16GB or 32GB for multitasking? Not for video productions...

[Cham2000]

I keep reading everywhere that 32GB is overkill and a waste of money if we don't do heavy 3D renderings or large professional video productions, and that 16GB is way enough for 99% of the population. That may be true if we only work in a single app at a time, doing "normal" usual or everyday stuff (office, web browsing, answering emails, watching a movie, managing files in the Finder, ...). The answer I keep reading is that 32GB is only useful for professionals that do heavy stuff in their specialized app, like 8K video editing or super music productions (I'm not one of these guys). I rarely see discussions about "heavy multitasking", i.e using many "ordinary apps" at the same time, frequently switching between apps, and doing a lot of web browsing with multi-tabs open while listening to music. This is the kind of stuff I do very frequently with my Mac, and I hate slowing down my multitasking workflow because of the computer lacking memory.

In the past (on all of my Intel Macs, with 8GB of ram), I very frequently suffered of a lack of memory while doing "heavy multitasking", with ordinary apps only: slow apps switching, some apps freezing, web navigators slowing down with lots of tabs, background music lagging or stopping, some beach balls when switching apps, ..., and I hate that to death! I'm the kind of person that gets very irritated/frustrated by the computer lags, and I may become very impatient with the computer when it's slowing down! (of course, I did checked the computer for any unexpected background processes or other "illness". The computer was always okay.)

I understand that unified memory on Silicon Macs changes a lot of things. Coming from an Intel Mac, it's hard to use our past experience to appropriately choose a proper amount of memory for a new Mac. Especially since the video ram (VRAM) is now unified with the "ordinary" ram, and that we can't change/upgrade anymore the memory later (after two years of use, for example). So we now have to carefully decide the proper amount of memory when we buy a new Mac, and yet we don't want to waste our money with a large overkill amount of memory.

So is 16GB really enough these days (and for the few years to come), on Apple Silicon Macs for doing "heavy multitasking", or is it better to pay the extra to get 32GB?

Please, don't tell anything about large professional video productions! This is what I hear ALL THE TIME in ALL videos on YouTube that talk about Silicon Mac memory! All benchmarks and comparisons are done with video productions or large 3D games, and I'm not interested in that kind of workflow. I know that several benchmarks/comparisons videos on YT are showing that there's no noticeable difference of performance between 16GB and 32GB of ram, when using a single specialized app (again, it's always done for large video import/edit/export or copying large files...). This is not what I'm asking about. These YT videos are saying nothing about heavy multitasking!

 

[IncreasinglyFrustrated]

For large professional video productions, you're going to want at least 64GB.

😂

Seriously though, it sounds like you'd benefit from 32GB. At a minimum, it would provide some future-proofing and allow you to mega-multitask without ever having to think about system resource usage.

 

[bobcomer]

I keep reading everywhere that 32GB is overkill and a waste of money if we don't do heavy 3D renderings or large professional video productions, and that 16GB is way enough for 99% of the population. That may be true if we only work in a single app at a time, doing "normal" usual or everyday stuff (office, web browsing, answering emails, watching a movie, managing files in the Finder, ...). The answer I keep reading is that 32GB is only useful for professionals that do heavy stuff in their specialized app, like 8K video editing or super music productions (I'm not one of these guys). I rarely see discussions about "heavy multitasking", i.e using many "ordinary apps" at the same time, frequently switching between apps, and doing a lot of web browsing with multi-tabs open while listening to music. This is the kind of stuff I do very frequently with my Mac, and I hate slowing down my multitasking workflow because of the computer lacking memory.

I understand that unified memory on Silicon Macs changes a lot of things. Coming from an Intel Mac, it's hard to use our past experience to appropriately choose a proper amount of memory for a new Mac. Especially since the video ram (VRAM) is now unified with the "ordinary" ram, and that we can't change/upgrade anymore the memory later (after two years of use, for example). So we now have to carefully decide the proper amount of memory when we buy a new Mac, and yet we don't want to waste our money with a large overkill amount of memory.

