This means more memory references can be changed quicker. Speed boost and with a faster transaction of retaining/releasing objects in memory can have an impact in RAM too. If RAM clears out faster, this allows room for other programs to use more RAM quicker. So a faster tradeoff on RAM usage.
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8GB RAM is a disappointment?
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I see what you're saying (I think), I hadn't thought of it that way. I still think the amount of ram 'used' or needed isn't changing, that there's no 'magic less ram usage' - i.e. it's mostly a speed effect.
But I'm thinking perhaps too much in a 'serial' world and with multiple cores/parallel processes, there would be more short-term spikes in usage that would result in ram-driven system slowdowns. (I.e. process one is unloading / clearing out chunks of ram and process two is trying to load data into ram, so a kind of collision that has the same effect as 'needing less ram' - if not a shortage, at least a major bottleneck solved).
I suppose that's somewhere in between (in a sense) - it's not some magical process that means the M1 is using/needing less total memory, but the much faster operations result in fewer transient spikes (or collisions) that drive the memory system to e.g. swap out or compress or whatever.
End result is the same, really: much faster M1/ram/chip/ssd compensates for having less 'extra' or buffer ram, and for the user, less need to increase ram for the same usage profile.
In a slightly different sense, it (possibly) shows that removing bottlenecks makes a big difference in perceived speed/system resource usage - related to speed but not exactly driven by just raw speed.
Is that a fair restatement of what you were saying? (Restatement in my words for my comprehension purposes...)
Yep that sums it up pretty well. Programs do these memory transactions thousands or millions of times over the course of hours of use, so the speed improvements add up. Its not as beneficial if you just look at that tweet, but add up thousands of millions of those operations will add up to some time that shows general improvements in the system.
I haven't read all the 34 pages... but I came to say that I regret that I went with 8GB. I wish I had gone with less storage and more ram. It doesn't happen often, but sometimes I see high memory pressure that results in a general slow down for a while until it recovers itself. I can live with it, but yeah I wish I had 16GB now.
To be fair, I work with a guy like that. I don't understand how he gets anything done. He'll have 30-40 tabs open on 5-10 different instances of his browser, he'll have 20+ Notepads open, 5-10 instances of Visual Studio, and a bunch of other crap. All at the same time. He's not using all those windows. It's just everything he's done since his last reboot. I've witnessed him doing dumb things because he was in the wrong window and thought he was modifying some other branch of the same code. We don't know how he gets anything done. In fact, we're not sure he does get anything done, but that's another story.
So I disagree that it's not a real life scenario, but I will agree with the point that having that much open is counter-productive to efficiency. He'll try to find something and it can be a minute or two of "nope, not that one... where is it?!? I just had it open! Oh, here it is... Wait, that's the old version of the document. Hang on, they made changes and there's a newer version somewhere. I was just looking at it! Maybe I closed it?"
I worked on something yesterday where I had an actual need to have 2 visual studios open. 3 Explorer windows for copying from my dev box to the servers. 2 more windows to watch the logs. And one last to view the file it created. That was 8 Windows and I was crawling out of my skin. WAY too many windows to keep track of, but it would have been even more annoying to re-open things every 10 minutes, so I sucked it up. I prefer my working environment to be cleared of other distractions.
I always spec more RAM and Storage than I think I will need when buying a new Mac. I don't like to be disappointed later.
I usually do the same, but I had to compromise because of a limited budget. But I could have more RAM for half storage for the same price, so I made a mistake. It's easy to add storage now but not RAM...
Are you on the return/exchange period? There is a 14 day period to try your recent purchase, and then, at some point of November, all purchases made on the Apple Store have a trial period until January. Just look it up, maybe you can still exchange it for a 16GB machine, although I would recommend getting the 16/512 instead of the 16/256. With the 256GB you get half the storage, and a less powerful GPU.
Ridiculous indeed. I just said I do not claim there's some difference in memory management - enabled by the M1 - that dramatically reduces the amount of ram _used_. I've explained in the clearest terms I can how there might be such a difference, but that we don't know. I don't know how to be more clear.
No, again, as I just said in what you replied to, I'm not only saying the _penalty_ of having less ram (and having to go to swap etc) is lower. I'm saying more than that may apply. Again, you keep categorically denying that without any possible way to know.
