@Media Pimp Ask her to close and restart her web browser every other day and see if that helps. It seems I have the same use case.
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16GB or 32GB for multitasking? Not for video productions...
- Thread starter Cham2000
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@Media Pimp Ask her to close and restart her web browser every other day and see if that helps. It seems I have the same use case.
For this, only you can decide based on what you need and what you are experiencing in your current computer. How much RAM does your current machine have and check system activity when you are doing your regular tasks.
Me personally, 16GB is the minimum. My tasks are simple office tasks, and total RAM usage is around 10 to 12GB on average. 8GB is insufficient as even on my current computers with 8GB, I will be swapping 2 to 4GB, all the time. And I’m not even editing videos. This is simple office tasks, browser with multiple tabs, multiple word docs and excel open, and zoom.
A simple guesstimate, whatever Apple offers for the base config of their lowest tier, you want one tier up. Apple offers 8GB RAM as base on their MacBooks, so that means 16GB is the sweet spot.
You're saying that the basic document based applications you're using are consuming 10-12GB of RAM, which isn't even pushing the 16GB limit but you're recommending people buy 24 or 32GB if they want to keep the machine for more than a year. You're recommending someone spend real money for double or triple the memory you're currently using for applications that wouldn't even blink at memory compression or disk caching. Why?
I really don't know if I fit 'Teh Model' for a ["heavy multitasking"] user, but I've definitely been known to get my knickers in a bunch, on occasion <smile>
Attached are two screenies showing loads and nuances on my Mac Pro 5,1
This is what Activity Monitor showed after I logged-on, and opened Firefox (to do the basic 'Current Events' scroll I do every eve.):
To address your ["heavy multitasking"] query, I opened Affinity Photo, Designer, Postbox, PS, Bridge, and Lightroom:
My 5,1 is running Monterey (latest) using two Intel Xeon X5677's, with 96GB of DDR3 installed.
I've never used an Apple SI system, so I can't speak on such a thing.
What I do know, is that--with all this software loaded--I can effortlessly use my system, and switch-between any of said softs (and operate within) each as if they were the only one running.
I *could* install many GB more ram, but I find that the necessity of such is not that I'm really wanting.
That being said, I hold to the maxim that one can never have too much love, money, storage, or RAM
People underestimate just how much faster, better and more efficient the M series chips are. My M1 Air fells way snappier and consistently outperforms my Intel iMac with its 8-core i7 processor, and the M1 is the base 8GB/256 configuration.
Because, as I said, they might want to keep the computer for more than one year and don’t want to give Apple 1.4K$+ year after year just so AAPL can increase its market share.
The question isn't exactly the same as in other posts: About the amount of ram for heavy multitasking, instead of amount of ram for a specific heavy app.
Well, basically it is going to cost you $500 extra to avoid the hassle of trying the 16GB one out, and avoid any residual uncertainty. Which maybe is worthwhile to you.
I would agree it is not worth the hassle if it is only a long shot that 16GB will be OK (and arguably not really fair to Apple). But I believe that is not the case, based on my multi-tasking experience with my 16GB M1 Pro machine, when I tried to choke it.
Having asked me to repeat something simple "in plain English", your response is rather cryptic. What does this mean, exactly? What about using 12GB of RAM on a 16GB machine would necessitate annual extortion payments to Apple?
Sorry, but it is not reasonable to imply that a machine that is using 12GB of 16GB this year is going to be useless and need to be replaced next year.
Maybe this is not what you are trying to say, but it sure sounds like it. Apologies if I misunderstand
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I've read thru 65 posts already... Let me tell ya' Cham2000, if you dont get that 32Gb of ram you'll be miserable the first time you go Yellow or Red on the memory-graph.
While I feel 16 Gb on a new M1 or M2 Mac is plenty, you still could eventually push the memory pressure thru the roof if you push hard enough, but I have two solutions for you...
1.) Forget the Mac and get a Windows PC. They are incredibly flexible and expandable after the purchase.
2.) There are about 25 of us involved in your thread here. If each one of us sent you $20 that would come out to $500. With an extra 500 dollars in your pocket you could certainly afford the 32Gb of Ram.
I'll send the first 20 bucks via PayPal so we can move this insanity forward.
Regards,
Jake
When I tried a M1 MacBook Pro 16" when it first came out, even I did not launch applications, those launched by MacOS already occupied over 10GB as I recall. Some forum members said that MacOS and Silicon Mac would try to use as much RAM as possible available in the machine. In other words, if a Mac has 16GB, it would try to fill up 16GB. If it has 32GB, it would try to fill up 32GB. Sounds like even with 64GB RAM, the Mac would try to fill up 64GB also. However, from that famous 16GB vs 32GB Max Tech video, it does the opposite also.
