Oh I meant at one point the memory used did get up to 35GB. But this is nice to know.
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For those of you who went with 16gb RAM on your new 14” or 16” MBP.
- Thread starter The Cockney Rebel
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Important (to me) difference: is this using lightroom and photoshop at the same time, or either one on its own?
I am looking seriously and would very much like to not spend the extra $400. Based on my experience with Lightroom and my other loads, I might run into some yellow memory pressure but not enough to seriously slow me down with 16gb. I never would with 24gb or 32gb. But I don't really use lightroom with other major apps like photoshop running simultaneously.
(Should note I'm also running with Intel graphics, so no extra dedicated graphics ram or unified memory. I've always been unclear how much that matters with Lightroom)
I imported 50 D850 raw files into LR CC with PS open but not being used. I think it went into yellow because of caching while uploading to creative cloud.
I usually use LR Classic not LR CC, though, which does not have the same issue.
Let me know what LR you use and how many and what type of files and edits and I will test again and let you know.
Your comment is misleading. Only on one program, with the mac overloaded with every program the reviewer had, all going at the same time. If it was only using that one program, its doubtful if there would have been any difference at all.
Isn't that just the filesystem buffer cache? That doesn't count paged-in executables of running applications.
And the "my SSD is so fast I don't mind when my computer pages or swaps" is the opposite fetish of 2021. I sure as hell won't buy a machine that needs to constantly use a couple of GB of swap space on the day it is purchased AND can't upgrade it's RAM for later.
I mainly use LR Classic. To be honest, the same basic type of procedure you're doing is a decent approximation, along with editing.
My current worst case (from experience): large import (low hundreds of raw files, d750 for now), with processing, while doing edits of that or previous imports, apply changes to dozens of files at once, other normal computer stuff in background or switching back and forth (most not compute-bound, memory intensive only to extent having too many browser pages open is). I generally wouldn't have photoshop open and doing intensive editing at same time as doing imports and serious editing in lightroom (in fact rarely use photoshop).
As I said, I think this would go over 16gb at peak but not be significantly constrained by memory (disk yes - but my current computers have worse disk speeds than M1n macs). Scrolling lots of images is also a memory pig of course.
Frankly my own expectations are not that demanding, I'm not swapaphobic - from experience I really don't want to be in the high yellow/dipping into red memory usage, but can live with some swapping. SSDs are fast nowadays.
I don't really need macbook pro but want magsafe and the ports, and after speccing to 16/512, the price differential hurts but not too much. I'd expect to use a laptop for five years.
Its more a social laptop I don't use it for work. Its just a do very basic photo editing, colour corrections and just cleaning stuff up.
Been working on an image today with quite a lot of copy and pasting, ML corrections and making the picture look better with Pixelmator Super Res feature.
Also been using safari, music, mail and photos and not seeing any swap memory
I think the memory used must update quite often as it was showing 12gb used before the screen shot was taken!
MacOS update almost 2 days.
I ordered the 16gb. I'm a product designer and mostly use Sketch, Photoshop and Illustrator. I haven't seen any issues so far. Memory Pressure has stayed under 50% even with all my apps open including Outlook, Teams, Mail, Safari, and others.
I don't think that's a fair comment - it's all a trade-off of price/performance, and the inputs/flex points between specs and hardware have changed as the tech has.
Back in the proverbial day, standard advice was get as much ram as you could, swapping just destroyed performance - hard drives. When SSDs started to get cheap enough that advice was modified - make sure your system drive was an SSD (swap out the old hard drive), then increase ram if you could.
I read somewhere that the SSDs on these new macbook pros are as fast as ram was ~eight years ago (too lazy to check that); if so, it's not crazy to take the position that trading off some swapping is entirely rational and good value for money (depending on your needs and use profile).
In other words, 'must have maximum ram and never swap' would be fetishization of ram*, whereas 'my SSD is fast enough and I don't mind' is just an expression of a different preference/use profile.
*That's not an entirely fair statement of the maximum ram position, but the "SSD with some swapping is fine" is very accurately what that user said.
That's a tad optimistic, it"s well more than 8 years ago that mainstream machines hit the 7 GB/sec to RAM that the new MBP's can read from their SSD, and the latency advantage always goes to the RAM by a factor of like 1000.
