24gb vs. 40gb for new iMac

[EugW]

Well, for ONLY $100 more you get TWICE the memory. For ME that makes the most sense. Down the road, if I want to MAX out he memory, another 32GB will do the trick.
It's the same argument when it comes to i5 vs i7 and 512SSD vs 1TB SSD. I also chose the latter.
Will I need it? Probably not. Do I want it? HECK YES!

If you don't need it, it's a waste of $100. Put this way, if you can't articulate why you might need it, then you probably don't need it. Yes, people who need 40 GB or even 64 GB in an iMac do exist, but I suspect 95% of iMac users would be fine with 24 GB for the next 5 years, myself included.

And furthermore, this is one situation where it doesn't really matter that much if you do it now or later, because the memory is user replaceable.

 

[kdoug]

If you don't need it, it's a waste of $100. Put this way, if you can't articulate why you might need it, then you probably don't need it. Yes, people who need 40 GB or even 64 GB in an iMac do exist, but I suspect 95% of iMac users would be fine with 24 GB for the next 5 years, myself included.

And furthermore, this is one situation where it doesn't really matter that much if you do it now or later, because the memory is user replaceable.

Justifying $100 for twice the memory isn't hard to do. Looking at some of the signatures on this forum I'd guess well over 80% did exactly the same thing. Everybody has a dollar amount that justifies the upgrade or to put it another way, its all relative.

 

[CaptRB]

My machine is at 24GB, but at 16GB it was perfectly fine.

As Mister Spock said, "A difference that makes no difference IS no difference."

Except to your wallet.


R.

 

[SaSaSushi]

I plan to get a minimum of five years usage out of this 2017 iMac. I'm already comfortably using the 40GB in this machine with a constantly running Windows VM in Parallels. I am likely going to max it out with 64GB at some point.

If you know you're not going to need the extra RAM, not just right now but for the anticipated lifetime of the machine then it is probably a waste to go for 32GB.

If you do not, then I don't see an extra $100 as a waste for those who can afford it and want some future-proofing.

 

[CE3]

Last night I had about 8 RAW photos open in Photoshop (these were not big projects with layers, just a quick set of photos I was making minor adjustments to and saving to JPEGs) + Adobe Bridge + Mail + Firefox (maybe 1 or 2 tabs open) and I was surprised to check Activity Monitor and find I was using 26GB of RAM.

Like @SaSaSushi, I also hope to get quite a few years of use out of this iMac, and Photoshop isn't the only resource hungry program I run.

Initially I thought 32/40GB was going to be overkill, but now I'm glad to have the extra headroom.

 

[alien3dx]

View attachment 720758

Last night I had about 8 RAW photos open in Photoshop (these were not big projects with layers, just a quick set of photos I was making minor adjustments to and saving to JPEGs) + Adobe Bridge + Mail + Firefox (maybe 1 or 2 tabs open) and I was surprised to check Activity Monitor and find I was using 26GB of RAM.

Like @SaSaSushi, I also hope to get quite a few years of use out of this iMac, and Photoshop isn't the only resource hungry program I run.

Initially I thought 32/40GB was going to be overkill, but now I'm glad to have the extra headroom.

wow.. it totally creepy to me.. 25 GB for photoshop only..But Adobe Bridge used that high memory usage ? Pretty odd.

 

[steve123]

If you use Safari then you'll want 40GB on RAM.

It sure is snappier with 40GB.

 

[CE3]

wow.. it totally creepy to me.. 25 GB for photoshop only..But Adobe Bridge used that high memory usage ? Pretty odd.

If you look at the screenshot I attached you’ll see that Photoshop was using around 15 GB of RAM. I had about 8 RAW photos open, and I should add that I was working with 42MP files. Again, these were just quick adjustments, but it’s been my experience that even one really big .psd file with lots of layers and adjustments can get very hungry for RAM and temporary drive space.

 

[alien3dx]

If you look at the screenshot I attached you’ll see that Photoshop was using around 15 GB of RAM. I had about 8 RAW photos open, and I should add that I was working with 42MP files. Again, these were just quick adjustments, but it’s been my experience that even one really big .psd file with lots of layers and adjustments can get very hungry for RAM and temporary drive space.

ok.. thanks for the explanation..

 

[reszelo22]

Why upgrade at all? Just keep the 8GB until it doesn't suit you anymore. I'm still on 4GB (1.5GB going towards the GPU) and doing fine. People on here vastly overplay the amount of RAM you need. The only time you need more RAM is if your memory pressure is consistently red in Activity Monitor.

