There was a comparison mentioned on last week’s episode of the Accidental Tech Podcast, I don’t remember if it was pointed out to them or they noticed it themselves.
Base Mac mini: $599, 16/256 GB
Double storage and ram: $600 upgrade.
Price of 32/512 config: $1199
Two 16/256 machines: $1198.
The ram is (Apple) reasonable at $200, but $400 for the storage doubling is insane.
The differences actually are quite huge. As far as I know, the M series chips all use LPDDR5 RAM, which is indeed more expensive than the DIMM/SO-DIMM modules you would add to your diy build.
Still, you can easily get a good kit of DDR5 DIMMs for 110€/32GB from a retailer. So while LPDDR5 RAM is more expensive, it is most certainly not expensive enough to justify a 230€/8GB price as being driven by BOM costs
Also, the 256 uses 2x128 drives while the 512 uses a single drive, so you even get slightly slower storage with the upgrade. The base model is a great deal.
This is true for the Mac Studio but not for the M4 Mac Mini -- they all have a single storage slot and the only difference between the 256 and 512 models is the model of the NAND chips.
