Agreed. RAM is more important for the OP workflow than which series of M chip chosen. Everything will feel smoother and more responsive with more RAM. Personally I consider 32 GB a minimum for the multi-app workflow described. Of course the Mac OS would make 16 GB work, just not as smoothly nor as responsive.
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Best M series chip for mixed office use
- Thread starter dj95
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You'll be happy with more RAM above anything else for your workflow. Only you know how much storage you'll be comfortable with, and whether you need to hold all your files on your internal drive or not. I bought myself a 14" M1 Max with 64GB/2TB, not because I actually need the power right now, but because I want it to last me another 8-10 years and the sale B&H had made it slightly cheaper than my wife's 16" M1 Pro 16GB/1TB was a couple years ago. She actually uses more processing power than I do, but she does a lot of her work on her 2020 iMac with 128GB RAM.
How long are you gonna keep M1? M1 Mac’s will likely lose support/security updates sooner than M2 of M3. M1 may be adequate but if you are planning to keep for longer, it may not be the best option.
Agreed, M1 is a significantly shorter life cycle choice. Not just for support/security updates, but because boxes age out in all kinds of ways. And, the OP is not just a LOL simply sending emails.
The 16 GB RAM may be necessary for you because you are using a variety of non Apple applications. Yes, now that I think about it, maybe a Mac mini ... because I assume you have the existing screen, keyboard, and mouse. In my home office case I had the previous iMac for trade-in and decided to continue on the iMac route. I am just using the included Apple applications ... currently open: Numbers (with 2 spreadsheets each with multiple tabs), Pages (3 open documents), Preview (a few pretty large PDFs), Mail (multiple accounts), Messages (multiple conversations going on). I don't have any database going, but I have several other apps running while listening to Music. Photos app is running but no real video work ... lite editing of photos. What else ... a bit of Xcode processing that may be sucking up the majority of the memory resources in my case. I just have the base model M3 iMac with 8 GB RAM 256 GB SSD.
I know you were not asking about whether to get a Laptop or Desktop, but since some suggested one way or another, I will add my thoughts on it.
The Mac Mini is a really good deal for what you get for it. I have two AS Mac minis (M1, and M2 Pro), and they have a lot of performance for such as cheap price. If you don't need to be mobile, or if you are like me and prefer a desktop style set up even when using a laptop, consider getting the MM.
I have seen M1 Mac Minis for less than $300. Probably won't find one with 16GB for that price, but still killer deal for what you get.
Some agree with me that at least 16GB of RAM or more would be good, and the M1 would be fine unless you get a good deal on an M2, and an M1 Pro isn't worth it for your workflow.
Some say get the M1 Pro.
Some say that 8GB of RAM is good for your work flow.
Some say that the M2 is the way to go.
Some say that the M2 Pro is the best choice for you.
Some say some combination of the above.
You are going to get a lot of different answers, and really not many that are truly wrong.
The Mac Mini is a really good deal for what you get for it. I have two AS Mac minis (M1, and M2 Pro), and they have a lot of performance for such as cheap price. If you don't need to be mobile, or if you are like me and prefer a desktop style set up even when using a laptop, consider getting the MM.
I have seen M1 Mac Minis for less than $300. Probably won't find one with 16GB for that price, but still killer deal for what you get.
Looks like I was right, the recommendations are all over the place.
Some agree with me that at least 16GB of RAM or more would be good, and the M1 would be fine unless you get a good deal on an M2, and an M1 Pro isn't worth it for your workflow.
Some say get the M1 Pro.
Some say that 8GB of RAM is good for your work flow.
Some say that the M2 is the way to go.
Some say that the M2 Pro is the best choice for you.
Some say some combination of the above.
You are going to get a lot of different answers, and really not many that are truly wrong.
