Windows RAM would still be cheaper to upgrade at twice the price.
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Apple's Regular Mac Base RAM Boosts Ended When Tim Cook Took Over
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Or plenty of consumers believed 8GB was enough because of Apple's marketing
8GB RAM on M3 MacBook Pro 'Analogous to 16GB' on PCs, Claims Apple
Following the unveiling of new MacBook Pro models last week, Apple surprised some with the introduction of a base 14-inch MacBook Pro with M3 chip,...www.macrumors.com
yes because deciding 8GB for 10+ years was because of this article dated *checks notes* end of 2023, after M3 chips came out.
what?
Skyrocketing prices? Memory prices have been declining for years (look at the historical trend) and especially for the last few years due to the memory glut. You obviously don't pay attention to what Micron, Samsung, SK Hynix and other memory makers have been saying.
SK Hynix posts record US$1.4 billion loss amid chip market slump
The world’s No 2 DRAM maker is cutting output and capex as it awaits a recovery in the second half of the year.www.scmp.com
South Korean chip maker SK Hynix reported its biggest quarterly loss on record, owing to plunging prices in memory chips, and stuck to plans to halve capital spending this year.
Slammed by prices of memory that have fallen by more than 50 per cent since their 2022 peak, Hynix is cutting output and capex as it awaits a recovery in the second half of the year.
Hynix, which supplies memory to Apple, reported an operating loss of 1.7 trillion won (US$1.4 billion) for the three months ended in December on a 38 per cent drop in revenue.
Press Center - Decline in DRAM ASP Narrows to 10~15% in 2Q23 with No End in Sight, Says TrendForce | TrendForce - Market research, price trend of DRAM, NAND Flash, LEDs, TFT-LCD and green energy, PV
TrendForce reports that several suppliers, such as Micron and SK hynix, have started scaling back DRAM production. The ASP of DRAM plunged 20% in 1Q23, and this price decline is predicted to slow down to 10~15% next quarter.www.trendforce.com
TrendForce reports that several suppliers, such as Micron and SK hynix, have started scaling back DRAM production. The ASP of DRAM plunged 20% in 1Q23, and this price decline is predicted to slow down to 10~15% next quarter. It’s uncertain whether or not demand will recover in 2H23. Therefore, the ASP of DRAM has continued to fall as inventory levels are high from the suppliers’ side, and prices will only rebound if there is a significant decrease in production.
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DRAM and NAND flash prices are definitely rising, analyst says
Prices of DRAM modules and PC SSDs are almost certain to rise as big customers are agreeing to higher prices for flash and DRAM chips.
www.pcworld.com
[News] Samsung NAND Flash Prices Reportedly Set to Increase by 20% | TrendForce News
According to a report by the South Korean news outlet The Chosun Daily, Samsung Electronics' memory business has managed to endure the market downturn...
www.trendforce.com
[News] Market Anticipates a 50% Price Surge for NAND Flash in Short-Term | TrendForce News
After a rebound from the decline in NAND prices, the current quotations still show a gap from reaching the breakeven point for suppliers such as Samsu...
www.trendforce.com
[News] Chinese Clients Accept Price Hikes, DRAM Prices Rise for Three Consecutive Months | TrendForce News
DRAM prices have risen for three consecutive months, a trend attributed to Chinese clients accepting the price hike requests from memory manufacturers...
www.trendforce.com
combine that with new unified memory architecture overhead which has been planned several years ago, Apple can't raise 16GB base standard ram on intel machines, then drop to 8GB unified ram on apple silicon machines.
etc...
which has been true since the first MacBook Air and well before that. and?
While one can argue about how much ram is needed the facts are simple: Tim put a stop on increasing ram in machines.
As Macs are sold as premium products, I find this dishonest. As I’ve said many time recently, with the downvotes to show for it, the market is realizing that Apple has changed and the market is reflecting this uncertainty with volatile spikes and falls and an current market price similar to 2021.