I recently did a Ram test on my machine in which I opened every app (including large apps like Davinci, iMovie, Affinity Photo, Affinity Designer), and only after the last couple large apps opened did my machine start truly running out of RAM. I had video projects playing and it continued to work without a hitch. It was eye opening.

Some of you wrote that their mac is not using the ram at all just like this thread I quote for. It is true but it is not because it wouldn’t like to. Even if you have only 1GB ram and you have a look on the usage it will not use it 100%. Would you upgrade to 16gb you would be surprised that it rarely goes below 8gb at all. This is the main point. The mac starts to use rams. The more you have the more she starts to use and will make everything faster and smoother. Everything is just getting better.

I have just upgraded to imac 27 3.8 2TB fusion, radeon 8gb video. It came with 8gb. Cutting video is very good but as a photographer I see that photoshop and mostly Lightroom works are very slow. I take 2 x 16gb more, having 40gb inside and will keep on tracking the internet for good offers to jump anytime to max the 64gb out.

It is something like owning a bugatti Veyron. You do not use 1000 Hp all the time. But the engine it has is more powerful in all of its scale so the smallest push on the pedal will be followed with a tremendous throttle anyway.

 

[jerwin]

This is from 2015

http://barefeats.com/imac5k19.html

Chasing diminishing returns can get expensive. In the case of Photoshop, having more than 16 GB helps, provided that your work most closely resembles the extreme assumptions of that benchmark.

The benchmarks
diglloydSpeed1: a CPU-constrained test, but generally needs 8GB of memory to be so. It runs a mix of operations including Unsharp Mask, image resizing, image rotation, invert, Levels, Curves, Gaussian Blur, Shadow Highlight. This mix is generally not highly scalable.
diglloydSmall: generates an 8.4GB scratch file using a 14,000-pixel-wide image. Not used for testing in this article, but is appropriate for testing smaller workloads.
diglloydMedium: generates a 15.7GB scratch file using a 20,000-pixel-wide image. This is about as large a challenge as is suitable for a MacBook Pro (unless you have plenty of patience).
diglloydHuge: generates a 56GB scratch file using a 40,000-pixel-wide image. Suitable for testing extreme cases with the Mac Pro, most dependent on scratch drive performance.
batch: a variety of Photoshop filters including Sharpen, Blur, Noise, Distort, Liquify, Pixellate, LensCorrections. [Note that at some points in time, some of these tests would crash Photoshop due to OSX GPU drive bugs and/or Photoshop bugs. But Photoshop CC 2015.5 is stable].

https://macperformanceguide.com/OptimizingPhotoshopCS6-Benchmarks.html

But for aftereffects-- a better gpu might provide better returns. (assuming that you're willing to pay for the expansion box.)

 

[EugW]

This is from 2015

http://barefeats.com/imac5k19.html

Chasing diminishing returns can get expensive. In the case of Photoshop, having more than 16 GB helps, provided that your work most closely resembles the extreme assumptions of that benchmark.


https://macperformanceguide.com/OptimizingPhotoshopCS6-Benchmarks.html

But for aftereffects-- a better gpu might provide better returns. (assuming that you're willing to pay for the expansion box.)

It would be interesting to compare 24 GB vs 40 GB, since that's the real world difference in memory configurations for most people on a 27" iMac.

For me, with more modest needs, 24 GB is more than enough for my iMac, and will be for years to come. 12 GB on my previous iMac could sometimes be a bit restrictive though. Although 12 GB did work OK most of the time, it seemed upgrading to 16 GB total would be cutting it too close esp. for the long term, so I went with 24 GB which wasn't expensive anyway. ie. 24 GB was the best bang for the buck for actual use and future proofing for me. But yeah, It's hard to argue with 40 GB for $100 more, esp. for people with somewhat heavier memory use than mine. Note though when I bought my iMac 1.5 years ago, the premium to go with 40 GB vs. 24 GB was a fair bit more. Anyhow, I find with 24 GB, most of the time I have a bit of unused RAM, which confirms that 24 GB is enough.

In contrast, 8 GB on a laptop can occasionally be a bit restrictive for me and this will only get worse as time goes on. Also, on a Mac laptop, the memory is not upgradable after the fact, and I keep my Macs a long time. Thus, I got 16 GB for my 12" MacBook. As I've said in other threads, on an ultraportable, 12 GB would have probably been the sweet spot for me, but that's not an option so I went with 16 GB. With 16 GB, I find my RAM is sometimes used up, although some of that RAM is being used by cached applications.

