Evaluating M1/2 Mac with 8GB RAM against Komplete Ultimate

[avasopht]

I'm in the process of getting a cheap temporary Mac for the next year or two.

It's either going to be 8 GB or 16 GB, and I'm veering more towards an M2 Mac Mini as I don't see much use for it on the bus

I've installed Komplete Ultimate on my mum's old M1 Macbook (fresh OSX install) with only 8GB RAM and 256 GB internal SSD (with my external 2 GB SSD).

I've barely seen the CPU bar whisper when running a few of my tracks. I had the buffer size set to 128, I'm still installing stuff at the same time (NI installations are slow) and I've about 9 tabs open in Chrome.

I haven't tested every track, and I don't have lots of orchestral instruments in all of them, but the fact it didn't flinch in the slightest tells me I might lose nothing by getting one with 8 GB RAM. And these tracks laid my old laptop to rest (which is why I had to upgrade to a 10th Gen a couple of years ago).

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Note: I configured Kontakt with a minimal cache so that it streams as much as it can from the SSD (the whole point being to leverage the SSD to minimize RAM use).

I'll be uber busy for the next few days so I doubt I'll get a chance to put my old tracks through it before the weekend.

Will share my results ASAP.

[PhillipOrdonez]

You mean kontakt is streaming from the external SSD, yes?

Looking forward to hearing your results

[avasopht]

You mean kontakt is streaming from the external SSD, yes?

Looking forward to hearing your results

Yes. I've been using a low cache for a couple of years now, but one track would grind my 6th gen i5 to a halt.

It wasn't the most CPU-intensive track I had, but for some reason that laptop didn't like it. The equivalent desktop I had at the time breezed through it.

My #1 priority was being able to run that track because if it can handle that I'll be fine.




Result:

An M1 Macbook with 8 GB of RAM and a 256 GB internal SSD (plus my 2 TB external) are more than enough for my tracks.

I ran these tracks with several Google Chrome tabs open (but with Chrome configured to minimize memory, which is the default-ish/recommended setting).

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Because I know 8 GB was not enough in the past (which I'm blaming entirely on Chrome and Electron) I do feel uncomfortable with the idea. But it was able to handle it without breaking much of a sweat, and 8 GB should be more than enough anyway (in theory).

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My subjective experience of using the Macbook

As I found with the MPC Live II, a Macbook provides you with some extra freedoms the Mini lacks that come in handy quickly.

The freedom to whip out your MPC Live anywhere and just start building is a quality I am starting to value a lot more lately.



Maybe there's some psychology behind not feeling chained to a desk when you want to make music.

Just the ability to make yourself comfortable on the other side of the room for once.

It's not too difficult with a Mac Mini and one of my portable screens tbh, but those small conveniences can make all the difference. And I quite like being freed from my larger monitor.

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Bugbears

Most of my Maschine projects were made before it got VST3 support, so I have to figure out how I made those patches (or I could load the project on another machine). Otherwise, they're all running the default patch!

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Decision
I went with a used M1 Mac Mini with 16 GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD.

Too good of a deal Fingers crossed it's in as good condition as it appears

[joeyluck]

I'm still using a 2015 MacBook Air 2.2 GHz i7 with 8 GB of RAM and have no issues. I guess some of that has to do with the size of the libraries I use and use of virtual memory. I'm also working on films using this computer.

Apparently RAM is even more efficient on Apple Silicon with the unified memory architecture. People have voiced complaints about 8 GB still being the standard and I think somewhere Apple may have responded about the efficiency.

That said, whenever I get a new computer, I'll probably get 16 GB or more just to be safe and plan for the future. Apple computers last. This is only the third computer since beginning with Reason 1 in 2001. The others still work, but are just outdated. Like many others, I feel the need to max it out, so I'll stick to MacBook Air because you can't max it out as much lol. That's what I did last time. Then I don't break the bank and am not left wondering if I should've gotten more of this or that. I prefer the size of the Air as well.

Some of the libraries I'd like to get, such as ones from EastWest like Hollywood Fantasy Orchestra and Hollywood Orchestra Opus Edition list the minimum requirement of 16 GB of RAM. I use Sonuscore The Orchestra without any issues, although that is a smaller library. I might subscribe to Composer Cloud just to try it out. Unfortunately I already used my trial a while back before these were released.

[joeyluck]

Decision
I went with a used M1 Mac Mini with 16 GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD.

Too good of a deal Fingers crossed it's in as good condition as it appears

I've also been considering a Mac Mini and could just keep using my current MacBook Air. And I was also considering used Macs from shops like macofalltrades...

[jfrichards]

My new M2 Mac mini with 8GB ram was $500 at Costco. It's unbelievable. Super fast and enormous inside for huge numbers of Reason 12 tracks.

( I got a 2016 MacBook Pro for composing at the beach and in the woods - also great with Reason 12)

[avasopht]

Yes, ... I was more than happy with M1 8gb performance (even with MacBook air).

I found 16 GB M1 Mac mini with 1tb SSD for £720.

It arrived today in immaculate condition.

I'll have to wait until Saturday to give it a spin as I've got a lot of installing to do.

[Re8et]

Yes, ... I was more than happy with M1 8gb performance (even with MacBook air).

I found 16 GB M1 Mac mini with 1tb SSD for £720.

It arrived today in immaculate condition.

I'll have to wait until Saturday to give it a spin as I've got a lot of installing to do.

Nice.... and you can downgrade to Big Sur if I'm not wrong, another reason to go M1 over M2 (third party drivers obsolescence).
I had this thought when I upgraded to the M2 mini. The only thing the M2 has better is the video. I noticed when launching some
games ( EVE online...) the fan doesn't even spin in the M2, whilst the M1 was constantly on..

[avasopht]

Well, I've got a nice little tower for gaming (though I only play F12019 and occasionally that giant space game).

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But I just installed everything and found the Sonoma dropped support for exfat with the block&allocation config I had. I chose to back up my files and reformat to apfs. Better to keep it simple and just commit this drive for macOS use (plus I can read in Windows with Paragon if I must).