As Macs are sold as premium products, I find this dishonest. As I’ve said many time recently, with the downvotes to show for it, the market is realizing that Apple has changed and the market is reflecting this uncertainty with volatile spikes and falls and an current market price similar to 2021.
Bad chart; bad reason. Ram doubling has been extended on a logarithmic curve. From another one of my posts:
1GB. This was used in the Late 2007 MacBook released on November, 2007 until the MacBook Late 2008, discontinued in January, 2009. It lasted 25 months.
2GB. This was used in the Late 2008 AL MacBook released on October, 2008, until the MacBook Air 11”, Mid 2011, which was discontinued n June, 2012. This lasted 44 months.
4GB. This was used in the MacBook Air 13”, Mid 2011 released in July, 2011 until the MacBook Air, 13” Early 2015, which was discontinued in June, 2017. This lasted for 71 months.
8GB. This was used as standard on MacBook Air, 2017, released on June, 2017 until now, in November, 2023. 77 months and counting.
Clearly, the amount of time machines stayed at 1GB was half what the time for 2GB, which was almost half of what 4GB. I expect 16GB to become standard in another 40 months or thereabouts, if trends continue.
Double the RAM = about double amount of time since the previous doubling happened.
8GB of RAM is still fine for most people, in my opinion. I don't know how "AI" on the hardware is going to affect RAM usage though.
1GB. This was used in the Late 2007 MacBook released on November, 2007 until the MacBook Late 2008, discontinued in January, 2009. It lasted 25 months.
2GB. This was used in the Late 2008 AL MacBook released on October, 2008, until the MacBook Air 11”, Mid 2011, which was discontinued n June, 2012. This lasted 44 months.
4GB. This was used in the MacBook Air 13”, Mid 2011 released in July, 2011 until the MacBook Air, 13” Early 2015, which was discontinued in June, 2017. This lasted for 71 months.
8GB. This was used as standard on MacBook Air, 2017, released on June, 2017 until now, in November, 2023. 77 months and counting.
Clearly, the amount of time machines stayed at 1GB was half what the time for 2GB, which was almost half of what 4GB. I expect 16GB to become standard in another 40 months or thereabouts, if trends continue.
Double the RAM = about double amount of time since the previous doubling happened.
8GB of RAM is still fine for most people, in my opinion. I don't know how "AI" on the hardware is going to affect RAM usage though.
Parroting the Apple Marketing? It's not about performance, it's about having enough. And the kicker is, RAM is cheap (Unless you buy it from Apple). I mean, $200 for 8GB? C'mon...
If, 5 years ago, Apple had bumped the base RAM up to 16GB , people would still be complaining today about how the base RAM should be higher.
Usable for what? I have a MacBook Air M1, 8GB RAM. Today I decided to experiment with Final Cut Pro X to make a 10 minute video (I'm new at video making and FCPX). It works wonderfully. Most of the time spent was trying to use FCPX to do what I Want it to do (because I'm not experienced), and nothing with the computer running out of RAM.
Some points about this:
1. It's correlation not causal. Make sure you know the difference. That is stated but needs reinforcing.
2. The plot is logarithmic which is a good way of making an exponential decay with an asymptote look like a hard hitting crash into a line for effect.
3. The analysis started with the charts and fit a conclusion to it. I would expect the question to be posed independently to the data and then the data sourced.
4. The original data is not available.
5. It does not make sense to reason about two different datasets in this case macOS classic and macOS X+ as memory management is completely different.
6. It shouldn't be a line plot. It should be a scatter chart with a regression fit to it and a residual plot separately.
This is a crappy analysis and I would be bloody fired for it.
1. It's correlation not causal. Make sure you know the difference. That is stated but needs reinforcing.
2. The plot is logarithmic which is a good way of making an exponential decay with an asymptote look like a hard hitting crash into a line for effect.
3. The analysis started with the charts and fit a conclusion to it. I would expect the question to be posed independently to the data and then the data sourced.
4. The original data is not available.
5. It does not make sense to reason about two different datasets in this case macOS classic and macOS X+ as memory management is completely different.
