For people who believe 64GB memory is too much. It's possibly not.

[Zdigital2015]

Great productivity hack: leave Activity Monitor closed and don't worry about "memory pressure" or swap or anything else until you actually have a problem.

Great advice! I have an 8GB M1 13” MBP and a 64GB Core i9 2019 iMac and there’s a difference, but really only when the MBP is really pushed. Both have similar Geekbench scores, disparate Metal scores (M1 vs Vega 48) and similar SSD scores. Long story short, intensive apps like Affinity and DaVinci Resolve are going to benefit from more RAM (duh), but only to point. There’s an unhealthy obsession all around these forums with alternately, DRAM and SSD OR pricing on DRAM and SSD that really isn’t productive. However, I’ve been here long enough to know that most of these threads don’t produce anything meaningful, because most people come here to vent and tirade, not to contribute or learn. My 2 cents.

 

[Andrey84]

I had a 768GiB Mac Pro at work and it idled at about 25GB used just the same as on my 64GiB M1 Max MBP. Unless an app actively requires or reserves that memory such as running VMs for example you will not be using "into the hundreds of gigs". Where are these "hundreds of gigs" supposed to come from? Reading posts like these is just so wild to me, making things up out of thin air and disguising that by saying it would be "likely". No it would not be. You are making it up.

People keep saying that modern OSs will eat as much RAM as they can, even though there is evidence to the contrary in this comment from page 3.

 

[MarkNewton2023]

My wife's iMac memory usage under: "I've got nothing open!" is below.

I don't know why she said that; clearly, she's got everything open.

I saw several people here concerned about having "wasted" or "idle" memory, when opting for 32 or 64GB with a new Mac. I believe there is no such thing, really, as "wasted" memory, under specialist professional use, with a 64GB config and under.

I want to show that under this real-world scenario, without opening any kind of movie files and working on just 1 project file per large application, Mac OS uses 75GB for application memory plus 18.6 GB for caching, making it

93.6 GB in total.

I'm not suggesting to anyone to get any specific amount of memory. Of course this will work on 32GB. The question is - how much lag will the user experience when switching between applications, and is the user willing to put up with these lags?

The primary meaning of this post is to prompt undecided potential buyers to examine their RAM requirements very carefully.
View attachment 2334107
TLDR version of comments.

I liked the comment from @throAU best:

"And yes, this is complicated to measure. This is why apple/macOS does this for you with the "memory pressure" graph. That's the most accurate overview of how stressed the machine is for resources as it represents how often the machine is trying to actually access memory that isn't available. The machine itself can calculate that based on far more metrics than it can display or that you can easily read on activity monitor.

I've pushed my M1 Pro into orange and eventually red memory pressure and it was still fairly responsive. Orange was not noticeable in terms of response compared to green for my usage.

YMMV, but suffice to say - if you want to get an overview of whether the machine is stressed for memory, use the memory pressure graph and don't over think it by trying to investigate the numbers. If the graph is orange or red - then go looking for what is consuming it all."

The memory size need depends on what someone needs on completing their tasks. So, it varies. One size does not fit all needs. Hence, it is true that 64 GB RAM size might not be too much for someone who needs to complete very tasking processes while it is to much for others who do not do tasking processes. Keep calm, choose right RAM size and be happy with the choice. Life is too short to be unhappy 😊

 

[kschendel]

People keep saying that modern OSs will eat as much RAM as they can, even though there is evidence to the contrary in this comment from page 3.

"Eat as much RAM as they can" is perhaps misleading. What actually happens is that the OS will a) grant application requests for memory, and b) retain file pages from files read by applications into memory, until actual RAM fills up. If there's a lot of RAM and not a lot of diverse requests wanting memory, an activity monitor will show some RAM as being unused. When physical RAM is full, the OS may reclaim more than is actually needed at that time, depending on the OS's reclaim algorithms. (for instance it might toss all pages from some long-ago read file instead of just some.) The OS also might decide to not retain file pages under certain circumstances (for instance, the app might have hinted that it only needs the file once, or the file might be deleted, or something.)

