8GB RAM is a disappointment?

[M1 Processor]

Wow there are a lot of ridiculous comments in this thread. Apple's memory architecture has essentially nothing to do with how much memory a particular user needs. There is no magic silver bullet in the M1 or any other ARM architecture that means it needs less memory for user workflows (outside very specific ones that normal user software simply doesn't run in to).

The RAM they are using isn't some magic RAM either - it's standardised RAM chips. Yes, they have shortened some communication pathways by sticking it on the same package, but ultimately that's a design choice more than anything else - there's little technical reason why they couldn't allow for upgradeable packaged RAM here (even if doing so meant a small performance downtick - and make no mistake, it would be small).

In 2020 8GB is barely enough to keep a performant machine running MacOS for anything but the most basic users who are running a single task at once. That's surprisingly few people these days. Clearly nobody has been watching just how resource-heavy the modern web has become - the whole "oh i'm just running a web browser" thing is nonsense - web browsers are incredibly resource heavy, as are all the modern JavaScript-based apps via electron and the like. A very large number of users will be running at least one of these - Skype, Facebook Messenger etc.

Let's not also forget the increasingly large set of background tasks that occur - search indexing, photo indexing, caching, metrics publishing, unattended updates etc. You only have to look at the trends, which are higher resolution graphics, more client-side processing on web properties etc to realise that 8GB with no upgrade path puts limitations on the machine even for basic users.

And it's not just that - these machines should be allowed to have a life beyond their original owner or their original purpose. For all the 'eco friendliness' Apple tries to convey, limiting their machines in this way is one of the most environmentally damaging things they can do. The used market for macs turned into a hellhole after 2013, and it's still common to see 2012 maxed out fat unibodies sold in preference to limited Retina MBPs.

Thank you! You hit the nail on the head. Browsers, even Safari can easily chew through 8GB of RAM. Web browsing is RAM heavy. Why would anyone buy a system for > $1,000 the bare minimum to be performant today? If you are willing to spend more than $1,000 on a system, the extra 8GB is absolutely worth it in the long term. Even my iPad Pro 2020 can eat through 6GB of RAM with a lot of Safari tabs and iOS/iPad OS is much lighter than MacOS.

Apple kept the base RAM the same for Intel and ARM machines which suggest that RAM usage is similar. They never said anything about ARM macs having any edge in RAM management which again suggest RAM usage is similar. I ordered the 2020 MacBook Air with M1 and 16GB of RAM, and I will compare it to my wife’s 2020 MacBook Pro 8GB.

 

[motomotomoto]

So all this said, if you’re buying your teenage son one of these machines and getting the pro suite for him with Logic Pro and final cut but he’s NEVER used them but is excited to HAVE them and he’s a coding freak kind of kid who is on a robotics team instead of a football team....

8G 256SSD

16 gig 256SSD

or do you go 16/512?

I fully intend most of his use to be playful and creative in nature and also feel that by the time he gets really into these programs he’s going to want a better machine anyway.

16/256

 

[dogslobber]

Correct, RAM comparison between PC, Intel Macs and ARM Macs are not the same.

While a PC running Windows may need 32GB of RAM to run properly, an Intel Mac is a bit more efficient and can run 16GB fine.

But an ARM Mac that has unified modules with a RISC design, will run just fine with 8GB.
RAM has become so much more efficient that no more "memory hogs" are the future.

I just bought an entry M1 Mac Mini w/ 8GB and I think it will run circles around my i7 w/ double RAM.

What are you talking about? Windows 10 can run 'properly' on only 2GB of RAM where Mac Big Sur needs 8GB to do something similar. The Mac windowing system is slow and bloated due to layers and layers of APIs while Windows on the same hardware is lightweight and efficient. The classic comparison is to look at the memory footprint of web pages on Windows V the same on Mac OS X. The difference will shock you and it's been this slow memory creep since Scott Forstall was manhandled out of Apple.

 

[mr_roboto]

No I’m not, a unified memory structure completely invalidates the normal operations of the memory flow we’re used to.

There’s a reason you can open a 20GB image file on these devices and be able to work with them fluidly.

Unified memory isn't magic. It just means there's one pool of memory that all pieces of the system have equal access to. Data still takes the same amount of space as it ever did, the only savings is that in some cases GPU data might not have to be duplicated or format converted for the GPU.

Being able to open a 20GB image file on an 8GB RAM computer and work on it fluidly means that authors of the app put a lot of effort into making that work well. The methods used to deal with having less RAM than the document size have nothing to do with unified memory or ARM, and should work exactly as well on Intel Macs.

i would never argue more memory is bad , my argument is how arm handles memory in the first place , how the code is designed. how it works in a technical aspect. any developer in the apple ecosystem does not get a complete picture of how it works since apple is doing alot of this on their own. if you go down the road of building arm applications and understanding how it works. it becomes a much clearer picture about how it is more efficient.