6. It shouldn't be a line plot. It should be a scatter chart with a regression fit to it and a residual plot separately.
This is a crappy analysis and I would be bloody fired for it.
They have not. Just the advancement slowed down. That's why buying an 8GB RAM laptop today is a bad idea, even if it does "work". The other reason is that it is leaving performance on the table. Swapping, even to a fast SSD is still far slower than just having a little more RAM. So even though the computer can feel decent to use with 8GB, it will still be faster with 16GB because it doesn't get bottlenecked by the slower swap speed. So it's basically buying a computer that is already hamstrung by a problem that could have been solved with a few extra $ in parts.
Apple is just doing this because it knows that the 8GB will work just well enough to keep people checking email from noticing or complaining, and the people that know will just fork over the absurd upgrade pricing to get to a RAM amount that is just acceptable at least.
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In my opinion; for most apps and programs, yes!
The only time when more RAM is required is for games (especially emulated games), video making (using lots of layers), bloated software (looking at you Adobe), or emulators (Windows 11 wants 8GB of RAM by itself).
Open activity monitor and look at memory pressure while doing that. If you have ANY memory pressure, you are running out of RAM.
you shouldn't be able to. otherwise unified memory wouldn't work the way it does now.
The amount of time I have to deal with people complaining about running out of space and not having enough space to do a software update is work that could easily be avoided but Apple is no longer trying to provide the best product and user experience. It’s more about squeezing out every little dime.
My sister has not updated her iPhone in like 2 years because she has no space and then she tries to do a back up on her laptop and there is no space either 😅🥴
Oh and don’t get me started on people without backups and then complain that they lost everything because their tiniest offer is still 5 GB in 2024, intentionally 😵💫 I should be able to forward Apple my bills.
Surely at some point it should actually be more expensive to keep those tiny ass low memories in stock than go with the times?
My sister has not updated her iPhone in like 2 years because she has no space and then she tries to do a back up on her laptop and there is no space either 😅🥴
Oh and don’t get me started on people without backups and then complain that they lost everything because their tiniest offer is still 5 GB in 2024, intentionally 😵💫 I should be able to forward Apple my bills.
Surely at some point it should actually be more expensive to keep those tiny ass low memories in stock than go with the times?
Ok, but so what? Having no more free RAM is not going to cause the system or the program to crash. It will cause the system to slow down though (which I didn't experience when I was exporting the video I was making),
Anyone who's intellectually honest already knows the brand has pretty much torpedoed under Cook's tenure precisely because of this kind of thing. I suppose if your yardstick of a successful company is how much money it makes then fair enough, but if you judge a tech firm by its products then it's pretty clear that Cook has been riding on Jobs' coat tails the whole time and the momentum has now run out. People are wising up. The base specs are miserly, the upgrade paths are infuriating and coercive, and all the industrial designers already left the building or were pushed. From here on out you get less and less and pay more and more. It's all Cook knows.
8GB DDR5 SODIMM RAM for Windows: $20. (retail, far less cost to manufacture)Windows RAM would still be cheaper to upgrade at twice the price.
8GB RAM upgrade from Apple: $200.
Yeah, no greed going on here...
This is interesting. You could probably use that same graph for growth vs computer needs.
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If you have not enough RAM, you get bad performance. If your performance is good, you mist likelly have enough RAM and would probably not notice much of a difference with more RAM IMO.
Apple has been about price points for decades. It's no coincidence that the 12" PowerBook G4 started off at $1799. The 'well equipped' 16/512 14" MacBook Pro? You guessed it, $1799.
While the prices of the base model machines have fluctuated a bit, going up after major redesigns for a year or two only to settle back down, the moral of the story is that Apple has always sold what they believe is a solid machine for about the same price.
What we've seen in recent years is Apple sliding in an 'SE' version of hardware that is current, yet slightly handicapped by ram and storage. The benefit has been that they have a model that can be sold by 3rd party retailers, discounted, etc. in order to keep the anti-competition folks off their backs for keeping the retail chain locked down. For custom builds, Apple is happy to handle the sale and make money off of those that need the upgrades.