Given that some of you Silicon Mac users have been using your machine for 1.5 years and gained a better understanding of such behavior, how does this work actually?
Given that some of you Silicon Mac users have been using your machine for 1.5 years and gained a better understanding of such behavior, how does this work actually?
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Need to get away from the notion of "filling up" memory, as though that is the important thing. The memory on my 16GB machine sometimes "fills up" and sometimes doesn't (when I bother to check). The point is that when doing intensive multi-tasking it is transparent to me. I am not sitting there thinking: "come on, come on, switch already, must be short on memory."
When runnning Photoshop and Lightroom on big files I have had over 25GB swap. When that happens, PS and LR get sluggish and laggy - but interestingly there is only a slight lag switching between apps, even with 25GB swap running.
It's not that the OS "tries" to fill up the RAM, it just doesn't bother cleaning it out. Got a file open that you're writing to and some free RAM? Cache that file until it's closed-- and maybe even after it's closed in case you open it again.
As things start to fill up, the OS starts prioritizing. Data you're using frequently gets priority, those cache files go away because they're absolutely not necessary, data that you haven't touched for a while first gets compressed in memory (imagine the OS "zips" the memory up and pushes it to the back because it's much faster for the CPU to unzip it than it is to read it from disk), and then eventually pushes those compressed pages out to disk when they're stale.
If an application is a good citizen, it can mark memory as disposable so the OS can throw it out and the application can regenerate it when it needs it (imagine, for example, that you have a resource on disk that you're cashing in the application but can easily re-read. Rather than push it into swap, it's easier to just read it back from its original location.)
Having just gotten back from the kitchen, I'm realizing the refrigerator isn't a bad metaphor-- if the fridge is empty, everything gets put in there. Leftovers can stay there for weeks. Spoiled milk is left unnoticed. When it starts to fill up you start prioritizing the space, consolidating two half empty egg cartons into one, getting rid of stuff that's expired then stuff that's nearly expired, etc.
^^^ Yes Sir, That is indeed the memory handling characteristics of the Apple Silicon macs.
But it's not actually "filling" the memory out of necessity... It's more like "taking advantage of all available memory" at any given time.
I have a 16Gb M1 MacMini running Windows-11 via Parallels while also running several apps in MacOS simultaneously. All that activity is done on a big 42" monitor. I have never noticed any Low-Ram issues thus far.
FWIW I went from a 2015 i5/8Gb to a M1 Pro/16Gb and it’s hilariously faster. My workload is not as large are yours but it never approaches memory pressure and the fan is never audible. Swap is like a few Mb.
I would say go 16GB if you know you won't use Parallels. If you think you might use Parallels, go 32.
Haha, these threads on RAM seem to escalate regularly. Now we're at 32GB is the minimum sane amount? Will we be at 64 or bust by the end of the year?
Also, hear me out, maybe you don't need 80 open tabs across multiple browsers going at the same time? Turn it into a tab group and close 40 of them until you actually need them?
Also, hear me out, maybe you don't need 80 open tabs across multiple browsers going at the same time? Turn it into a tab group and close 40 of them until you actually need them?
I can get by with 16GB as a Cloud Engineer/Cloud Architect, however we have ton of web apps around sometimes I have to have 3 browsers open with different profiles each one with 5-7 tabs. With 16GB of RAM that goes fine alongside the other apps I have.
However I do work with a Ubuntu or Kali VMs so that's the point where things get out of control with 16GB and I start swapping around 4-8GB for 8h of work.
If I were buying now, I'd get the 32GB of RAM for my use case.
However do note that the 16GB of RAM with lower latency compared to the Intel Macs is a major major difference, I'm quite surprised I can pull this off with my M1 Pro with just 16GB of RAM, on my Dell Latitude I need 32GB to do the same in POP OS using Gnome shell.
However I do work with a Ubuntu or Kali VMs so that's the point where things get out of control with 16GB and I start swapping around 4-8GB for 8h of work.
If I were buying now, I'd get the 32GB of RAM for my use case.
However do note that the 16GB of RAM with lower latency compared to the Intel Macs is a major major difference, I'm quite surprised I can pull this off with my M1 Pro with just 16GB of RAM, on my Dell Latitude I need 32GB to do the same in POP OS using Gnome shell.