Bottom line though is that a modern virtual memory OS will use more RAM than the minimum that is absolutely needed by the running applications. How much more can be a tricky question to answer, and the line can be fuzzy.

 

[Wowfunhappy]

Other people have already said this in more words, but I wanted to share an adage I heard long ago:

Free Memory = Wasted Memory

The operating system's job is to use as much of its memory as it can. Even if the performance difference of using that memory is extremely small, that is free performance it would otherwise be leaving on the table! So a well-designed OS will always try to do something with all of your memory.

 

[iHorseHead]

Modern OSes try to fill up memory. the fact she uses 75 GB here is virtually meaningless (speaking as someone who has 96GB on his MBP)

I remember when I had Lion and 8GB of RAM. It sat on the desktop, all apps closed and used over 4GB of Memory.
Then I saw a MacBook Air with Lion and it had 2GB of RAM and it used just 1GB of Memory on desktop. More people should understand it that unused RAM is a wasted RAM.

 

[picpicmac]

There’s an unhealthy obsession all around these forums with alternately, DRAM and SSD OR pricing on DRAM and SSD that really isn’t productive.

Amen.

But it is pretty easy to see why. Numbers sell, and the consumer has been programmed that bigger is better.

So when you do not given them bigger, then they think something is wrong.

We see this nearly every day. In this forum, on YouTube. No matter how many people say their not-bigger-number machine works well for them, the bigger-is-better crowd refuses to acknowledge it.

 

[iHorseHead]

Amen.

But it is pretty easy to see why. Numbers sell, and the consumer has been programmed that bigger is better.

So when you do not given them bigger, then they think something is wrong.

We see this nearly every day. In this forum, on YouTube. No matter how many people say their not-bigger-number machine works well for them, the bigger-is-better crowd refuses to acknowledge it.

And to be fair, my work Windows computer has 8GB of RAM and yet I do much more work than my coworkers that have 16GB and 32GB of RAM. Not joking. It works for me and I have many tabs and apps open. I never even look at the RAM usage.

 

[ThomasJL]

Ever since the 1980's, both experts and laymen have been saying things like, "No one will ever need more than [insert amount here] of RAM."

 

[Andrey84]

Just wanted to say a big thanks to forum members, who gave great evidence-backed answers and engaged in a positive way!

For me personally, it changed how I view the unified memory requirements.

My key learnings:
- Used Memory is not really important for performance, Memory Pressure is important
- Even with yellow memory pressure there can be no noticeable difference in performance
- You don't need to buy extra unified memory on Apple Silicon Macs to compensate for the lack of dedicated video memory, which Intel Macs have
- Mac OS caches all files the user opens in RAM, if there is lots of RAM available, it’s called “Cached Files”
- Mac OS won't 'fill up' all available RAM. However, if there is free RAM, Mac OS will use any opportunity it has to optimize performance: it will cache files in memory or allocate memory to applications, if they ask for it

With my wife's Mac Studio purchase several years down the line, we'll very seriously consider going down from 128GB to 64GB, if the 'customer' allows it, and if it means we can get a good deal
For my purchase of 15" MacBook Air, also several years down the line, I can now be guilt-free and get just 16GB and save £200 without any impact on performance, assuming there will be the same options as now

 

[jclardy]

How is RAM caching not a legitimate use of RAM? If I’m not using an application right now, I would like for it to be instantly available with all its data ready for me to use when I switch back to it.

It is legitimate, but what people are saying is that you wouldn't notice the milliseconds of difference loading that data from swap on a modern mac. Literally, the animations take longer than the time to load from disk. I have 64GB of my MBP and it is great. I do software development. But I did the exact same workflow (Xcode/Slack/Safari/Figma/iOS Simulators/Music/Mail/Messages) on an 8GB M1 iMac for weeks and didn't have anything hampering my workflow in comparison. I was likely hitting the swap pretty hard, so maybe it'll drop a few months off the end of the SSD life, but the processor will be too slow at that point for it to be an issue.