99% of users have their needs met by these 'useless' base models (an average MR reader is not an average user). It helps boost market share by providing machines at an entry level price that can be stomached by students, families on a tighter budget, and opens Apple's old student discount prices to a broader audience (My 12" G4 PowerBook was $1399 in 2003). They have executed their plan to perfection.
All that said, I believe Apples' ram/storage upgrade prices should be dropped by 50%, but on the other hand, I think the CPU upgrade prices could go up slightly.
With ML/AI coming to the forefront, what would have likely been another 2-3 years at 8GB as the standard, I believe we will see 16GB become the standard in 1-2 years.
What bothers me more than the ram situation is the storage situation. My last spinning drive in my 2012 MBP was 500GB, and Apple was always skimpy on storage over the years. The last time I calculated what base storage should be today, we should have 4TB of storage as the standard (more than the vast majority need, but 1TB would not break Apple's bank).
While the prices of the base model machines have fluctuated a bit, going up after major redesigns for a year or two only to settle back down, the moral of the story is that Apple has always sold what they believe is a solid machine for about the same price.
What we've seen in recent years is Apple sliding in an 'SE' version of hardware that is current, yet slightly handicapped by ram and storage. The benefit has been that they have a model that can be sold by 3rd party retailers, discounted, etc. in order to keep the anti-competition folks off their backs for keeping the retail chain locked down. For custom builds, Apple is happy to handle the sale and make money off of those that need the upgrades.
99% of users have their needs met by these 'useless' base models (an average MR reader is not an average user). It helps boost market share by providing machines at an entry level price that can be stomached by students, families on a tighter budget, and opens Apple's old student discount prices to a broader audience (My 12" G4 PowerBook was $1399 in 2003). They have executed their plan to perfection.
All that said, I believe Apples' ram/storage upgrade prices should be dropped by 50%, but on the other hand, I think the CPU upgrade prices could go up slightly.
With ML/AI coming to the forefront, what would have likely been another 2-3 years at 8GB as the standard, I believe we will see 16GB become the standard in 1-2 years.
What bothers me more than the ram situation is the storage situation. My last spinning drive in my 2012 MBP was 500GB, and Apple was always skimpy on storage over the years. The last time I calculated what base storage should be today, we should have 4TB of storage as the standard (more than the vast majority need, but 1TB would not break Apple's bank).
Apple Silicon Macs use LPDDR memory chips as opposed to regular DDR chips for energy efficiency. The speed difference comes from the fact that the memory is seated directly on the SoC package, not because of the memory type; regular RAM is constrained by the speed of the bus between the CPU and RAM modules. LPDDR memory chips are more expensive than their regular DDR counterparts, and Apple needs to use higher capacity chips (the base M SoC only supports two memory chips) but that doesn't excuse the incredibly high memory pricing.
Unified memory isn't magic. Apps still need comparable amounts of RAM to run as an Intel Mac. The only major efficiency savings is that the CPU and GPU can work on the same data in the unified memory at the same time, it doesn't have to exist in system RAM and video RAM (effectively in two places), but that doesn't lead to the types of insane memory savings Apple is claiming. This has been tested and proven false.
It's rather disingenuous to tout how green your company is and feature Mother Nature in your promo material when you sell expensive products that will age poorly.
Upgrading RAM and storage to a reasonable level should not cost a minimum $400. The profit may be high, but how many units more might they move if the pricing was not excessive? I'm sure many buyers end up abandoning Apple for an alternative after seeing the bottom line after upgrades. Apple's profit on a sale if the buyer opts for a PC is $0.
Issue isn't base RAM and Storage, it is the exorbitant prices for anything more than the base.
Let’s not forget that the GPU eats up some of that 8GB, so you probably have closer to 6GB for the system.
it's reasonable
GTX 4060 Ti going from 8GB to 16GB is $100 alone. but now your CPU/GPU/neural engine have access to the same pool so no copying = more performant and power efficient.