Okay, fair enough, didn't mean to exaggerate that. Point still holds though - some swapping can be an acceptable trade-off with modern SSDs, unlike the degree to which hard drive swapping killed performance. ('Can be' = subjective based on use)
My MacBook 14" Pro has 16 GB of RAM. By only using Chrome, with 20 tabs opened it uses 11 GB of RAM. Should I exchange it for the 32 GB model? It's 460 € more expensive, just for 16 GB more.
BUT, 11 of 16 GB already taken by just using Chrome... I don't feel I made the right decision.
Also, I don't find the 14 inches big enough.
BUT, 11 of 16 GB already taken by just using Chrome... I don't feel I made the right decision.
Also, I don't find the 14 inches big enough.
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OK, using LR Classic I imported 54 D850 raw files (45 megapixels) and 54 jpeg files, building 1:1 previews on import (which took 1 min 35 secs), applied a bunch of color corrections, sharpening, masking, and lens corrections, and copied the edits to the other 53 RAW files (which was almost instantaneous), and got this memory pressure with PS and Safari with memory intensive pages in background:
I then restarted the Mac and did the same again in LR Classic with no other programs running in background, and got this:
There is no performance hesitation, it is just as fast, if not faster, than my 2020 iMac with 32GB RAM. I am satisfied with 16GB, as most of the time I am editing only a few photos at a time, and memory pressure is then very low. However up to you if you are OK with yellow memory pressure occasionally. Hope this helps.
I only got 512GB SSD, as this is only a secondary computer, my primary LR & PS editor is my 27" iMac (fantastic screen!). If you plan to use the M1 Pro MBP for your primary computer, I would suggest get 1TB SSD (or larger), even if you use an external SSD for the catalog. On my iMac the lrpreviews file is almost 100GB alone, and the RAW cache is almost 50GB. A large and fast internal SSD really helps for LR snappiness, and the 1TB SSD is only $200 more.
About the GPU: LR makes limited use of the GPU for things like smoother zooming in Develop Module.
Hope this helps
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You will be fine with 16GB. Look at the MaxTech video in post #12. MacOS manages memory very well. I expect if you exchange it for 32GB the performance will be exactly the same, and instead you will feel you wasted 460 €. But it is your money, your comfort.
Regarding the size: this is totally personal preference, but I think 14" is great for things like web browsing, and is neat and portable, whereas the 16" is much more cumbersome and heavy. But for things like photo and video editing, the bigger the screen the better. (Ideally MUCH bigger, like 27"). For multitasking, get used to using desktop spaces and three-finger gestures, if you don't already.
Another option is to plug in an external 4k monitor. But this obviously depends on how and where you plan to use it.
Definitely exchange it if you don't like the size. You will be looking at the screen every day. You won't be looking at the memory chips inside. Suggest stop looking at the activity monitor and just enjoy it.
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Extremely helpful! Thanks, now have a good idea that there is a bit of a trade-off but likely not too much of one. Honestly if I was doing this stuff professionally I might want to plump up for extra memory but can't really justify.
The ultimate measure of your memory needs is whether you notice (and are bothered by) any slow down in responsiveness when swap memory is heavily used. If you find that there is a delay when swapping between tabs, opening new pages etc. then this might indicate that page contents are being retrieved from swap or pages are having to reload. Is your memory pressure spending a lot of time "in the yellow"? If not, you are probably OK.
My personal experience with a 16GB M1 Mac, is that it feels the same with up to about 10GB swap used. Somewhere between 10-15GB swap used, if I am switching apps / windows a lot, I start to notice slow-downs or "bouncing beach-balls" when opening new apps. That is a clear sign that I'm using too much swap and would benefit from more RAM.
As for the screen size, that's your personal preference. Do you use an external monitor? At home or in an office I would nearly always use a monitor because it's so much more comfortable (ergonomically) and gives more workspace. For me the decision of screen size would depend on how often I need to use the machine without an external monitor. If it's 2-3 hours a day when travelling or in meetings, then the 14" is probably fine. If I was using it for 5-8 hours a day, I would go for the larger screen and sacrifice some portability.
I mean, I understand that swap does not have to be avoided at all costs. But if you're starting with 16GB RAM and a couple GB of swap now, think of how it might be in 5 or 8 years that these machines should easily last. At least they should if you give them 32GB right from the beginning. For light users the same reasoning could apply to 8GB vs 16GB, depends on what you are doing of course.
^ I won’t be thinking what ram I might need in 5 or 8 years. I’ll be running out of CPU power before ram and will likely upgrade again in 2 years time when the M3 Pro comes out.
