Is the standard 1GB on the Mac Mini Intel Core 2 Duo 1.83MHz fine for all normal HTPC stuff. Or should I get a third party upgrade of 2GB or 4GB?

1GB is barely adequate for "normal" Leopard, let alone the kind of multi-tasking you might be tempted to do with home theater tasks, i.e recording one show while you're transcoding another. RAM is very inexpensive, max out your mini to whatever it can handle, which I think for your model effectively is 3GB. It's the best upgrade money you can spend, followed by a better, faster hard drive.

Thanks, I'll upgrade.

According to OWC at http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/memory/mac_mini/intel I can upgrade to 4GB for under $100

Yeah, RAM is cheap now-a-days, unless you're buying dual buffered, double heat sinked, Error correcting ram for a Mac Pro! :D

So MAX that MINI out! It takes a lot to move all those pixels!

But the Mini is a tough nut to crack, you have to go at it with a pallet knife and throw away the default RAM to max it out, so if you're buying it new from Apple, it'll be much more convenient to simply order it maxed out.

You'll pay a premium for Apple RAM, but you'll never have to open your case and you'll never have any doubt about the RAM quality.

I say that for the Mini, but I just bought 32GB of RAM for two new Mac Pro Towers from New Egg for about $660 and put it in myself. Apple wanted to charge over $2000 for that RAM!!!

But that's because of the heat sink, the Mini RAM will be much more reasonable.

Good luck.

Thanks, I'll upgrade.

According to OWC at http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/memory/mac_mini/intel I can upgrade to 4GB for under $100

Just keep in mind that while the mini will show it has 4GB it can only address 3.3GB. This is a chipset limitation.

Yeah, RAM is cheap now-a-days, unless you're buying dual buffered, double heat sinked, Error correcting ram for a Mac Pro! :D

I say that for the Mini, but I just bought 32GB of RAM for two new Mac Pro Towers from New Egg for about $660 and put it in myself. Apple wanted to charge over $2000 for that RAM!!!

Good luck.

How did you find the 32GB for $660? The best I found on newgg was 8GB at that price range.

How did you find the 32GB for $660? The best I found on newgg was 8GB at that price range.

I read it as him buying 32GB total RAM for the TWO systems.. So 16 2GB chips..

@ abt $40 apiece, i can see that price...

:cool:

1GB is barely adequate for "normal" Leopard, let alone the kind of multi-tasking you might be tempted to do with home theater tasks, i.e recording one show while you're transcoding another. RAM is very inexpensive, max out your mini to whatever it can handle, which I think for your model effectively is 3GB. It's the best upgrade money you can spend, followed by a better, faster hard drive.

I disagree. My 1.8Ghz C2D mini has 1GB of RAM and I'm having no trouble with my home theater usage running Plex (OSXBMC), including 720p movies. I have a few 1080p Blu-Ray rips and generally they play as smooth as butter. Once in awhile if I have a 1080p movie that was encoded with a really high bitrate it'll stutter in a real active scene, but that's pretty rare.

I don't know the RAM requirements for doing HD-DVR cable/satellite stuff on a mini, maybe that takes more RAM. But I never put in that extra 1GB of RAM I bought because I didn't like the idea of cracking the case myself (and possibly voiding the warranty) and so far I haven't had a need for it.

Equusz