Do you feel like 64 gb of RAM isn't enough?

[mlykke]

I usually have somewhere between 350-700 tabs open and I can guarantee that you will need more then 16 GB to do that comfortably. What you need to be looking at is the amount of swapping - Once that starts increasing that is a clear indication that the ram is being used for something else and then it really starts to slow down.
Right now I only have 339 tabs opened but the computer is using 58GB of ram and 9.5 GB swap.
When having 500+ tabs open in Chrome, then it really starts eating ressources. I currently have 64GB in a 2020 iMac, but I'm considering adding an additional 64 GB - Especially for overhead when also having other programs opened at the same time.
Attached screenshot from a previous session where I had 928 tabs opened - Think my record was around 1030 tabs on a 32 GB machine which was painful.

 

[pldelisle]

I usually have somewhere between 350-700 tabs

What
the
f*ck.

 

[spooklog]

I think the practical day-to-day concern is how cost-effective RAM is. For example, I just bought my new Mac Mini with stock 8GB of memory. This isn't enough so I'm going to order 32GB. Why so much? OWC offers 16GB of RAM for about $90 and 32GB for about $140. The extra cost of getting 32GB doesn't mean much to me. I'm shying away from getting 64GB because the cost jumps to $330.

Considering the costs involved, having more RAM than you need is cost-effective (at least in this scenario), and certainly doesn't do any harm.

 

[axboi87]

I have a 2013 trashcan w/ 128gb and could likely have gotten by fine on 64. That being said, with the occasional Windows 10 VM use, lots of chrome and safari tabs (a handful, nothing too crazy), google docs use, apple photos, and in particular, opening and editing large 50-100mp medium format film scans, I do get close to 64gb. All depends on your usage. We have folks at the office who keep large sets of blueprints open (PDFs) that the computer likes to cache in ram. It doesn't have to...but having the 64gb available, it likes to put the PDFs there which makes their overall experience snappier.

 

[r6mile]

What
the
f*ck.

I'm sorry but how the hell do you guys operate with so many bloody tabs open? I can see it if your only goal is working out on how to use up all your RAM. Otherwise, how can you even know what's on what Tab, I just don't even see how you could ever need so many. Clearly you guys operate in a higher dimension than the rest of us mere mortals.

 

[pldelisle]

I'm sorry but how the hell do you guys operate with so many bloody tabs open? I can see it if your only goal is working out on how to use up all your RAM. Otherwise, how can you even know what's on what Tab, I just don't even see how you could ever need so many. Clearly you guys operate in a higher dimension than the rest of us mere mortals.

Exactly what I thought.

These persons suffer from extreme self-organization problem, no doubt.

 

[mlykke]

I'm sorry but how the hell do you guys operate with so many bloody tabs open? I can see it if your only goal is working out on how to use up all your RAM. Otherwise, how can you even know what's on what Tab, I just don't even see how you could ever need so many. Clearly you guys operate in a higher dimension than the rest of us mere mortals.

Actually I have quite a good grasp of most of the stuff I have opened and which windows to find it. Sure I don't claim to remember every single tab, but I know where 85-90% of it is. And If I can't remember where a certain tab is, I have "Session Buddy" to help me find it.
A few windows might be mainly Youtube videos about topics I'm looking into, others might be news articles or longer papers I'm reading, others again might be online tools I'm using. So it works great and having enough ressources not having to bookmark it and reopen all the time, is awesome. I find that bookmarking stuff ends up being a black hole that just keeps growing and you never get back to it.

But I do admit that it's a bit on the extreme side compared to most 😁

 

[AZREOSpecialist]

I'm picturing someone running an encrypted VPN using Tor on the dark web...

 

[Nguyen Duc Hieu]

Actually I have quite a good grasp of most of the stuff I have opened and which windows to find it. Sure I don't claim to remember every single tab, but I know where 85-90% of it is. And If I can't remember where a certain tab is, I have "Session Buddy" to help me find it.
A few windows might be mainly Youtube videos about topics I'm looking into, others might be news articles or longer papers I'm reading, others again might be online tools I'm using. So it works great and having enough ressources not having to bookmark it and reopen all the time, is awesome. I find that bookmarking stuff ends up being a black hole that just keeps growing and you never get back to it.

But I do admit that it's a bit on the extreme side compared to most 😁

This post describe exactly why you need more RAM, more CPU power and all.
Youtube videos consumes both RAM and CPU power, a lot.
Imagine you are opening at the same time a dozen 4k youtube videos, with small size windows, but the video format are all in 4k. Your RAM will be eaten up, CPU&GPU must run at the highest for VP9 decoding etc...

Get a 2020 iMac core i9 with 128GB of RAM and 5700XT by all mean, if you can afford it.

If you can't, maybe you should do like 90% other web surfers: Put all those tabs/video you are not viewing at the moment to a favorite list. A normal user can only view, hear and digesting 1 videos at the same time.
Special trained expert may do 2 videos. Three videos or more are for Superman, not us mortals.
If your Internet speed is not too slow, re-open them from Favorite List doesn't cost as much time as rebooting the iMac when it freezes.

Open all your books to the exact pages you are reading and spread them all over the floor may seem convenient and fast when you want to read any book. Buy a bigger house if you want to open more books, or simple buy a bookshelf and organize the books there.

