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Should you buy a 8gb or 16gb ram for M1?


  • Total voters
    16

cent1047

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Nov 18, 2020
5
3
So I’ve been wondering how much RAM should I really get. I’ve watched the performance test videos on these M1s machine but I haven’t seen anything about real life testing for RAM eater multitasks such as having both PR/AE editing at the same time. For those who have M1s, what do you guys think?
 

manuel.s90

macrumors member
Mar 20, 2020
36
27
I wonder whether I should save the 220€ for the RAM upgrade on the Air, too.

I’m a web developer, I don’t do anything that requires a lot of processing power but I usually have numerous tabs and browsers open...
 

nikidimi

macrumors newbie
Nov 13, 2020
17
12
Switching to ARM doesn't result in lower memory usage unless:
  1. The developers use this transition to optimize their code
  2. There is a specific optimization in this particular use case that was not possible on x86
But in general, nothing changes in terms of memory usage. If your browser is currently a lot, it's not going to change. However, most modern browser don't actually render the tabs you're not looking at, so opening even thousands is possible.

Also, if you do run out of memory, the OS will move the least used data to the SSD, so the result would be that there is going to be some small delay when you switch to this app/tab/etc and data needs to be moved back to memory. So you switch to app 2, app 1 moves from memory to SSD (to free up space), app 2 - from SSD to memory. If his happens occasionally, it's not that big of a deal. But if you are really using actively all your memory, this will happen every time a program access the RAM and would result in a terrible performance. But if you see that Chrome uses 20GB of RAM, most likely most of it it's not being actively accessed and can be stored on the SSD without a problem.

So because RAM is usually cheap and applications are using more and more, it was a very cheap insurance that you don't end up in this situation now or in the future. But at 200€+ it becomes more of a question if you actually need it. But not because something on ARM is different, but because the pricing is different and it changes the balance of pros/cons
 

stylinexpat

macrumors 68020
Mar 6, 2009
2,108
4,549
Yeah, but I saw a couple of posts about how well these RAM performs , just curious if 8gb still even an option
True but if I was spending the money on a computer that is 3-5 times bigger than an iPhone or smartphone I would expect at least double the RAM and storage space
 

niktsi

macrumors newbie
Oct 30, 2020
15
4
Is there a point in maxing out ram at the 7 core air? Is it a waist of money weighing the cost and the performance gained?
 
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