How can Apple sell a Mac with 8GB of RAM in 2023 and call it "Pro"

[Shirasaki]

OP, do this, and you will never be annoyed again:
Distrust any and all marketing materials from any and all sources, permanently.

Hope you have a better life after that.

 

[platinumaqua]

I just checked. Apple has been selling 8GB as the base RAM for MBPs since 2012. I found it hard to believe that prices haven't dropped enough in 11 years to have more RAM standard.

I am just glad I finally got to see Apple get rid of HDDs completely.

Nothing will top Apple's grift of still selling them when the tech was completely obsolete. I had to witness friends purchase a Macbook Pro with them towards the end and it was just sad seeing them waste money on something so terrible. At least with the 8GB it can run extremely fast in many lower end usage scenarios.

at least with those MBPs the hard drive is user replaceable so it's possible to switch to SSD for cheap

 

[boss.king]

I just checked. Apple has been selling 8GB as the base RAM for MBPs since 2012. I found it hard to believe that prices haven't dropped enough in 11 years to have more RAM standard.

You know it's not the same RAM that they were using back then, right? I'm sure they're probably making higher margins on these components now than they were back then, but it's not like they haven't upgraded to more performant RAM over that time, even if the base capacity is the same.

 

[MasterHowl]

It’s all marketing. I’m a ‘professional’ (I make money from my Mac) and I use a lowly M1 Air with base specs. Does that make the M1 Air a ‘pro’ machine? *shrug*

Marketing. Just buy what you need/want, don’t fret about the name of the machine

 

[MGrayson3]

The only thing worse than complaining about a machine you don't want to buy is commenting in a thread about complaining about a ... oh ... wait ....

 

[Velli]

While I am one of the few that don’t have a problem with 8GB as standard, my prediction is that M4 will be the point where it goes to 16 (or 12, just to freak everyone out). M2 was a relatively minor bump up from M1. M3 seems to be a bigger jump. It’s likely that next year will be minor bump again, and then a RAM increase is a good way to provide a perceived improvement.

 

[JamesMay82]

Is 10 years out of a laptop a a reasonable expectation? Particularly on a work machine?

Are you really showing up for those sales meetings with a 10 year old laptop?

I think it is if you look after them, plus because the design has hardly changed they still look good. My iMac 2014 and 2015 MacBook Pro all still run great and can edit 1080p video etc.

My parents just retired their iMac 2010 due to faulty drive and I’ve replaced it with a SSD and that runs fantastic as well.

I just cant see 8 gig lasting another 10 years as that will then be nearly 20 years of being a base spec requirement

 

[JamesMay82]

No machine will run contemporary OSes for 10 years. At some point, older hardware isn't supported. I think Apple typically provides OS feature updates for something like 5 years-- someone else may know a more accurate number-- and they support machines by generation, not configuration.

I would never imagine Apple issuing an OS update for machines with 16GB, but not for the 8GB version of the same generation machine.

So I think any machine of the same generation will likely last the same duration. Over spec'ing a machine now hoping, especially without a guarantee, to gain utility 8 years from now may not be the best strategy.

No it won’t run the OS but it can run software like photo software and video etc which is where extra ram is nice.

 

[henkie]

C'mon man! You can't compare PC desktop RAM to the custom and proprietary on-silicon RAM architecture that Apple is using on their Apple Silicon Macs. The way that Apple implements RAM on its products is both unique and harder to do than what the supply chain does on PCs. Thus, the cost is higher for Apple, and as such, to maintain their profit margins, have to charger more $$$ for their RAM on their products.

If there was competition from the PC industry then yeah, RAM upgrade prices for Apple Macs would come down. But because there isn't any competition, Apple is free to charge whatever they feel is the fair market price for their RAM upgrades.

lol! Keep drinking the Koolaid. What about Apples SSD upgrade prizes then? Nothing special about those SSDs, if anything, they are relatively slow (base m2 ssd at least). Again I make the same point: a PS5 contains a faster 0.825TB SSD (and you can upgrade storage yourself!) and a complete PS5 system is still cheaper than the upgrade from 256 to 1Tb (+0.75TB) on a MBA. Just please stop defending those rip off prizes.

 

[senttoschool]

While I am one of the few that don’t have a problem with 8GB as standard, my prediction is that M4 will be the point where it goes to 16 (or 12, just to freak everyone out). M2 was a relatively minor bump up from M1. M3 seems to be a bigger jump. It’s likely that next year will be minor bump again, and then a RAM increase is a good way to provide a perceived improvement.