I did do that when I got the new M3 iMac and it seems no matter what I did with my apps the amount of used memory was like 6-7 GB and the swapped was about 1-2 GB of memory. The biggest memory 'hog' seems to be the Apple News application because I follow so many Channels. The memory pressure seems always to be in the green for what I do ... Apple really does a good job of optimizing RAM usage, but of course your RAM usage may be different (my disclaimer!).
Oh, one more thing ... on the CPU load ... lots of times it shows mostly 90% idle when I am using the Apple iWork type apps and other ones I listed. Even when I am running an Xcode project it says 80% idle. I need to challenge the M3 some more ... play games! I haven't had any fan running that I can tell (this base model only has one fan).
True about aging with weird battery and other issues. There is lot more to a computer than spec comparison. If I was in the market to keep a Mac for more than 5 years, I wouldn't touch new M1 Mac’s.
You don't say how many monitors you're using. If you want to get a laptop (as opposed to a Mini), and need to drive more than one external monitor, a base M chip won't work. If you're driving just two externals, a Pro will work. For three or more, you'll need a Max.
And even if you're just using one external monitor now, with that many things going on, you might want to consider more. If it were me, I'd like two or three externals. If you want to go with just two externals, you should use a good-quality monitor for the center display, place the 2nd external on one side, and place the laptop on the other side on a raised stand. That would give you a total of three displays (the two externals plus the laptop's).
Misunderstood, if you are looking for a laptop ... on the Apple Refurbished site the cheapest MacBook Air M2 is around $1300 for a 16 GB/ 512 GB 13 inch laptop. https://www.apple.com/shop/product/G1604LL/A/refurbished-13-inch-macbook-air-apple-m2-chip-with-8‑core-cpu-and-8‑core-gpu-midnight?fnode=0fddcd66a4d84115c02e96b61ca68d463e198f86e30c855c8119258af99ad129a00795c874686db872e2e6b46c593b5c4ea6ed3e75df6c7176433563316d5a6a8eaf89f4149b85a7c43b0ec192575553
I think the question of how many displays the OP needs is a vary valid point. M1 computers support only 1 external monitor, so if you want to be able to project your work to more screens (and it sounds like the OP works with a ton of them), a more expensive M1 Pro just may be the way to go.
I just don't use Chrome. I like the speed of Safari, at least it feels faster to me ... but I know it is dependent on your internet.
Oh, this was supposed to be a general comment ... not to Abazigal ... sorry.
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You have significantly increased your requirements. 16GB is an absolute minimum. If you intend to run Windows alongside your other usage then 24GB. For a business machine where you want snappy changes between apps (including chrome, excel, and virtual machines), there is no excuse not to get 24MB or 32MB.
What you did in 2020 is not equivalent to how someone should configure a new box for 2024-2030, because apps/OS always want more RAM over time. Unless one is granny doing only email, intentionally configuring a box with 8 GB RAM is absurd. 16 GB will be swapping to disk over the life cycle of a new box.
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No it doesn't. Source on that please. Swapping happens automatically when you don't use a program after a while as well.
It's worth noting that the Mac versions of Word, Excel and the rest of Microsoft (Office) 365 are very limited compared to their Windows counterparts with many features still missing.
If your intention is to run some local SQL Servers on MacOS then you will likely need Docker to run a SQL Server Linux container, which you could then connect to with your preferred SSMS alternative. Azure Data Studio works well.
Should you prefer to use Parallels to emulate Windows, bear in mind that the latest versions of SQL Server currently do not work with Windows ARM. To my knowledge the only working version of SQL Server on Windows ARM is Express 2012, or a very hacky Chinese version of SQL Server 2016.
Agreed, 8 GB is fine for many folks, which is why I constantly disagree here with all those who insist Apple should have raised the base RAM from 8 GB. OTOH most reading here will over the life cycle of any new box be RAM-limiting the computing process if they choose only 8 GB RAM for 2024-2030.