Every one of your posts reads like the tech equivalent of a cat walking on a keyboard whose keys are programmed to spit out technical phrases. In other words, they're tech word salad. I sincerely doubt you are an actual developer.

iOS can compress data in RAM very well and that is the reason why they still run well on 2gb ram and 4gb ram devices even today.

If you can compress data in RAM and have the compute power to fetch it, uncompress it since the chip is so fast, you will need less RAM.

FYI, Apple ported the same memory compression found in iOS to macOS all the way back in 10.9 Mavericks.

 

[4sallypat]

What are you talking about? Windows 10 can run 'properly' on only 2GB of RAM where Mac Big Sur needs 8GB to do something similar. The Mac windowing system is slow and bloated due to layers and layers of APIs while Windows on the same hardware is lightweight and efficient. The classic comparison is to look at the memory footprint of web pages on Windows V the same on Mac OS X. The difference will shock you and it's been this slow memory creep since Scott Forstall was manhandled out of Apple.

What are you talking about - way before Windows and Mac OSX, I used extravagant systems with 512KB RAM and they ran fine - I used a lot of DOS command lines and Apple Basic with my dual floppy drives that were state of the art.

 

[M1 Processor]

People mistake the term "NEED" here. Taking twice as long for video and photo editing. Cool, but do you NEED it 2x faster? NEED means you CANNOT get work done. But they can, it was just twice as slow. If you are extreme time constraints, definitely. If you are on a budget and can wait 2x as long for your video to export, then you don't NEED 16GB of RAM here.

Need is personal. For me, I need 16GB. You can also use macOS with 4GB of RAM, but the user experience will be miserable. 8 seems to be the minimum to get by which is why that’s the minimum Apple offers.

 

[M1 Processor]

This benchmark method is quite stupid.
He clearly states that he was doing the benchmarks while Chrome was running with several tabs open.
Of course he was doing that to keep memory loaded. But doing CPU performance tests while Chrome is running in the background is bonkers.
Chrome is causing constant CPU load that falsifies the benchmark results.

Besides of this: I never said that you can‘t have any benefits from having more RAM (under special conditions). But you won‘t notice it with „normal use“. 8GB are perfectly fine for regular users.

Where does he say constant CPU load? The part I sent clearly talks about RAM. As dumb as this test may be, I rather take what people like they say, regardless if part of their argument is flawed, than you, in which you speak without any evidence or argument. You said 99% 8GB is enough regular users, where is your proof? I’m a regular user and its not enough which is why I went with 16GB. The point that thread was created shows many people are not satisfied with 8GB of RAM.

 

[ader42]

I think a lot of the inflated RAM requirements are from old dudes like me who had to live with slow hard drives so made machines run faster with more RAM. Nowadays SSD are fast, just look at the PS5

still need 16gb though, old habits...

 

[M1 Processor]

What are you talking about? Windows 10 can run 'properly' on only 2GB of RAM where Mac Big Sur needs 8GB to do something similar. The Mac windowing system is slow and bloated due to layers and layers of APIs while Windows on the same hardware is lightweight and efficient. The classic comparison is to look at the memory footprint of web pages on Windows V the same on Mac OS X. The difference will shock you and it's been this slow memory creep since Scott Forstall was manhandled out of Apple.

Right. macOS is actually the most RAM hungry of the three main OSes. Linux is by far the lightest. Windows is the a bit lighter the macOS, but much heavier than Linux. It’s a common misconception that macs run better on old hardware, when in fact its the opposite. Windows can run on a potato, and x64 minimum System requirement is 2GB, and Apple themselves says that you need at least 4GB for MacOS. If Apple themselves say 4GB is the bare minimum, users really don’t give themselves much head room with 8GB. This is my 2020 Macbook Pro after a cold boot with no programs running. It’s using more than 3GB of RAM, it won’t take too much to fill up the remaining 5GB especially with web browsing.

 

[Kostask]

Now with you saying 99 percent, do you have evidence to back this up or are you talking about something in which you have no knowledge of? The Youtube channel Max Tech which is a very Apple centric channel did a good comparison of 8GB, 16, 32GB, and 64GB. There was a notable performance boost throughout moving to 16GB or higher.

“8 Gigabytes is simply not enough even with basic web browsing on chrome. It suffered greatly in basically every single test. Taking almost twice as long for video and photo editing. If you’re a gamer you will need at least 16GB of RAM for a smooth gaming experience.”

To start off with, they should do the same test with the other browsers that are significant on the Mac (Safari and Firefox). I bet that basic web browsing would be significantly better, even on 8GB of RAM.