For the purpose of web surfing and video watching, I am comfortable with even only 4GB of ram in my A1225 right now. The computer has not been freeze even once.

 

[mmomega]

What
the
f*ck.

Raises hand. I'll second that.

 

[timidpimpin]

Just having a few browsers open with lots of tabs.
I have other things open too, but they are light.

And you think you need 64GB RAM for web browsing? Have you ventured into some sort of alternate reality? Having 64GB for web browsing is like killing a fly with a giant slab of concrete... totally illogical and unnecessary.

It would have been just as productive to go with 16GB, then burn the remaining cash. Seriously.

 

[Cookie18]

And you think you need 64GB RAM for web browsing? Have you ventured into some sort of alternate reality? Having 64GB for web browsing is like killing a fly with a giant slab of concrete... totally illogical and unnecessary.

It would have been just as productive to go with 16GB, then burn the remaining cash. Seriously.

I don’t know about you but I exclusively open endless tabs with 8K video content and then let them sit there for weeks on end, not watching them because they will just sit in my RAM god dammit.

 

[timidpimpin]

I have 16GB, and can't remember ever going above 11GB consumed. And I'm doing a whole lot more than web browsing.

 

[SirAnthonyHopkins]

I read MacRumours every day and have never been tempted to sign up to comment before, but this thread is genuinely hysterical and I couldn't resist.

"Help I have 1,000 tabs open for no reason and I'm sad I can't upgrade to 128gb RAM" is the best tech problem I've ever heard, and I used to work in a Mac store in south-west England where they only got computers in about 2008.

 

[levmc]

It's not for no reason. Having many tabs open would be convenient since you don't have to keep deleting and reopening tabs

 

[timidpimpin]

It's not for no reason. Having many tabs open would be convenient since you don't have to keep deleting and reopening tabs

Literally the least legitimate reason for RAM I can possibly think of. Please... for your own sake... find a more efficient way to use a computer. You're going to be hard pressed to find people who agree with your methods.

I say this with all due respect. Your computing methods are a total waste of resources. You could spend 1/4 the amount of money you are now, and still have all the CPU and RAM any reasonable person would ever need.

People like you create demand and price increases, because you're buying hardware you don't need. You're not a professional. An i3 Mac mini with 16GB is still well beyond your very light needs.

 

[levmc]

I always was unhappy about the 16 GB in MBP because of how little you can leave open. That's when I realized how puny 16 GB is, and I would need a lot more. I thought 64 gb would be enough, but found out that it's not. I think 96 gb would be good.

 

[swamyg1]

Just get more RAM. Problem solved... Until you reach the tab limit again lol 😃

Edit: I just realized you were maxed out with the 2017. Nevermind.

 

[wilberforce]

I bought a 2017 iMac at the end of 2018.
I was disappointed to learn that if I waited a few months for the 2019 iMac I could have had 128GB RAM capacity.
I'm stuck with 64 gb max.

Does your iMac have an HDD or SSD? With an SSD, the swap file should be very quick for reloading content of tabs (provided the SSD is not near full), if they all cannot be stored simultaneously in RAM. If you only have a HDD, that may be a big part of your problem

 

[timidpimpin]

@levmc Would you buy a Ferrari just for going to the store to buy milk? It's the same logic.

 

[r6mile]

Sorry, but a genuine question. Surely when you have hundreds of tabs, it's impossible to locate anything? Isn't it quicker at that point to just Google again to get back to that page? Beyond the silliness of using computer resources that way, I am just genuinely struggling to understand how one can find anything like that and how it makes you more productive.

 

[Nguyen Duc Hieu]

I always was unhappy about the 16 GB in MBP because of how little you can leave open. That's when I realized how puny 16 GB is, and I would need a lot more. I thought 64 gb would be enough, but found out that it's not. I think 96 gb would be good.

How about 1.5TB of RAM?
Get a Mac Pro and upgrade to as much RAM as you wish.
We will envy you a lot.

 

[SirAnthonyHopkins]

It's not for no reason. Having many tabs open would be convenient since you don't have to keep deleting and reopening tabs

Fine, but you surely appreciate then that this is a you issue, not a RAM issue. This isn’t a normal or sensible use-case at all and it’s not a legitimate reason for wanting 128gb RAM.

(I don’t for the life of me understand why it’s easier to have 500 tabs open rather than have 500 bookmarks, since in either case the content is the same number of clicks away whenever you need it, but whatever. You do you.)

 

[SirAnthonyHopkins]

@levmc Would you buy a Ferrari just for going to the store to buy milk? It's the same logic.

I’d say the logic is buying a Transit van to go to the store and filling it up with milk, and then complaining it’s not big enough and you need an 18-wheeler full of milk, even though you only get through one bottle of milk a week.

“Having many bottles of milk at home would be convenient since then I don’t have to keep going back to the store.”

 

[levmc]

When you create a bookmark, the bookmarks eventually piles up it gets really disorganized and you have to make lots of folders.

Then when you try to create a bookmark and bookmark it to a specific folder, it only shows a few recently used folders to choose from, so that you have to first bookmark it in just one folder and then later manually move it to another folder where it belongs.