Memory Pressure is the only indicator on a mac of how much RAM you are actually utilizing. The numbers are just showing the small things the OS is doing to speed up your machine to utilize the available RAM because otherwise it would just be wasting battery life.

 

[edubfromktown]

Ever since the 1980's, both experts and laymen have been saying things like, "No one will ever need more than [insert amount here] of RAM."

IIRC, SSI's DOS-based WordPerfect (that ran off of two 5.25" 360K floppy disks) was the first program that required 128 KB of RAM.

We were scratching our heads thinking: what sloppy programmers!

 

[AlastorKatriona]

Your machine will use 8 GB or 80 GB, whatever it has, it will use. THAT'S THE POINT. Memory is not supposed to sit there unused.

 

[TechnoMonk]

Just wanted to say a big thanks to forum members, who gave great evidence-backed answers and engaged in a positive way!

For me personally, it changed how I view the unified memory requirements.

My key learnings:
- Used Memory not really important for performance, Memory Pressure is important
- Even with yellow memory pressure there can be no noticeable difference in performance
- You don't need to buy extra unified memory on Apple Silicon Macs to compensate for the lack of dedicated video memory, which Intel Macs have
- Mac OS caches all files the user opens in RAM, if there is lots of RAM available
- Mac OS won't 'eat' all available RAM. However, if there is free RAM, Mac OS will use any opportunity it has to optimize performance: it will cache files in memory or allocate memory to applications, if they ask for it

With my wife's Mac Studio purchase several years down the line, we'll very seriously consider going down from 128GB to 64GB, if the 'customer' allows it, and if it means we can get a good deal
For my purchase of 15" MacBook Air, also several years down the line, I can now be guilt-free and get just 16GB and save £200 without any impact on performance, assuming there will be the same options as now

Unified memory is more flexible and better use of RAM for CPU/GPU. I run out of memory on my 24 GB 4090 GPU in a server with 128 GB RAM. With my 64 GB M1 Max, it doesn’t have the problem, as memory is unified and OS handles the memory for CPU/GPU. If I need to go over 24 GB for Nvidia GPU, it costs more than my Mac.

 

[Agincourt]

A well-balanced computer is better for me than a computer with an astounding spec and a serious bottleneck at the same time.

Well that's exactly what the baseline Apple machines are. Even the lowest spec M1 air can outperform the highest-end Intel MBP in many respects. In just one generation the entry level computer leaped ahead of the pro level laptop... except in storage and RAM. I mean they certainly made sure to include only the most expensive and highest-end displays and materials, but elected to save on some of the cheapest components. SSD and RAM however are the most significant limiting factors for consumers, thus why Apple can charge a premium for components which cost them little.

There is an argument to be made over what's too much and what's not enough. It DOES cost Apple a lot to instal 4 TB of storage or 96 GB RAM, thus why it's not standard. However when you build a premium computer there comes a point when 'good enough' isn't enough for the price. Seriously just because 8 GB RAM and 128 GB storage is good enough for most people doesn't mean Apple isn't price gouging.

Most important to note is that software developers are having to work within the confines of 8 GB RAM, making it exceptionally harder for them to develop software and operating systems to work with consumer level Apple machines. So software also becomes more expensive! It's bad for everyone except Apple to sell computers. And it's bad for the environment that an otherwise good computer to be rendered worthless because of only a few grams' worth of worn out chips.

 

[Agincourt]

One other detail I'd like to add pertains to the operating system and the fact it becomes increasingly demanding with time. Few notice but we had perfectly viable operating systems back in the day which ran well on only 32 MB or less... why do they become more hungry and bloated over the years?