Second, people who are doing significant amounts of video and photo editing should know better than to do it on a low RAM machine. However, please note how well the iPad Pro does editing 2 4K video streams down to one 4K video output stream, on ONLY 4GB of RAM. Note also that a newer and improved version of that iPad Pro's processor is in the M1 Macs.

And to be honest, if you're a gamer, get a Windows machine.

 

[Kostask]

An entry level is perfectly fine for programming, I don't need a performance chip. Contrary to popular belief, most development tasks don't need much cpu power, and if they do, only for short bursts, which the Air is perfectly capable of handling. Most of the heavy lifting is handled by the build servers nowadays. Speaking of which, the Intel Mac Mini was marketed at least in part as a server machine, with 10 gbit networking and all, and it's suddenly just a hollowed out 'entry level'? Let's hope they don't expect these use cases to migrate to Mac Pro...

The Mac Mini was originally targeted as the cheapest Mac you could buy, allowing re-use of an existing display, keyboard and mouse. It hit the market at $499, and has always been the cheapest of the Macs. Later, there were server versions of it, which allowed things like 2 hard drives, and were sold as "Server Version" models at a higher price. Somewhere along the line, they developed a small ecosystem of add-on vendors that came up with things like 19" rack mount trays (that could hold multiple Mac Minis). Then, for some reason, Apple changed the focus of the Mac Mini in 2018, putting in 10GBE ports (as an option) and allowing end user memory upgrades (still no SSD upgrades, but not needed when the Mac Minis are sitting in 10" racks in a server room or farm). With it came a pretty significant price increase.

The new M1 Mac Mini returns to its roots as the cheapest Mac. It has the fast M1 chip, enough RAM, ports and graphics for most users looking to buy a low cost Mac. It is NOT a server type Mac Mini, which is why the RAM is limited to 16GB, and there is NO 10GBE port option.

I truly believe that there will be a higher end Mac Mini in the next batch of Macs, and it will have 4 USB4/TB ports, the 10GBE port option, and off SoC RAM to allow for larger RAM capacities.

 

[MrGunnyPT]

For casual use and without virtualisation, I actually don't see 16GB as a point for me. I'm tempted to pick up the base MacBook Air or the one with 8 core GPU.

 

[tuvok86]

Apple VP talking about Unified Memory (14:45):

Main takeaway: usual paradigm is low bandwidth/large size for CPU, high bandwidth/small size for GPU. Now they both get high bandwidth and large(ish....) size.
Also confirms LPDDR4

 

[hans1972]

View attachment 1662844
It’s using more than 3GB of RAM, it won’t take too much to fill up the remaining 5GB especially with web browsing.

You don't know how modern operating system handles memory. MacOS is designed on purpose to use as much memory as possible while staying below your physical RAM. As long as MacOS doesn't use 8Gb of memory it is doing a poor job. If you have more physical memory the OS will use more memory since it would be a waste not to use all the memory it can.

In your case the 2Gb of cache files can be used for for applications and the OS has not even began to use compress memory.

You should never look at Memory used alone, but the memory pressure which is green and Swap used which is zero.

 

[LonestarOne]

It's not. Go back to my original post, which I gather you merely skimmed before replying, observe the context in which I brought up the memory upgrade markup, which was reframing the 8GB "discount" as an illusion created by a price gap that doesn't reflect a cost gap.

Once again, Apple is under no obligation to sell you memory upgrades at cost.

You keep crying “strawman” and accusing me of “mischaracterizing” you, then you post the exact same thing.

 

[JMacHack]

Web browsing is RAM heavy.

Don't blame the browsers on this one, blame the disgusting ad-ridden, javascript-heavy webpages we get today. Using adblock and a PiHole is pretty much necessary to browse the web in 2020.

 

[JMacHack]

Once again, Apple is under no obligation to sell you memory upgrades at cost.

Yes, but their prices are out of touch, I think we can all agree on that.

 

[LonestarOne]

Yes, but their prices are out of touch, I think we can all agree on that.

No one is forcing you to buy it.

No one is forcing you to buy it.

No one is forcing you to buy it.


“What I tell you three times is true.” — Lewis Carroll

 

[brianmowrey]

Once again, Apple is under no obligation to sell you memory upgrades at cost.

You keep crying “strawman” and accusing me of “mischaracterizing” you, then you post the exact same thing.

Pricing tactics designed to leverage a corporation's asymmetrical information advantage in consumer behavior patterns to either penalize casual/budget users for mis-wagering on their future needs, scare mid-level users into buying more than they need, or do both at once, is not an issue of the upgrade markup. I never framed it as such, because I'm not alleging that the 16GB as a final product is not fairly priced.

I'm alleging it is potentially more than some of its buyers will need, because they fear that the 8GB is a loss-leading trap.