I think M4 will be a major bump in raw speed (# of cores and IPC) and will have better value because N3E is a better node than N3B in terms of yield.

 

[henkie]

You know it's not the same RAM that they were using back then, right? I'm sure they're probably making higher margins on these components now than they were back then, but it's not like they haven't upgraded to more performant RAM over that time, even if the base capacity is the same.

On the pc side of thing the speed went up AND amount of memory increased AND prizes decreased. It costs Apple next to nothing to upgrade the ram to 16Gb (it might even cost them more to ibclude 8GB). But it is just a strategy to lure you with the “low price” hampered 8GB version and then charge an insane amount for 8GB extra. In pc land, you can get about 64GB for just the upgrade to 8Gb. But of course it does not contain Apple Magic Memory Sprinkle Dust(tm).

 

[bcortens]

Because of RAM?



I expect people to show agency in their decision making. If they're going to spend hard earned money on a product, they should be engaged in that decision. Honestly, if they're baffled by their photo storage they're going to have a hard time in many more areas of life than which Mac to buy.

No not because of ram but it is an example of giving different features to different Macs. You couldn’t imagine a feature that might be ram limited, I gave you an example.

I just despise this argument, that everyone must have some way of knowing enough about everything to never make bad choices. People can succeed just fine in life without knowing that since the last time they bought a Mac the size of each photo taken by their iPhone has increased. People using their macs to store their photos don’t need to know that their photo library is 120GB to live a good life. As my example pointed out, people used to be able to buy the base model and expect more storage and ram than the last time they bought the base model.

This is part of my chief complaint: The end of progress in this area.

I would also like point out that before Tim Cook Apple pushed the base storage all the way to 1TB of spinning disk storage. They could have kept offering 260 GB or 500GB drives but they didn’t, the 1TB drives got cheaper so they included them in the base model.




Defaults matter, the model on the shelf matters, why else would Google pay $20 billion to keep themselves as the default search engine.

The base Mac used to improve in both storage and memory as prices for those things fell, that is not the case anymore and given the prices Apple charges for upgrades it looks like they are just doing so to make extra margins.


Simply stacking more and more options on at the high end is not progress at the base model. Continuing to leave the base storage and memory flat in the base model is cynical and manipulative given the prices they charge for memory and storage upgrades.

If you are fine with them selling an M1 with 8-256 as the base model five years from now as long as they have added a 512 GB of memory option and 100TB of storage option at the high end well good for you. I however think we should expect better of Apple.

 

[ninecows]

Its called pro for “prosumer”.

Just as the iPhone Pro series. What makes that “Pro?” Better camera mostly. Are buyers of the iPhone Pro’s all professional photographers using it to take photos and make movies? No.

If you’re pro in the definition of “using the gadget to make a living” it’s a different story. Then you might be pro enough to justify a Mac Pro or the MacBook Pro Pros because that extra power or screen estate you can drive with it is mostly used by real pros and can make you more efficient so you will profit more.

Or you might just be the manager using it for PowerPoint and mail. Then the entry level pro is good enough and you can still feel pro 😂

 

[MGrayson3]

Apple does it as a deliberate affront. They sell a version of a machine that you know that no one should want, so it's an obvious sign of disrespect aimed at you. I think you should get much angrier about it. Me? I'm going to protest by buying 20 of every 8GB machine Apple sells and destroy them with a sledgehammer - in secret!

And when the minimum configuration jumps to 32GB - "Why am I forced to buy these extra GB of memory that I'll never need?"

 

[Ethosik]

I just checked. Apple has been selling 8GB as the base RAM for MBPs since 2012. I found it hard to believe that prices haven't dropped enough in 11 years to have more RAM standard.



at least with those MBPs the hard drive is user replaceable so it's possible to switch to SSD for cheap

11 years ago we didn’t have DDR5…..this whole notion that RAM decreases over time is a myth. I paid the early adopter price for DDR5 in my 4090 i9 setup. It was over $1,000 for 32 GB.

 

[Alex Cai]

It's hard to think of any task that can make MPB M3 fan spin but not devouring the 8G ram

 

[bcortens]

11 years ago we didn’t have DDR5…..this whole notion that RAM decreases over time is a myth. I paid the early adopter price for DDR5 in my 4090 i9 setup. It was over $1,000 for 32 GB.

