hselburn wrote:I planned on upgrading to 16GB, the only question was Apple Memory, or 3rd Party...(other world computing)
I did a bit of price checking, and the most economical strategy for upgrading system memory depends upon where you get the Mac mini or iMac . . .
If you get a Mac mini directly from Apple, then it costs less to have Apple do the memory upgrade, but you have to pay sales tax on the entire unit . . .
It also depends on which Mac mini model and any other options, which is the reason that I suggested adding a 21.5" iMac to the equation, because the high-end Mac mini with the quad-core i7 processor and 16GB of system memory costs more than the basic 21.5" iMac, which you can upgrade with 16GB of memory from Other World Computing or Amazon.com, which is another option for memory if you know which specific type of system memory to get, where the advantage of Other World Computing is that they categorize system memory by the specific Mac models . . .
For example, this is the high-end Mac mini with a Fusion drive, keyboard, mouse, and so forth, and it has a MSRP at the Apple Store of $1,596 (US) . . .
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NOTE: You could get the Apple Mouse, which is wired, but the scroll pea stops working after a while. I have not tried an Apple Magic Mouse, but it has no moving parts, hence probably will work better . . . ]
2.6GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7
16GB 1600MHz DDR3 SDRAM - 2x8GB
1TB Fusion Drive
Apple USB SuperDrive
Apple Keyboard with Numeric Keypad
Apple Magic Mouse
User's Guide (English)
Accessory Kit
This is the basic 21.5" iMac with upgrades, and it costs $1,578 at the Apple Store . . .
2.7GHz Quad-core Intel Core i5, Turbo Boost up to 3.2GHz
16GB 1600MHz DDR3 SDRAM - 2X8GB
1TB Serial ATA Drive @ 5400 rpm
Intel Iris Pro Graphics
Apple USB SuperDrive
Apple Magic Mouse
Apple Keyboard with Numeric Keypad (English) & User's Guide
Accessory Kit
MacMall has attractive pricing, and they discount the immediately previous versions, which is a good strategy for saving money . . .
Mac mini (MacMall)iMac (MacMall)THOUGHTSI understand the logic for wanting to get the fastest and newest stuff, but Apple computers are well-designed, which maps (a) to the fastest and newest models being premium priced and (b) to older models being very peppy and more reasonably priced . . .
I do everything on the 2.8-GHz 8-core Mac Pro (Early 2008) with 20GB of memory and a Seagate 3TB 7200 RPM internal hard drive, and it is very nice, but it also is six-years old, which is fine with me . . .
As best as I can determine, a new Mac mini or iMac with a quad-core i5 processor will be at least as fast, and a new Mac mini or iMac with a quad-core i7 processor will be faster . . .
Hence, the practical focus on getting a new Mac mini or iMac but instead of the newest and most current model, getting the immediately previous model, new of course, since it will be discounted . . .
This is the strategy I used when I got the Mac Pro, and I got it two weeks before the next new model was released. It was new, of course, but since a newer model was due in two weeks, Amazon.com discounted it by approximately 8 percent to clear their inventory, and they did the higher discount for just a few hours, and I got it in the minimal configuration, which also saves money . . .
You can watch the disk activity shown by Activity Monitor (Mac OS X 10.9.1 [Mavericks]) in the following YouTube music video of a ReWire 2 session where Logic Pro X (Apple) is the ReWire 2 host controller and both NOTION 4 and Reason 7 (Propellerhead Software) are ReWire 2 slaves . . .
Additionally, the NOTION 4 score has two External MIDI staves that are controlling two of the Reason 7 synthesizers (shown with red color-coding on the Reason 7 Mixer), where one synthesizer is an ethereal pad and the other synthesizer is a string section . . .
The other staves in the NOTION 4 are for a MachFive 3 Fender Jazz Bass and Hammond B-3 Organ, and a FabFilter Software Instruments Twin 2 synthesizer . . .
The Reason 7 project has the tracks for "Faster" (Techno Squirrels), with a bit of fabulous Surfwhammy arranging and remixing, and the Logic Pro X project is the host controller and DAW application . . .
The key bit of information is that everything is loaded in system memory (a.k.a., "memory"), so there is nearly no disk activity, which is a good way to put into perspective some of the considerations regarding hard drive spin rates (5,200 RPM vs. 7,200 RPM) . . .
This is playback, so it has different requirements regarding disk activity, where for example rendering will have increased disk activity, because it writes the audio to a disk file, but rendering is done offline and for a typical duration song does not take a long time . . .
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NOTE: The small rectangular window at the lower-right shows the percent utilization of the 8 cores of the Mac Pro here in the sound isolation studio, which is another clue regarding performance considerations for digital audio computing on the Mac . . . ]
"Faster" (Techno Squirrels) ~ Surfwhammy Mix ~ Disk Activity ~ YouTube music videoLots of FUN!