It's because more and more tasks have become automated. Anti virus software and protection from crashes have made the experience much more enjoyable for users. And because RAM has become so cheap nowadays, developers have fewer limits to work under. Windows 11 is comparatively bigger than OS 14 not because it's inherently inefficient but because there's simply much more space to expand and fewer limits to contend with.

The only reason you'd seek to compress RAM or an operating system is when power and weight are at a premium. Even today's modern spacecraft have comparatively weaker specs, but that's because even a few extra grams can make all the difference to the Mars rovers or deep space probes. This is amongst the only times where you don't future proof something, because you never repair nor upgrade them. For everyone else... why not include a bit extra RAM or another 128 GB SSD chip?

 

[JustAnExpat]

Most important to note is that software developers are having to work within the confines of 8 GB RAM, making it exceptionally harder for them to develop software and operating systems to work with consumer level Apple machines. So software also becomes more expensive! It's bad for everyone except Apple to sell computers. And it's bad for the environment that an otherwise good computer to be rendered worthless because of only a few grams' worth of worn out chips.

What type of software, outside of games and audio/video tools, require 8GB+ of RAM?

 

[Agincourt]

What type of software, outside of games and audio/video tools, require 8GB+ of RAM?

You don't wanna go down this path.

Do you remember a time when iMacs had cathode ray tubes? What users require a flat panel display and 24 inches? What users require the OS to share documents automatically amongst multiple machines if they only own one computer? What users demand more than 128 GB of storage when ~30 GB hard drives were the norm only 20 years ago?

I call it innovation. As we develop tech it becomes increasingly able while costs go down. Considering how far the 'base' Apple computers have come, don't you find it a might bit petty that Apple didn't decide to upgrade the base storage and RAM specs in a decade while its competitors have been offering more for less?

Stop defending Apple for their obvious price gouging! The better question here is why does Apple NEED to make its base RAM and storage specs so low and then charge a premium for upgrades that can't be performed later? Why does Apple NEED to make their machines non upgradable?

Answer me this and I'll answer your question.

 

[Mr.Mozi]

I’m a designer and Adobe fan but I have to confess that Adobe XD is a huge piece of unoptimized junk… Running it alone is enough for any mac to make it sluggish. I’m totally amazed by the junk stew the developers at Adobe has released for mac considering the fact that unlike Photoshop and other products XD is not written in C++ and it’s actually almost native considering the windows version being UWP

 

[Boeingfan]

My wife's iMac memory usage under: "I've got nothing open!" is below.

I don't know why she said that; clearly, she's got everything open.

I saw several people here concerned about having "wasted" or "idle" memory, when opting for 32 or 64GB with a new Mac. I believe there is no such thing, really, as "wasted" memory, under specialist professional use, with a 64GB config and under.

I want to show that under this real-world scenario, without opening any kind of movie files and working on just 1 project file per large application, Mac OS uses 75GB for application memory plus 18.6 GB for caching, making it

93.6 GB in total.

I'm not suggesting to anyone to get any specific amount of memory. Of course this will work on 32GB. The question is - how much lag will the user experience when switching between applications, and is the user willing to put up with these lags?

The primary meaning of this post is to prompt undecided potential buyers to examine their RAM requirements very carefully.
View attachment 2334107
UPDATE 11.01.2024

Every 4th comment is telling me I’m stupid - I already got the message, thank you very much. I've been put in my place and humbled. Please don’t comment, unless you have something new and ideally evidence- or data-backed.

Also wanted to say big thanks to the forum members, who engaged in a positive way and gave great evidence-backed answers! You've changed how I view the unified memory requirements.

