The more interesting question is will the M4 increase the top end to 256 GB?
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Do you think the M4 series Macs will come standard with 12 GB of memory for base configuration?
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The price gouging will continue until morale improves
8GB was standard on the M3 Macbook introduced in March 2015, so you can 27 months to that.
12GB is realistic, given iPhones are now shipping with 8GB. Next year, the regular iPhone 16 is expected to come with 8GB RAM.
When you offer consumers three options, they'll likely choose the middle option especially if they're uncertain about actual need, just to be safe. We've seen the same thing with iPhone storage.
When you offer consumers three options, they'll likely choose the middle option especially if they're uncertain about actual need, just to be safe. We've seen the same thing with iPhone storage.
I don’t think 10 is even possible. Looks like they are using multiples of 6 for most M3 units.
Would your dad notice the difference between the M1 and the M3?
According to reviews I’ve seen, 8 GB is already acting as a bottleneck in a number of different tasks.
Why continue to offer faster processors year after year when the system is bottlenecked by RAM?
I can't give you any slam dunk examples as I am a very light user (and would probably be ok with 8 GB with a new Mac) but I have noticed that doing certain tasks (e.g. loading a 1080p YouTube video) happen faster when I have less other tabs/apps open even though Activity Monitor shows only 6.5-7.0 GB of RAM are being used. I don't know if the more recent MacOS versions have got rid of the beach ball, but I feel like I would be seeing it.
I'm not saying people can't do tasks with 8 GB, but if they start to notice these little bits of lag/pauses they may question why they've spent $1599 on a laptop.
Nothing my dad does is bottlenecked by M1 or 8GB. His computer prints his emails just fine
. If he upgraded, the only difference would be my bank balance since I buy his computers for him now he's retired.We get faster processors and faster RAM because tech moves forward. Just like my new car has more horsepower than my old car, but size of the gas tank remains the same. None of that matters if I can only go 30mph to the store.
As for the RAM bottleneck mentioned in reviews, I suspect that it applies only to certain benchmarks designed to highlight RAM bottlenecks, and not the overall experience of using the machine under 'normal person' use cases. Again, base spec machines are not for those of us who care about performance - Apple will happily sell 16GB to you and me, while my dad is perfectly happy with his 8GB.
If you're going by the pro models, it looks like the MacBook Pro, 15" Retina, Mid 2012 came with 8GB as standard in a base configuration. That's a decade of 8GB as standard :O
What happens if you have 6 apps all open and you are bouncing among them, including images work? My guess is you would be paging like crazy, because my M2 MBP shows itself happily living in ~50 GB RAM.
I suspect that we are all failing to consider the key issues of chip yields and UMA RAM and Apple's OS plans. Apple will be seeing RAM costs/complexity as defined after attaching the RAM on-chip in tight proximity to the CPU/GPU and Apple will be seeing RAM needs as what future OS/apps demands will be. We are unaware of those confidential issues so we will remain ignorant in our speculations.
...and concurrent with that question is how much will Apple charge for future RAM? I found the $400 per 32 GB civilized to get 96 GB, but getting to 256 GB at $400/32GB would not be civilized
I don't do anything with images, but I have 6 programs open now that I'm alt-tabbing between. I have yellow pressure (normal). No slowdowns.
Saying "6 apps" is almost meaningless, because nobody know which apps you're using. If it's 6 Adobe apps, you'll run into problems. If one of the apps requires a lot of memory, you'll run into problems.
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No one makes 80Gb LpDDR5 chips, or 40Gb LpDDR chips, as AFAIK.
The question to ask is whether the M4 will come with LpDDR5 or LpDDR5x memory. The latter gives a bandwidth bump, but it may not be important enough to Apple to implement.
Nearly all software is bloated these days (here's looking at you, Adobe and Chrome.)