In the past (on all of my Intel Macs, with 8GB of ram), I very frequently suffered of a lack of memory while doing "heavy multitasking", with ordinary apps only: slow apps switching, some apps freezing, web navigators slowing down with lots of tabs, background music lagging or stopping, some beach balls when switching apps, ..., and I hate that to death! I'm the kind of person that gets very irritated/frustrated by the computer lags, and I may become very impatient with the computer when it's slowing down! (of course, I did checked the computer for any unexpected background processes or other "illness". The computer was always okay.)

So is 16GB really enough these days (and for the few years to come), on Apple Silicon Macs for doing "heavy multitasking", or is it better to pay the extra to get 32GB?

Please, don't tell anything about large professional video productions! This is what I hear ALL THE TIME in ALL videos on YouTube that talk about Silicon Mac memory! All benchmarks and comparisons are done with video productions or large 3D games, and I'm not interested in that kind of workflow. I know that several benchmarks/comparisons videos on YT are showing that there's no noticeable difference of performance between 16GB and 32GB of ram, when using a single specialized app (again, it's always done for large video import/edit/export or copying large files...). This is not what I'm asking about. None of these YT videos says anything about heavy multitasking!

For me, 32G is a minimum for heavy multitasking, which is the way I work. I actually have 64G on my Mac Studio and 128G on my iMac (27") I use VM's, but no video stuff.

 

[leman]

Quite frankly, with the hardware assisted RAM compression and low-latency swap of modern Apple Silicon Macs, restoring application memory from backing storage takes less time than rendering app switch animation. You’ll be fine with 16GB, maybe 8GB.

 

[Cham2000]

Quite frankly, with the hardware assisted RAM compression and low-latency swap of modern Apple Silicon Macs, restoring application memory from backing storage takes less time than rendering app switch animation. You’ll be fine with 16GB, maybe 8GB.

Well, I don't agree with 8GB at all. I did tested the new base mini M2 8GB in the store, and I was easily able to put it under the yellow memory pressure (and some red spikes) while only playing with several apps. I was even able to put the base mini M2 Pro (16GB) into the yellow zone, but it was harder than with the base mini M2. And yet, I wasn't even doing any serious stuff with it, like what I would do at home. The 16GB was harder to put into the yellow zone, and I wasn't able to get red spikes just by launching and playing with the apps, in the Apple store. I must admit that I was impressed by this test, but I'm still uncertain that 16GB would be enough.

 

[wilberforce]

On my 16GB M1 Pro I tried to bring it to its knees by opening every app on my computer, and many tabs in several browsers and rapidly switching between them.
Honestly, I noticed little slow down when switching, it was hard to believe.
What does bring my 16GB M1 Pro to its knees is having very large files open in Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop for editing, with or without other apps open.
In your case, having a history of slowdown issues when multi-tasking, maybe you should opt for 32GB, which might be wasted, you will never know.
The other option is to get a 16GB machine and try it out for 14 days. This is exactly the purpose of the 14-day return period, which people seem to be reluctant to take advantage of.

 

[wyrdness]

For the kind of multitasking that you're describing, I'd agree with leman that you'll be absolutely fine with 16GB. I have a lot of apps running on my M1 Air, including Affinity Publisher, Affinity Designer, Pages, LibreOffice, Preview (with 5 large PDF's) and a huge number of open tabs (I counted 98) in Safari. It's using under 12MB and zero swap. Unless you're using really memory-heavy applications, like VM's, you shouldn't have any issues with 16GB.

Do you have a list of apps that you're running and how much memory they use? What does Activity Monitor report on your current machine?

 

[Electrojake]

Quite frankly, with the hardware assisted RAM compression and low-latency swap of modern Apple Silicon Macs, restoring application memory from backing storage takes less time than rendering app switch animation. You’ll be fine with 16GB, maybe 8GB.

I see it this way Cham2000. . .
While I completely agree with leman's post above and feel that technically 16Gb is plenty, I'd say that for psychological reasons you'd better go with 32Gb of Ram because if you settle for 16 you will constantly be worried about not having enough RAM. It will ruin then joy of your new system. Get the 32Gb and be done with it. No stress, no doubts, no second thoughts after you own it.

 

[Cham2000]

In your case, having a history of slowdown issues when multi-tasking, maybe you should opt for the 32GB, which might be wasted, you will never know.