@xWhiplash has pointed out a tidbit tossed out by an Apple engineer that might bear on this, but the whole topic is complicated, depends heavily on software implementation, etc, so we don't yet know how much impact such an improvement might have in practical use.
I find the Spaces function in macos is really helpful for this kind of organisation. I get the impression not many mac users use it, and I admit I use it less than I should. Helps segregate different workflows etc.
But not for everyone.
I bought it from an Apple reseller since there is no Apple Store here in Finland. I could have bought it from Apple online, but this reseller had the 8/512 in stock already otherwise I would have had to wait quite a while. I asked if I could return it to replace it with a 16GB and they told me that they would value my current Mini 75% of its original price, which is ridiculous. I don't think the 14 days thing applies if you purchase from a physical store, is that correct?
I'd consider that more on the higher end of gaming rather than simply being decent.
A large part of the point of what I said earlier is that speed of various kinds can affect how much RAM is needed. That can include compression speed, to pick an obvious example, but it isn't limited to that.
Here on Europe, as far as I know, the law requires those 14 days of trial only for on-line stores. For physical stores, that's up to them, I think. Unless you have a different law on Finland, I'm afraid you're stuck with that mini... Anyways, 8GB is not that bad on this machines as it was on the past. Yeah, you'll use a lot of swap, but the performance shouldn't be that bad.
Yeah that's what I thought and I don't think the reseller would have refused to just take it back if the laws were different. I can live with 8GB but the occasional high memory pressure is annoying. The computer is super fast most of the time and then occasionally it becomes slowish for a while.
That’s correct. Steam data indicates that over 66% still game on a monitor with a 1920x1080 resolution and the second most used resolution is 1366x768 (9%).
I often have that many open while online shopping or researching. I don't find it confusing at all. ?♀️
I typically just do my search and open a bunch of tabs from the results. Then I go through each tab and close the tab when I'm done. Personally, dealing with hundreds and hundreds of unnecessary bookmarks would be a bigger pain for me.
Considering m1 is a generation 1 product. I would say less than 10% of participants in this thread will be using less than M2 in 3 years
what makes M1 so underpowered in comparison to an hypothetical M2 built on 2021 under a 5nm process as well? in any case the M3 if TSMC manages to ship 3nm processors by 2022.
Some of you forget that first gen of iPhone and iPad got less support because it was an early stage for technology (first iPhone microprocessor and A4 SoC respectively) but Apple chips are very evolved at this point, I'd say the technology is mature enough, and this huge leap has been a one time thing.
I love Spaces. Use them all day, every day. I probably create and delete workspaces a dozen times a day or more.
I'm guessing that for most of 2021 any Apple Silicon chips that Apple makes will be based on the same Firestorm and Icestorm cores as in the M1. So a theoretical M1X will have similar single core performance but more Firestorm high performance cores. Same goes for the GPU. Same design, just more GPU cores. It is going to be the I/O on the next generation of SoCs that will probably make the most changes. I don't expect the next Mx SoC to have such limited I/O as two Thunderbolt/USB4 ports and only a single external monitor. I'd also expect better WiFi 6 antennas which might also require a different design for the WiFi portion of the SoC. So for the rest of 2021, I'd expect more of the same. Just a bigger M1.
The M2 follow on, probably in late 2021 or 2022 will be the next generation with cores with improved performance. I wouldn't expect TSMC 3 nm silicon until 2023. Next up is TSMC's 5nm+.
I agree, and with the trackpad gestures, it is so easy to flip between Spaces
Garbage collection needs more ram than referencing. macOS uses referencing.
There are two big differences that affect RAM usage on the M1 compared to Intel-based systems. The first is moving the RAM on the die instead of having to access it through the I/O bus. That allows for significantly faster read/write operations to and from the RAM. The second difference is the move to PCIe 4.0 for the SSD. That provides a big boost to both read/write speeds for data and swap files when necessary. The speed is the key here, because it can give the illusion of a system running with more RAM than is actually present. Probably not enough to make 8GB perform like 16GB, but possibly making that 8GB M1 perform like a 12GB x86 system since a lot of the bottlenecks are no longer present.
If you had an 8gb MBP and was using a large amount of swap memory, would that be a problem if the memory pressure isn't red? would you recommend getting the 16gb in that case? I have the 8gb currently but am still wondering whether to swap it for a 16gb/256 rather than the 8gb/512 that I currently have.