LLMs will run on server farms with only the front ends on your Mac. Same with image tools like Stable Diffusion. It makes much more sense to use server farms where processors can be run at high utilization than spend a great deal of resources making each personal computer overpowered for 95% of the day.
Nearly all software is bloated these days (here's looking at you, Adobe and Chrome.)
LLMs will run on server farms with only the front ends on your Mac. Same with image tools like Stable Diffusion. It makes much more sense to use server farms where processors can be run at high utilization than spend a great deal of resources making each personal computer overpowered for 95% of the day.
That's assuming LLMs stay financially viable. I don't see a pathway for profitability for most LLMs, unless it's a "loss leader" for a very large company (i.e. Microsoft). I think LLMs - for the general public - are this generation of cryptocurrency/ "blockchains" where it's "interesting" and nice to play with, but doesn't generate any real value.
Saying number of tabs or number of applications means nothing. For one of my projects, one application I need 128GB of RAM at a minimum. But it’s ridiculous to say if you do one thing on the computer you need 128GB.
I can have Word, Excel, PowerPoint, TextEdit, VS Code etc all open and still be under 8GB with no paging.
Sad that Apple tries to convince us that 8GB in their laptops is sufficient for today's average consumer due to their OS's "optimization"... That was laughable at best.
The reason for the odd configurations on M3 is due to poor yields and production. To ensure apple is making the most $$$ they are binning the processors.
I suspect we will see a normalized configuration with M4 as TSMC will have moved rom N3B to N3E process which is suppose to be much more efficient and should result in better yields.
the base 8gb of ram has more to do with the 4GB ram modules apple has in stock, I suspect when apple runs out of 4GB modules you will see 16gb (2 x 8) be the standard configuration vs 8 (2 x 4gb).
I think the base M4 will come with 12GB of RAM.
My theory is that this will still be seen as insufficient by those who currently opt for 16GB, and they will upgrade to the next tier. Also, Apple has moved to 6GB memory modules with the 18GB offered in the base M3 Pro chips.
I doubt that the increase will make a significant difference to Apple’s costs and margins, and it may incentivise some people to upgrade.
Irrespective of what you think about the continued use of 8GB—and I think an increase is overdue—if you expect Apple to make a change soon, it makes sense to wait for that to happen. From a longevity point of view, I would rather buy the first generation with 12GB of RAM than the last generation with 8GB.
My theory is that this will still be seen as insufficient by those who currently opt for 16GB, and they will upgrade to the next tier. Also, Apple has moved to 6GB memory modules with the 18GB offered in the base M3 Pro chips.
I doubt that the increase will make a significant difference to Apple’s costs and margins, and it may incentivise some people to upgrade.
Irrespective of what you think about the continued use of 8GB—and I think an increase is overdue—if you expect Apple to make a change soon, it makes sense to wait for that to happen. From a longevity point of view, I would rather buy the first generation with 12GB of RAM than the last generation with 8GB.
I think the first bump will be from 8 to 10. Very odd jump I know, but it seems consistent with the bumps the higher spec M3 models got over the M2.
The base MBA has been standard at 8GB since 2017 which is six years ago. The base Mini switched to 8GB in 2018 models. Compressed memory technology has been kicking about in OS X since Mavericks back in 2013 and the HW compression offered by Apple Silicon must make this really fast nowadays. I fear Apple will keep us boat anchored to 8GB in base configs until they run out of 8GB chips. Even then, there is vendor mechanisms to neuter a 16GB so that only 8GB can be used.
Because hopefully the folks who need faster processors have the sense to buy much more RAM so that they are not (IMO inappropriately) intentionally limiting their expensive new computers. What is important is that Apple make plenty of RAM available for purchase with new computers, which they do.
Sort of. Except for the Mac Pro. The Intel Mac Pro could support 1.5TB of RAM. The current M2 Mac Pro support only a maximum of 192 GB of RAM. And it is conjectured the M3 Pro will only support ¼TB (256 GB) of RAM, based on double the M3 Max limit.