BTW, it's funny switching back and forth between the iMac and the MacBook/MacBook Air forums. In the iMac forum, it seems the usual plan with the 27" iMac is to go with 40 GB, just because. In contrast, in the MacBook and MacBook Air forums, people keep saying 16 GB is overkill and 8 GB ought to be enough.

 

[jerwin]

It would be interesting to compare 24 GB vs 40 GB, since that's the real world difference in memory configurations for most people on a 27" iMac.

The benchmark is freely available, but photoshop isn't.

40 GB is probably very similar to 64 GB.
But, yes. Is 24 GB enough, or do you need a full 32 GB?
[doublepost=1543188008][/doublepost]There's also the matter of a 27 inch screen letting you do more things at once. I can imagine that some users of the smaller screens Apple's lineup find "full screen mode" to be useful.

 

[ApfelKuchen]

Some of you wrote that their mac is not using the ram at all just like this thread I quote for. It is true but it is not because it wouldn’t like to. Even if you have only 1GB ram and you have a look on the usage it will not use it 100%. Would you upgrade to 16gb you would be surprised that it rarely goes below 8gb at all. This is the main point. The mac starts to use rams. The more you have the more she starts to use and will make everything faster and smoother. Everything is just getting better.

I have just upgraded to imac 27 3.8 2TB fusion, radeon 8gb video. It came with 8gb. Cutting video is very good but as a photographer I see that photoshop and mostly Lightroom works are very slow. I take 2 x 16gb more, having 40gb inside and will keep on tracking the internet for good offers to jump anytime to max the 64gb out.

It is something like owning a bugatti Veyron. You do not use 1000 Hp all the time. But the engine it has is more powerful in all of its scale so the smallest push on the pedal will be followed with a tremendous throttle anyway.

Part of the reason it appears Mac "rarely goes below 8gb at all," is not because it's actively using all that RAM, but because it has less need to "clean house." A lot of that 8 GB can be code/data that is not in current use. It's left in RAM on the chance that it may be needed again. If it is needed again, then there's a speed improvement. If it's not needed again, eventually it will be removed in favor of something that has a current priority.

If you need more RAM than you have, the CPU will page out to disk. If that disk is a slow HDD, then you pay a large speed penalty. If your disk is Flash storage/SSD, then you pay a much lower penalty if you need to page out to disk.

So, getting back to that Bugatti. It's true, if you have an ultra-powerful car of that sort, there may be times when you actually benefit from the extra reserves of power. The question is just how often you need that extra burst of speed, and is the price difference justifiable?

I've owned some truly slow/low-performance cars, where the lack of quick acceleration on the highway lead to some scary moments. However, my current, $22,000 Honda Civic has been able to deliver all the acceleration and power I've required. Now, I'm sure that I'd feel differently about the Honda if I had access to a $1.5 million Veyron. I'm just quite sure that, unless I had an annual income in excess of $6 million, I would not think the Veyron was "affordable." For the number of times I might need performance better than my Honda's, each one of those "punches" might cost in excess of $22,000.

Obviously, the difference in price between 8 GB and 64 GB of RAM is nothing like the difference in price between a Honda and a Bugatti. 64 GB RAM may be far more than most people need, but it's a relatively affordable luxury. Still, there are probably better ways for the average computer user to spend their money.

 

[mikehalloran]

Memory leaks are a fact of life. Browsers and their plugins are the worst offenders for some but, for others, it can be many other apps. Rebooting every day helps most users mitigate the effects—but not all.

I reboot every morning.

When I had 24G, my machine would sometimes lock up in the afternoon. Checking available RAM, I found that I had half a meg or less free.

Maxing out at 32G solved that for me. No more freezing; no lockups. I just checked my iMac after running 18 hours and it's showing 5.6G free—normal for me.

I still reboot every morning.

My MacBook Air does fine with 8G. I would never attempt certain tasks on it like my DAW or a very limited version of my day job.

 

[EugW]

Memory leaks are a fact of life. Browsers and their plugins are the worst offenders for some but, for others, it can be many other apps. Rebooting every day helps most users mitigate the effects—but not all.

Indeed, memory leaks are a fact of life. Browsers are frequent offenders but as you suggest, many common mainstream apps have similar issues. Take a look at PowerPoint 2016.

My MacBook Air does fine with 8G. I would never attempt certain tasks on it like my DAW or a very limited version of my day job.

Memory leaks would have much bigger impact on 8 GB machines than 24 GB machines for obvious reasons. It’s not as if people don’t run browsers and common business apps on laptops.