Every one of your replies keeps saying I keep saying that the 16GB markup is too much. I think, you're assuming I said that because it's the gist of what "my side" in this thread says, whereas I only entered the thread to offer a different perspective. If you're going to say I said something, show me where I said it:

That's... equating the 8GB "discount" for what 16GB costs... literally what I opened my take with. My point is not that consumer niches do not exist, and there will be some mismatch between some consumers and the offerings Apple has gone with based on what niches they wish to target. My point is that Apple got rid of plugin memory so they could better align the mismatch with their target niches. In the case of "is 8GB right for the entry level Macs or should those users upgrade," we literally can only guess and by the time we finally know, the product will have evolved again, and that's precisely by design.

It's like playing rock-paper-scissors with an opponent that sees your move first. *edit: upon reflection, it's actually like playing rock paper scissors where you know the opponent's move first but the opponent changes the hierarchy each time in an unknown fashion, which is a less cool metaphor :/

It's not. Go back to my original post, which I gather you merely skimmed before replying, observe the context in which I brought up the memory upgrade markup, which was reframing the 8GB "discount" as an illusion created by a price gap that doesn't reflect a cost gap. Dispute the conclusion I was making with that observation if you want. Mischaracterizing my observation as "this guy doesn't know what margin is" leaves the argument the observation was used to support unanswered. If you disagree, I can't help that. Either my argument was too muddy or you're reading too many posts at once, and then leaping to defend your misreading by telling me what I said.

And I don't know why you are employing subtle insults to back up your misreading of my argument. I'm not the one who hopped in your mentions.

 

[deeddawg]

Lol what???
Currently on a late-2015 5k iMac with 8GB of RAM, I have 3 Safari windows with a combined 16 tabs, 1 Chrome window with 7 tabs, 3 pages documents, listening to the podcast app, with an iMessage convo open, with FCP running in the background. The idea that your average Joe can't browse the web on 8GB of RAM is ridiculous

Yep - I suspect some of what happens is folks feel they need upgraded RAM, so that's what they buy, then when they look at usage they see their extra RAM is in use, and thus feel their choice is validated. ... forgetting that macOS will use just about all the RAM it's provided, even if it's retaining in RAM pages of application code or data that haven't been touched for three hours.

 

[Homy]

One upside of M1 is that when you choose more RAM at purchase you automatically upgrade your VRAM too. So an iMac with 32 GB can have 20-30 GB VRAM.

 

[deeddawg]

Browsers, even Safari can easily chew through 8GB of RAM. Web browsing is RAM heavy.

In terms of browser RAM usage, can you give some sense how just how much actual impact you've seen whether you're switching to a browser tab that's swapped out to the (fast) SSD vs being retained in physical RAM?

... because that's what happens in a virtual memory setup like macOS. The physical RAM isn't a hard-stop limitation. When usage exceeds capacity, unused stuff gets paged out - and then paged back in when needed. Thus my question - back in spindle drives, swapping was often noticeable. Now with SSDs being orders of magnitude faster, how much real world impact are you seeing when switching your browser tabs?

 

[wyatterp]

You don't know how modern operating system handles memory. MacOS is designed on purpose to use as much memory as possible while staying below your physical RAM. As long as MacOS doesn't use 8Gb of memory it is doing a poor job. If you have more physical memory the OS will use more memory since it would be a waste not to use all the memory it can.

In your case the 2Gb of cache files can be used for for applications and the OS has not even began to use compress memory.

You should never look at Memory used alone, but the memory pressure which is green and Swap used which is zero.

LOL - I love it when guys say "see look how much memory my system is already using - so easy to "fill the rest". As another here stated, our faster and faster SSDs are starting to negate the real performance impact of page files. Even on my 32GB Win desktop, I still have a page file in use.

 

[M1 Processor]

To start off with, they should do the same test with the other browsers that are significant on the Mac (Safari and Firefox). I bet that basic web browsing would be significantly better, even on 8GB of RAM.

Second, people who are doing significant amounts of video and photo editing should know better than to do it on a low RAM machine. However, please note how well the iPad Pro does editing 2 4K video streams down to one 4K video output stream, on ONLY 4GB of RAM. Note also that a newer and improved version of that iPad Pro's processor is in the M1 Macs.

And to be honest, if you're a gamer, get a Windows machine.

Web browsing will be heavy regardless of the browser, even if some might be a little lighter than others. As a test, I just fired up my MacBook Pro, opened one browser tab which was a Youtube video playing 1080p/60. A very typical user case. It was using close to 5GB and started drawing into the swap.

 

[M1 Processor]

Don't blame the browsers on this one, blame the disgusting ad-ridden, javascript-heavy webpages we get today. Using adblock and a PiHole is pretty much necessary to browse the web in 2020.

This is my Macbook Pro from a cold boot using Safari, playing one 1080p/60 video on YouTube. No other programs are running. This with an adblock: I don’t browse without them. As you can clearly see, usage is approaching 5GB and its already drawing into the swap.