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8GB RAM in M3 MacBook Pro Proves the Bottleneck in Real-World Tests

falainber said:
With your attitude one can just as easily assume that Apple indeed orders custom RAM chips with worse specs to maximize profits. If they were ordering "super RAM" what exactly would prevent other companies from getting them too? Also, keep in mind that plenty of laptops from other vendors use unified memory (although these laptops are usually the low performance models).
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Integrated graphics isn’t the same as Unified Memory. And I’m merely pointing out that people claiming this isn’t possible are out of line, since we lack conclusive evidence in either direction. As I’ve already repeatedly demonstrated, Apple’s RAM upgrade pricing is competitive with other competing products.
 
ric22 said:
Arguably, it's a decision by Apple driven more by the reduction of the life expectancy of their products- as is already being seen with the iPhones, RAM in larger quantities is essential for even the most basic modern AI tasks. Keeping RAM on Macs so low will drive a wave of new purchases in the near future, which is much more financially significant than the money made from those that paid the high upgrade fees. (Though of course they enjoy that profit too!)
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I disagree. Apple offers great support life for their products. For many users, the 8GB base spec will likely be perfectly fine for the approximate 8 year support life of the MacBook.
 
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ric22 said:
Arguably, it's a decision by Apple driven more by the reduction of the life expectancy of their products- as is already being seen with the iPhones, RAM in larger quantities is essential for even the most basic modern AI tasks. Keeping RAM on Macs so low will drive a wave of new purchases in the near future, which is much more financially significant than the money made from those that paid the high upgrade fees. (Though of course they enjoy that profit too!)
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Sure, I can see the warped logic either pay now [for more RAM] or pay later [premature obsolescence]. If you want a bargain, get a Raspberry Pi or a Chromebook mindset.

But many (most) people probably don’t need anything more than a Chromebook processing power anyways and a lowest tier Mac can provide that.
 
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Kal Madda said:
Integrated graphics isn’t the same as Unified Memory. And I’m merely pointing out that people claiming this isn’t possible are out of line, since we lack conclusive evidence in either direction. As I’ve already repeatedly demonstrated, Apple’s RAM upgrade pricing is competitive with other competing products.
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Integrated graphics a.ways uses unified memory. It may or may not be packaged with CPU but it is unified (i.e. shared by GPU and CPU)
 
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There is a lot of complaining about the principle of calling it “Pro”, but will anyone here actually be appeased if Apple just changes the name? If not, then this is purely about price.
 
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Kal Madda said:
I disagree. Apple offers great support life for their products. For many users, the 8GB base spec will likely be perfectly fine for the approximate 8 year support life of the MacBook.
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I'm so sorry, but in my country MacBook Pro costs $2,278. I'm not going to pay $2,278 for 8GB of RAM. You could get a used car for that money, you could get a much better PC for that money, I could pay 4 months of worth of rent for that money. Charging $2k for 8GB of ram is unjustified.
 
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Chuckeee said:
Sure, I can see the warped logic either pay now [for more RAM] or pay later [premature obsolescence]. If you want a bargain, get a Raspberry Pi or a Chromebook mindset.
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They literally made a current phone model (iPhone 15) unable to run the new AI stuff by giving it less RAM, full well knowing when they built it what the implications would be. That's just a fact. From a business stand point, I see why they did it... every phone company wants a 'super cycle'. We're in an age where the hardware is already damn near perfect from each manufacturer, so it's very hard to create demand for new phones.

Edit: I bought the 15PM, and the increased RAM was one of the reasons- I posted here in September saying how I expected the iPhones with less RAM to be left behind fast. My prediction proved correct even faster than I anticipated.
 
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ric22 said:
They literally made a current phone model (iPhone 15) unable to run the new AI stuff by giving it less RAM, full well knowing when they built it what the implications would be. That's just a fact. From a business stand point, I see why they did it... every phone company wants a 'super cycle'. We're in an age where the hardware is already damn near perfect from each manufacturer, so it's very hard to create demand for new phones.

Edit: I bought the 15PM, and the increased RAM was one of the reasons- I posted here in September saying how I expected the iPhones with less RAM to be left behind fast. My prediction proved correct even faster than I anticipated.
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It may be that Apple knowingly made the standard iPhones unable to run local AI because Apple is making local AI a “pro” feature like Face ID and ProMotion. It might also be possible Apple didn’t foresee iPhone 15’s needing to run local AI since AI sort of snuck up on Apple and plans for new iPhones get solidified long in advance. What Apple does with iPhone 16 should be telling of which was the case.
 
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subjonas said:
There is a lot of complaining about the principle of calling it “Pro”,
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My main objection there is “MacBook Pro with the M3, not the M3 Pro” is really confusing to tell someone. I wish they’d chosen different suffixes between SoCs and Mac models.