Well, this is precisely a source of concern: The 8GB Intel Macs that I use can't be compared to any Mac Silicon. One is an old MBP 13" with an HDD, the other one is a MB Air with an SSD. They're both old computers and I can't use my past experience to judge the proper amount of ram needed for a new Silicon Mac.

I agree with other comments about the comfort of not thinking/worrying about the 16GB, and should go straight to 32GB, but it's still 517$CAD more (taxes included)!! That's a lot of money for the psychological comfort, and may be considered luxury!

 

[abbeybound]

I don't feel like that memory pressure yellow bar is very meaningful.. I run my 16GB M2 Air all day long in the yellow and never notice any delays. The only time I've been able to overwhelm an M doing normal stuff was with two users logged in at the same time.

 

[wilberforce]

Well, this is precisely a source of concern: The 8GB Intel Macs that I use can't be compared to any Mac Silicon. One is an old MBP 13" with an HDD, the other one is a MB Air with an SSD. They're both old computers and I can't use my past experience to judge the proper amount of ram needed for a new Silicon Mac.

I agree with other comments about the comfort of not thinking/worrying about the 16GB, and should go straight to 32GB, but it's still 517$CAD more (taxes included)!! That's a lot of money for the psychological comfort, and may be considered luxury!

There is no comparison between an older 8GB Intel machine (which I also had) and a 16GB Apple Silicon machine. I bet you will be happy with a 16GB M1/M2. Again, I suggest try one out for 14 days, unless you don't care much about spending $500+ just in case.

Seeing the system takes about 4GB RAM (roughly), a 16GB machine leaves three times as much remaining memory for apps compared to an 8GB machine. Also the swap to the SSD on the AS machines is blazingly fast compared to older Intel machines.

 

[anakin44011]

Well, this is precisely a source of concern: The 8GB Intel Macs that I use can't be compared to any Mac Silicon. One is an old MBP 13" with an HDD, the other one is a MB Air with an SSD. They're both old computers and I can't use my past experience to judge the proper amount of ram needed for a new Silicon Mac.

I agree with other comments about the comfort of not thinking/worrying about the 16GB, and should go straight to 32GB, but it's still 517$CAD more (taxes included)!! That's a lot of money for the psychological comfort, and may be considered luxury!

Will the extra $517 help you get an extra year or two out of the laptop (or are you physically hard on your laptops and will be replacing it earlier due to wear and tear)? In the long run, the $517 might save you some money.

The likelihood that future MacOS update and app updates will require (or at least use) more RAM is high. Also keep in mind that you are sharing that RAM with GPU - so if you plug into external monitors, use video-conferencing, etc -- the extra RAM will come in handy.

 

[Cham2000]

Do you have a list of apps that you're running and how much memory they use?

I typically use the following apps, all running at the same time, and I have to switch frequently between them:

- Two web Broswers (Safari, Chrome or FireFox), with dozens of tabs open,
- Preview to see several pictures and read large PDFs,
- ITunes or Evermusic to play music in the background,
- Some LaTeX interface (Latexian, or Texshop, or Texifier) to write code and compiling some large PDFs with pdfLaTeX,
- Mathematica to do some calculations and graphics (some may be pretty intense!),
- Intaglio (or an equivalent vectorial drawing app, like EazyDraw) to draw figures/schematics/diagrams,
- Mail app, to email...,
- Pixelmator Pro to edit photos/pictures,
- Xee (or another equivalent app) to browse pictures,

I often have to launch more apps, like Discord, or a game to relax a bit between "multitasking sessions".

When I do this on any of my old Intel Macs with only 8GB of ram, I systematically get a strong impact on performances (apps slowing down or freezing, lags, beach balls, ...). I always have to quit several of the apps above. I don't think 16GB would really be enough on these old computers. I know that things have changed on the Silicon Macs, but still, would 16GB be really enough without swapping to death on the SSD?

 

[NikkoTuason]

I think you'll be fine with 16GB. I was in the same boat when deciding whether to go 16GB or 32GB (I chose 16GB) with the MBP M2 Pro. I'm running Parallels with 10GB RAM dedicated to VM. Running Games in Parallels while running 10+ tabs in Chrome I didn't encounter any stuttering or even memory swap. Really impressive how OS X uses RAM, compared to my Windows PC I almost max out my 16GB with the same tasks

 

[leman]

@Cham2000 The nice thing about Apple is the two week no question asked return period. Why not get the cheaper 16GB model and test it out at home? If you are unhappy you can always exchange.

