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Apple unveils the new iMac with M4, supercharged by Apple Intelligence and available in fresh colors. Learn more >
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Apple introduces M4 Pro and M4 Max. Learn more >
Apple introduces M4 Pro and M4 Max. Learn more >
My current 2019 iMac has 8GB of RAM and is very slow. I generally just use Chrome, some YouTube, newsfeeds, Luminar, Gmail, docs.... I'm wondering if the 8GB of RAM in the new Mac Mini M2 will be faster than that of my iMac. Is it worth the exrtra $200 to upgrade to 16GB? I will definitely do that to get faster performance, but if the M2 will give me faster processing times without spending the $200 then perhaps that's the way to go.
iMac (2017 – 2020)
If your current iMac is the 2019 21.5-inch model with a mechanical hard drive, that is why it is slow. You could install all the RAM you can afford and not see a perceptible difference at the keyboard.
From 2012 though 2019, Apple used slow and down-specced laptop-class 2.5-inch hard drives as entry-level storage in 21.5-inch iMacs. That was the reason for slow. I have data showing that those drives were up to 30% SLOWER than the entry-level mech drives in 2011 iMacs. Bad.
However, the fast entry-level SSDs in m3 iMac is not going to be much good if you go for the base 256GB storage option. We are already seeing reports here from people who cannot upgrade their OS because they cannot make enough free space on a 256GB drive. Consider the 512GB option the minimum for modern macOS versions.
Piling on, you can't install more later, so get the 16.
Lamy? is Santa Fe not good enough for you? 8^)
Considering that we have folks using 10+ year old macs around here, you should be set for as long as you can stand the last OS you can upgrade to.
Should I get M2Mini w/ 8 or 16 GB RAM?