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Sorry but I do not know what your "No it doesn't. Source on that please." is referring to. What I said was:
"What you did in 2020 is not equivalent to how someone should configure a new box for 2024-2030, because apps/OS always want more RAM over time. Unless one is granny doing only email, intentionally configuring a box with 8 GB RAM is absurd. 16 GB will be swapping to disk over the life cycle of a new box."
Of course with any box the OS always does some disk swapping. My comment should perhaps more specifically have stated limiting disk swapping, meaning that point when the OS is going to disk more often than it would with free RAM available.
The source is my personal experience, which includes every Mac generation starting at 128K, often overseeing multiple Macs. And decades of paying very close attention to RAM for reasons of chasing RAM hog Photoshop. My experience is like I said: apps/OS always want more RAM over time.
My most recent experience is a 2016 MBP with maximum available 16 GB RAM in 2017 when I bought it. My workflow did not change over the 6 years of usage, but OS and apps evolved to cause the MBP to be frequently slowed by its RAM limitations. I upgraded to an M2 Max MBP with 96 GB RAM.
Apple silicon uses on-chip RAM and Unified Memory Architecture. And Apple now offers 128 GB RAM in the same laptop that was max 16 GB in 2017. IMO Apple clearly sees OS/apps taking advantage of the faster UMA RAM architecture in the future, which is why they offer us 8 times the RAM they did in 2017.
My point is not to say less RAM won't work, because Mac OS does a great job of coping with less than ideal RAM. My point is that 40 years experience suggests that configuring a new computing box it makes sense to minimize RAM constraints on that expensive new box by equipping it with plenty of RAM.
Others may argue that they do not care about RAM limiting because the OS just copes and they want to save $$. That is a fair argument, but I prefer optimized hardware. In my experience optimized systems run smoother and more problem free. Filemaker app development and Adobe apps are the primary decades of usage that I have very closely observed app operation under varying hardware scenarios.
[Despite owning/upgrading the Adobe Design Collection for years, I left Adobe due to my disapproval of their actions around Intellectual Property with the forced shift to CS. I now use Affinity products.]
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I think that is a gross overstatement. The Mac and Windows versions are very similar. Excel add-ons are really the only area where Mac is deficient.
Apple should really start to offer slots for standard memory modules (again), so users can extend the available Ram over the course of the product lifetime.
Even if that memory would offer reduced speed compared to the on-chip memory, at worst it could still serve as 1st tier swap area, being significantly faster than 2nd tier SSD swap.
Even if that memory would offer reduced speed compared to the on-chip memory, at worst it could still serve as 1st tier swap area, being significantly faster than 2nd tier SSD swap.
That makes intuitive sense, but UMA RAM is a different architecture. RAM operation is different. My guess is that Apple is committed to its new UMA approach and that it is disinclined to encourage any kind of (slower) end-around the UMA architecture; not with MBPs and below at least.
However I am very curious to see what Apple does with Mac Pros with the M3 generation. Something two-tiered like you describe has always seemed to be a necessity to achieve the huge RAM that some Mac Pro users want. But I would think that on-chip RAM would need to be fully populated before some second off-chip tier was available. Or maybe a ratio would exist: x amount of on-chip RAM allows 2.5x amount of off-chip RAM or whatever.
Or Apple may continue to say here is our uber-fast UMA architecture limited to x maximum RAM, take it or leave it. We will help y'all develop your apps to take advantage of our uber-fast UMA architecture.
Whatever Apple does, I see no future where OS/apps are not going after usage of increasing amounts of RAM.
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Then Apple might just sell Laptops with Intel chips. Biggest advantage Apple has right now is unified memory packaged along with SoC. If I have to get a GPU with 48 GB Ram it costs as much as a high end MBP 16. MBP with 64 GB RAM runs tasks my Nvidia 4090 with 24 GB runs out of memory.
I am hoping Apple gets to 256 GB memory on a Max chip by M5 and hopefully keeps improving the GPU.