 

[Cham2000]

@Cham2000 The nice thing about Apple is the two week no question asked return period. Why not get the cheaper 16GB model and test it out at home? If you are unhappy you can always exchange.

I would prefer to not go that route, because it's a lot of troubles to return the computer and wait again for a new one, and having to reinstall everything again. And it may take me more than 2 weeks to test the 16GB and get a good/reliable conclusion.

 

[leman]

I would prefer to not go that route, because it's a lot of troubles to return the computer and wait again for a new one, and having to reinstall everything again. And it may take me more than 2 weeks to test the 16GB and get a good/reliable conclusion.

Then just go with your gut feeling. Nobody here can validate your use case just like nobody here knows your expectations and tolerance levels.

 

[SpotOnT]

Well, I don't agree with 8GB at all. I did tested the new base mini M2 8GB in the store, and I was easily able to put it under the yellow memory pressure (and some red spikes) while only playing with several apps. I was even able to put the base mini M2 Pro (16GB) into the yellow zone, but it was harder than with the base mini M2. And yet, I wasn't even doing any serious stuff with it, like what I would do at home. The 16GB was harder to put into the yellow zone, and I wasn't able to get red spikes just by launching and playing with the apps, in the Apple store. I must admit that I was impressed by this test, but I'm still uncertain that 16GB would be enough.

Sounds like you did a test and have your result. You need 32 GB for what you want out of the system….

 

[Unami]

I've been on 32gb for some years and upgraded to a new computer with 64gb in 2020. I wouldn't call my business a "large scale video production", rather a small "one man show".

Upgrading from 32 to 64gb didn't have a huge effect, 8gb+ of vram on the GPU has had a bigger impact (but on apple silicon it's shared), e.g. for grading higher resolution files in DaVinci Resolve. But from 16-32 gb? It's worth it for the length of RAM Preview in After Effects alone. Final Cut was comfortably sitting at 20GB of ram very often even when I still did mostly work in 1080p.

So, yeah, 32gb is a minimum imho, even for small scale video productions using a single app at a time.

 

[Cham2000]

Then just go with your gut feeling. Nobody here can validate your use case just like nobody here knows your expectations and tolerance levels.

Well, my gut feeling is... very complicated! I simply don't have enough experience with the Silicon Macs to get a very good and reliable feeling. This is why I'm asking on the forum. But from all the comments I'm reading, maybe I should go to the luxury road and pay the extra 500$CAD to get the 32GB, just to get the peace of mind.

 

[Cham2000]

OK. I hear you loud and clear. I am likely one of those whom you are targeting and I have a unique perspective as I have a MacPro with 256 GB of ram.

Yes... I do video editing, but I use my machine for regular business far more often. I also own several laptops that have either 16 GB (standard use) or 32 GB (FCP mobile editing) of ram respectively.

Are all your other Macs (except the Mac Pro) Silicon computers? And are you on Ventura?

 

[leman]

Well, my gut feeling is... very complicated! I simply don't have enough experience with the Silicon Macs to get a very good and reliable feeling. This is why I'm asking on the forum. But from all the comments I'm reading, maybe I should go to the luxury road and pay the extra 500$CAD to get the 32GB, just to get the peace of mind.

It does sound like you are trying convince yourself that this is the way to go Buy what you want and be happy!

 

[Cham2000]

It does sound like you are trying convince yourself that this is the way to go Buy what you want and be happy!

You're right! But I feel uncomfortable with the extra 500$CAD just for a luxury memory boost.

 

[apostolosdt]

For some strange reason---and I pointed it out in another post----there are a lot of similar questions like the one in this OP. And the comments and answers are more or less the same: "Forget 8GB, go for at least 16, and if you can, go for 32. Still, want peace of mind? 64 and up!"

What makes one believe that one will elicit a different kind of response?

 

[james2538]

This why it would be great if Apple offered a 24GB option for $200. A lot of people are concerned about running up against 16GB but know 32GB is overkill, especially for $400.