I’m using Cubase and it’s almost exclusively CPU limited, rather than ram and GPU for what I do. Lots of virtual instruments and audio plugins running live, but no big orchestral sample libraries (that need huge ram). And when I’m using Cubase I’m not running loads of safari tabs or other applications.
So 16GB for me and hopefully the 10 core cpu holds up for the next 2 years!
I’m using Cubase and it’s almost exclusively CPU limited, rather than ram and GPU for what I do. Lots of virtual instruments and audio plugins running live, but no big orchestral sample libraries (that need huge ram). And when I’m using Cubase I’m not running loads of safari tabs or other applications.
So 16GB for me and hopefully the 10 core cpu holds up for the next 2 years!
I don't think you and I are disagreeing that much, just degree of emphasis (now that you're no longer fetishizing ram ?).
I'd distinguish with a bit more nuance between cases:
-When one starts up and has one's basic set of "these are the apps and windows I need" and you have some swap already, that's not great and yes, doesn't leave much headroom for future changes in usage or app bloat.
...vs...
-You get to something close to your 'max' usage profile (apps, windows open, etc) - but notably still a plausible workflow/workload, not some hypothetical stress case - and you see some yellow and are in mid-range memory pressure, you're probably okay for some time to come. (I'm thinking about this because I think with 16gb I'd be somewhere in between these two, at 32gb I'd be way more than I need - and I have a desktop with 32gb so maybe not justifiable to max out)
BTW for those interested - requires a bit more work - I think this "there is some swap in the activity monitor therefore I need more memory" or "I see some yellow" is just wrong and overly simplistic (memory pressure just being an attempt to simplify it).
What matters is not that there IS some swap on disk but whether it is being actively used (actively swapping). The easiest way I know to check this is terminal > top and watch the numbers swapin, swapout - if they're changing actively and frequently, in normal workloads, that's not great - if they're changing all the time (most of the time), that's actively bad.
To explain a bit - it's fine and normal and good if the system swaps out stuff you aren't actively using - say, you have some large app you leave open but only refer to once an hour, or if you have system programs or other low priority stuff that run periodically (or many other examples). Eg, the system swaps that stuff back into active memory once an hour, does its thing, and in due course gets swapped out - you may never notice. (Actually time machine, or part of time machine's routines, may be a good example - it might actually use a lot of memory but only for several minutes and then reverts to waiting).
Right now for example I have 20-odd programs 'open' and about 20gb memory used, but that's a stupid number of programs and I'm only actively using two or three (this is not normal for me, just leftover from a small thing). On a 16gb system that'd probably show some swap but the swap wouldn't be active and would be irrelevant basically, would have basically zero impact on performance.
This is soo good explained!!! People read this! If your good with 16GB now you will be good for some time.
That is what I'm trying to explain for people, I'm a dev and sysadmin and I'm good with 16GB of RAM.
Just face it we will swap this MBP for a new one within 2 years that is just fact
I haven't read all of the responses but I found this Youtube blog interesting:
I have no familiarity with this blogger so I can't speak to the validity but it was an interesting video to watch.
In summary the 16GB MBP remained as responsive as the 32GB MBP. It did use more swap than the 32GB but otherwise the blogger couldn't tell the difference.
I have no familiarity with this blogger so I can't speak to the validity but it was an interesting video to watch.
In summary the 16GB MBP remained as responsive as the 32GB MBP. It did use more swap than the 32GB but otherwise the blogger couldn't tell the difference.
I'm blushing at the compliment ... but I'm not so sure about the swapping for a new computer every two years part. I used to do that, but then the long dry winter of our keyboard discontent came upon us, and I just didn't want any of the macbooks.This is soo good explained!!! People read this! If your good with 16GB now you will be good for some time.
That is what I'm trying to explain for people, I'm a dev and sysadmin and I'm good with 16GB of RAM.
Just face it we will swap this MBP for a new one within 2 years that is just fact
As proof of this "nothing more permanent than temporary" problem - I'm still using every day an 11" macbook air - 4gb/128gb, dates from 2014. It was originally for my spouse, various things happened, temporary one thing, temporary another, etc - I'm still using it. Granted, I have a good desktop - but with a complicated move this year, I was stuck using only the airbook for over two months.
4gb is not a lot of fun. But it's funny what you can live with, particularly if you're a stubborn cheap b****** like me.