(Try saying “M1 Macs with M1 Max” thrice.)
 
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ric22 said:
They literally made a current phone model (iPhone 15) unable to run the new AI stuff by giving it less RAM, full well knowing when they built it what the implications would be. That's just a fact.
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I do not think they are happy that the only iPhone to support Apple Intelligence (AppIn? This name is stupidly long) is the 15 Pro/Max. I imagine a combination of being caught a bit off-guard by the growth of LLM, and TSMC production capacities/processes played into this. (See also: why give the 15 Pro/Max a one-off SoC that likely won’t come to any other device.)
 
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chucker23n1 said:
I do not think they are happy that the only iPhone to support Apple Intelligence (AppIn? This name is stupidly long) is the 15 Pro/Max. I imagine a combination of being caught a bit off-guard by the growth of LLM, and TSMC production capacities/processes played into this. (See also: why give the 15 Pro/Max a one-off SoC that likely won’t come to any other device.)
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Caught off guard by RAM requirements a few months later? You sure, mate?

Edit: Or do you think the AI stuff wasn't in the long term plan and was just a knee jerk reaction to everyone else jumping on the AI bandwagon before them?
 
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subjonas said:
It may be that Apple knowingly made the standard iPhones unable to run local AI because Apple is making local AI a “pro” feature like Face ID and ProMotion. It might also be possible Apple didn’t foresee iPhone 15’s needing to run local AI since AI sort of snuck up on Apple and plans for new iPhones get solidified long in advance. What Apple does with iPhone 16 should be telling of which was the case.
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I foresee a 0% chance of the regular iPhone 16s not being able to run the local AI stuff...
 
Kal Madda said:
And you can replace high performance RAM cards with lower performance ones with the same interface. People claiming to have swapped RAM chips proves nothing about whether or not Apple’s OEM chips are custom ordered or generic…
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If the RAM components work fine after the switch, I think that is a pretty good evidence. On the other hand, your evidence is only that you keep repeating that there is no evidence. Maybe you could provide evidence that shows that Apple is using some kind of custom chip that no-one else is using.
 
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iHorseHead said:
I'm so sorry, but in my country MacBook Pro costs $2,278. I'm not going to pay $2,278 for 8GB of RAM. You could get a used car for that money, you could get a much better PC for that money, I could pay 4 months of worth of rent for that money. Charging $2k for 8GB of ram is unjustified.
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Just because currency conversion doesn’t favor your country doesn’t mean that the base spec isn’t a great value. If you don’t see the value in buying a MacBook Pro, then don’t buy one. Nobody’s forcing you to.
 
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MilaM said:
If they work fine after the switch, I think that is a pretty good proof. On the other hand, your evidence is only that you keep repeating that there is no evidence. Maybe you could provide evidence that shows that Apple is using some kind of custom chip that no-one is using.
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No, it isn’t. Again, I could custom order a RAM card built to specific performance specs, and replace it with a generic one with the same interface and it would run fine (just the card would now no longer benefit from those optimized specs). Even assuming the claimed swaps were successful, they prove nothing about whether or not Apple custom ordered RAM chips or not. I don’t need to prove that Apple ordered custom chips, because I’m merely stating it’s a possibility. Others are saying it’s impossible that Apple could have custom ordered chips, which is out of line because we lack definitive evidence to make such claims.
 
ifxf said:
This is Apple‘s unified on chip memory so you can’t compare that with standard RAM chips. They might just be binning their chips and without a 8 gig option chips might need to be discarded.
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The biggest issue with these arguments is that Apple shouldn’t be charging only what the chip itself costs. That’s not how any other competitor in this market works (at least any that are directly competing in the same category as Apple). I’ve already shown several examples of competitors charging similar prices for RAM upgrades, the same prices, or higher. Even RAM upgrades on models that use non-soldered RAM cards generally exceed the cost of just the RAM card itself, it’s often at least half of what Apple charges for upgrades on higher performance RAM upgrades. It’s just the way the market works, and apparently some aren’t happy about it…
 
I work for a public broadcaster, we have thousands of Macs.
Our internal IT doesn't even offer 8GB models, all available models start from 16GB. That says something I guess,
 
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taliz said:
I work for a public broadcaster, we have thousands of Macs.
Our internal IT doesn't even offer 8GB models, all available models start from 16GB. That says something I guess,
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It only says something about your IT, or your specific use-case. Plenty of people find the 8GB base spec to meet their needs. The base spec model is supposed to be just that, a base spec model. It’s not supposed to meet everyone’s needs or wants…
 
Kal Madda said:
Even assuming the claimed swaps were successful, they prove nothing about whether or not Apple custom ordered RAM chips or not. I don’t need to prove that Apple ordered custom chips, because I’m merely stating it’s a possibility.
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Oh, so Apple didn’t custom-order for actual benefit, but rather just out of spite. Got it.
 
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