of upgradeable RAM then?

prob not. At least not in the MP.

Would be great if the new large iMacs kept it... but even the iMac pro dumped it, or at least made it brain surgery -- so maybe not gonna happen.

I have no idea about how M1 (or m2 or m3 or whatever) chips work... but assuming they can be diasy chained somehow -- a dual M1 with 32 Gb of ram, or a Quad, or Dual M2 (if it supported 32 GB) would be a sweet option?

So a 32" 5K iMac, dual quad core M2s with 64 GB ram. Prob $3K.

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Edited 999 time(s). Last edit at 12:08PM by jdc.

Well, it's the end of user-expandable RAM. Part of what makes the M1 so speedy and power-efficient is the way the RAM is built into the System On a Chip.

Well, it's the end of user-expandable RAM.


I said similar in another post.

The MP will probably always have user expandable memory.

That might be true for the iMac Pro.

But I foresee the 27" iMac as losing that feature.

I have no doubt Apple could have an M2/3/4 chip that worked with external RAM as well as its own memory, but I'd expect that to be only in the 27" iMac Pro.

IF there were to be a Mac mini Pro (MmP^®), it might get that option.

But I'd just assume that only the MP would/will keep the option, and happily be proven wrong.

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As pointed out by another thread, SSD’s (and transfer speeds) are now about as fast as DRAM used to be.

This new on-package RAM is probably even faster, but we may be dealing with a paradigm shift here and still applying old knowledge/prejudices.

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pdq
As pointed out by another thread, SSD’s (and transfer speeds) are now about as fast as DRAM used to be.

This new on-package RAM is probably even faster, but we may be dealing with a paradigm shift here and still applying old knowledge/prejudices.

RAM has been getting faster the whole time SSDs have been getting faster. Fastest SSD speeds are still orders of magnitude slower than modern RAM for random access and many times slower for sequential write operations. And SSDs are high-latency-low-reliability (limited number of writes) while DRAM is low-latency-high-reliability. Different beasties.

What you're likely to see in the next decade or so will be improved caches working between the SSD and RAM to help bridge that gap. Not unlike Fusion drives, but instead of a SSD working in tandem with a hard drive, it will be a different type of memory module working in tandem with a SSD. There are a bunch of companies already making such things, but they're not moving rapidly from enterprise to consumer markets.

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RAMd®d

That might be true for the iMac Pro.
But I foresee the 27" iMac as losing that feature.

Its actually currently opposite.

All 27" iMacs are DIY -- EXCEPT the IMac pro.

Have to literally take the entire thing apart, including removing MB.

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Edited 999 time(s). Last edit at 12:08PM by jdc.