My key learnings:
- Used Memory is not really important for performance, Memory Pressure is important
- Even with yellow memory pressure there can be no noticeable difference in performance
- You don't need to buy extra unified memory on Apple Silicon Macs to compensate for the lack of dedicated video memory, which Intel Macs have
- Mac OS caches all files the user opens in RAM, if there is lots of RAM available, this is called “Cached Files”
- Mac OS won't ‘fill up’ all available RAM. However, if there is free RAM, Mac OS will use any opportunity it has to optimize performance: it will cache files in memory or allocate memory to applications, if they ask for it

With my wife's Mac Studio purchase several years down the line, we'll very seriously consider going down from 128GB to 64GB, if the 'customer' allows it, and if it means we can get a good deal
For my purchase of 15" MacBook Air, also several years down the line, I can now be guilt-free and get just 16GB and save £200 without any impact on performance, assuming there will be the same options as now

If anyone is telling you you're stupid, tell them to get stuffed. These same people don't have enough brain cells to realise that everyone has to learn about something, sometime, including them. I'm glad you received some helpful advice.

 

[kc9hzn]

My wife's iMac memory usage under: "I've got nothing open!" is below.

I don't know why she said that; clearly, she's got everything open.

I saw several people here concerned about having "wasted" or "idle" memory, when opting for 32 or 64GB with a new Mac. I believe there is no such thing, really, as "wasted" memory, under specialist professional use, with a 64GB config and under.

I want to show that under this real-world scenario, without opening any kind of movie files and working on just 1 project file per large application, Mac OS uses 75GB for application memory plus 18.6 GB for caching, making it

93.6 GB in total.

I'm not suggesting to anyone to get any specific amount of memory. Of course this will work on 32GB. The question is - how much lag will the user experience when switching between applications, and is the user willing to put up with these lags?

The primary meaning of this post is to prompt undecided potential buyers to examine their RAM requirements very carefully.
View attachment 2334107
UPDATE 11.01.2024

Every 4th comment is telling me I’m stupid - I already got the message, thank you very much. I've been put in my place and humbled. Please don’t comment, unless you have something new and ideally evidence- or data-backed.

Also wanted to say big thanks to the forum members, who engaged in a positive way and gave great evidence-backed answers! You've changed how I view the unified memory requirements.

My key learnings:
- Used Memory is not really important for performance, Memory Pressure is important
- Even with yellow memory pressure there can be no noticeable difference in performance
- You don't need to buy extra unified memory on Apple Silicon Macs to compensate for the lack of dedicated video memory, which Intel Macs have
- Mac OS caches all files the user opens in RAM, if there is lots of RAM available, this is called “Cached Files”
- Mac OS won't ‘fill up’ all available RAM. However, if there is free RAM, Mac OS will use any opportunity it has to optimize performance: it will cache files in memory or allocate memory to applications, if they ask for it

With my wife's Mac Studio purchase several years down the line, we'll very seriously consider going down from 128GB to 64GB, if the 'customer' allows it, and if it means we can get a good deal
For my purchase of 15" MacBook Air, also several years down the line, I can now be guilt-free and get just 16GB and save £200 without any impact on performance, assuming there will be the same options as now

I don’t know if anyone has pointed it out, but Google Chrome is notoriously memory hungry, and you’ve effectively got 5 or 6 different instances of Chrome open. For example, Slack on macOS is an Electron application (Electron is a tool for making desktop applications using HTML, JavaScript, and CSS), which is Chromium based. And it’s not the only Electron application you have open, you’ve got four or five that I know, or can make a reasonable guess, are Electron based.

But then, it’s clear that you’re a pro-user, and I don’t think that the 16GB proponents were ever quite talking about your use case. There probably are people who don’t really need more than 8GB (maybe they just use Safari, Photos, Music?), but, on the other hand, there are users that can obviously benefit from 64GB+ of RAM, such as yourself. When I upgrade my Mac later this year, I’ll probably go for a 16GB Mac mini, as that’s all I really need. But you clearly need substantially more computer power locally than I do.

 

[Weaselboy]

Moderator Note:

It does not appear we are covering any new ground here.

Thread closed.