It isn't a myth, RAM prices do decrease over time - Apple has been using LPDDR5X for almost 3 years now - in that time prices are bound to have fallen.

I couldn't easily find anything on LPDDR memory that wasn't behind a paywall but this report suggests that from 2022-2023 GDDR6 prices more than halved.

 

[Ethosik]

It isn't a myth, RAM prices do decrease over time - Apple has been using LPDDR5X for almost 3 years now - in that time prices are bound to have fallen.

I couldn't easily find anything on LPDDR memory that wasn't behind a paywall but this report suggests that from 2022-2023 GDDR6 prices more than halved.

I didn’t pay $1,000 for DDR3 or DDR4 RAM. So no. Prices do not decrease over time. DDR6 will not be cheaper than DDR5.

 

[AxiomaticRubric]

I’m not sure why anyone is surprised by the entry-level specs of the M3 MacBook Pro.

This is the same company that put 5400 RPM hard drives in the entry-level Intel iMac for literally a decade, both pre- and post- Retina Display, long after the rest of the industry had moved on to solid state drives as the base standard.

 

[bcortens]

I didn’t pay $1,000 for DDR3 or DDR4 RAM. So no. Prices do not decrease over time. DDR6 will not be cheaper than DDR5.

Good for you... but you wouldn't pay $1000 today for 32 GB of DDR5. Therefore, DDR5 prices have fallen within the generation. The point is that Apple charges the same amount for memory regardless of how new it is or when it was introduced.

Also while the price decreases have slowed on memory, it used to be that when you got a new generation of DDR you got more for the same price as before, but now that trend has slowed and it takes about 5-6 years for price/GB to halve.
PC DDR Price trends

 

[Ethosik]

Good for you... but you wouldn't pay $1000 today for 32 GB of DDR5. Therefore, DDR5 prices have fallen within the generation. The point is that Apple charges the same amount for memory regardless of how new it is or when it was introduced.

Also while the price decreases have slowed on memory, it used to be that when you got a new generation of DDR you got more for the same price as before, but now that trend has slowed and it takes about 5-6 years for price/GB to halve.
PC DDR Price trends

What’s with the attitude? “good for you”? $1,000 for 32GB is not good. And I have been building computers for decades. RAM is not getting cheaper over time. I spent the same amount of money on 32GB as I did a decade ago for DDR4 vs DDR3. So it wasn’t cheaper.

 

[bcortens]

What’s with the attitude? “good for you”? $1,000 for 32GB is not good. And I have been building computers for decades. RAM is not getting cheaper over time. I spent the same amount of money on 32GB as I did a decade ago for DDR4 vs DDR3. So it wasn’t cheaper.

Tone is hard in posts and so I read attitude in your post so I responded in kind... sorry about that.

I do not think $1000 for 32GB is good, however, since 32 GB of DDR5 is currently between $125 and $200 for 32GB depending on configuration and speed we can conclude that prices have fallen back to earth quickly. Considering that a few years ago $150 got you 16 GB of memory we can safely conclude that capacity is still increasing at mid-generation prices.

If we look at total historic trends (not just introductory prices which are always inflated) average RAM price/GB for the latest generation has fallen over time, it is just that the doubling time has changed from 3 years to closer to 6 years.

 

[Ethosik]

Tone is hard in posts and so I read attitude in your post so I responded in kind... sorry about that.

I do not think $1000 for 32GB is good, however, since 32 GB of DDR5 is currently between $125 and $200 for 32GB depending on configuration and speed we can conclude that prices have fallen back to earth quickly. Considering that a few years ago $150 got you 16 GB of memory we can safely conclude that capacity is still increasing at mid-generation prices.

If we look at total historic trends (not just introductory prices which are always inflated) average RAM price/GB for the latest generation has fallen over time, it is just that the doubling time has changed from 3 years to closer to 6 years.

I spent $200 for 32GB for DDR4. And $189 for DDR3. So it’s still in line.

 

[bcortens]

I spent $200 for 32GB for DDR4. And $189 for DDR3. So it’s still in line.

I was on the Canadian store when I looked up prices of DDR5, it's actually between $80-110 for 2x16GB = 32GB of DDR5 which is even better than I remembered.

 

[Ethosik]

I was on the Canadian store when I looked up prices of DDR5, it's actually between $80-110 for 2x16GB = 32GB of DDR5 which is even better than I remembered.

And DDR4 NOW is $64 for 32GB. 64 is less than 80. So the fact still remains that it’s not getting cheaper over time.