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I am really torn between 8GB vs. 16GB RAM
- Thread starter Booji
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We’re close to getting an answer. As always YMMV
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Video Demos Performance Differences Between 8GB and 16GB Apple M1 MacBook Pro
All of the M1 Mac models use the same M1 chip, so the upgrade options are limited to SSD storage space and RAM. We haven't seen many comparisons...
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I noticed today my 16gb/1TB mini shipping estimate bumped up by 1 day. Lol. Maybe it’s a sign things will get moving soon.
I will make it simple for you:
If you are planning to upgrade to M2 when its out, just go with 8GB. Its plenty good.
I have the MacBook Air 8GB/8-core GPU/512GB and have no issues whatsoever with the 8GB available. I also edit my YouTube channel videos (mostly in 1080p HD 60fps) in Final Cut Pro and surpasses my 2017 15" i7 MBP with 16GB RAM/2GB GDDR5 memory. So, M1 is definitely redefining what RAM support means going forward for MacBooks!
If you are planning to upgrade to M2 when its out, just go with 8GB. Its plenty good.
I have the MacBook Air 8GB/8-core GPU/512GB and have no issues whatsoever with the 8GB available. I also edit my YouTube channel videos (mostly in 1080p HD 60fps) in Final Cut Pro and surpasses my 2017 15" i7 MBP with 16GB RAM/2GB GDDR5 memory. So, M1 is definitely redefining what RAM support means going forward for MacBooks!
Ha, no one would argue with that, but like many of the arguments about this, it doesn't really say anything substantial.
I don't think I've seen anyone say that, actually.
Those are good points. They don't lessen the value of what he did show, which was how 8GB and 16GB perform in the same typical tasks, including some things often previously assumed to require more RAM to accomplish. Maybe some more tests can be done with what you say in mind.
Though the figures he kept citing for memory apparently weren't really what he seemed to make of them, they did provide some very rough idea of when the 16GB machine was likely using more memory than the 8GB machine was.
Does Activity Monitor show temperatures now? That may be one reason he used the app he did.
That is helpful indeed, but I'd love to know why your results are so different from others reported here, including some with seemingly more going on than you show. There must be some kinds of programs or content that are harder to deal with with less RAM. Makes the decision about which to get even more individual, and tricky.
My personal experience: I've had the 8GB Pro for four days now, done a bit of "real work" on it (video/audio production), and will be switching to the 16GB.
I found that 8GB was fairly acceptable to do any single thing that I needed at once, but things got pretty chunky when I wanted to switch back and forth between applications, particularly when they were both active.
For example I might start a project render in Motion, then switch over to Reaper to work on an audio project while I wait. The memory pressure starts edging up into the red, and the system becomes borderline unuseable. My old 4-core trashcan Mac Pro with 16GB of RAM can handle this sort of multi-tasking workflow without breaking a sweat, despite benchmarking at significantly lower CPU/SSD speeds than the M1.
Unfortunately I bought the 8GB at a place locally which doesn't do change-of-mind returns, so I'll have to sell it at a small loss. That's what I get for being impulsive!
I found that 8GB was fairly acceptable to do any single thing that I needed at once, but things got pretty chunky when I wanted to switch back and forth between applications, particularly when they were both active.
For example I might start a project render in Motion, then switch over to Reaper to work on an audio project while I wait. The memory pressure starts edging up into the red, and the system becomes borderline unuseable. My old 4-core trashcan Mac Pro with 16GB of RAM can handle this sort of multi-tasking workflow without breaking a sweat, despite benchmarking at significantly lower CPU/SSD speeds than the M1.
Unfortunately I bought the 8GB at a place locally which doesn't do change-of-mind returns, so I'll have to sell it at a small loss. That's what I get for being impulsive!
It really comes down to how heavy you are pushing the 8GB realistically beyond just testing how much the machine can handle.
I use Final Cut Pro and can seamlessly multitask when it’s rendering my video. However, the least I do while the video is rendering is listen to Spotify or watch YouTube videos in Safari. I don’t have Motion or another Adobe open. I also tried editing photos in Pixelmator and in Canva website while my video was rendering and found no stutter at all.
So it really comes down how much you really push your machine and what your workflow is. My bet is that if you really multitask with heavy applications that require memory and what not, you should stick with Intel based MacBooks for now. M1 isn’t really designed for that - probably M2 will.
I use Final Cut Pro and can seamlessly multitask when it’s rendering my video. However, the least I do while the video is rendering is listen to Spotify or watch YouTube videos in Safari. I don’t have Motion or another Adobe open. I also tried editing photos in Pixelmator and in Canva website while my video was rendering and found no stutter at all.
So it really comes down how much you really push your machine and what your workflow is. My bet is that if you really multitask with heavy applications that require memory and what not, you should stick with Intel based MacBooks for now. M1 isn’t really designed for that - probably M2 will.
I have been back and forth. There seems to be many good arguments for the 8GB, but from the tests I have seen that memory caching happens quite a lot, but due to the speed of this SSD, it is more imperceptible than we are normally used to.
I decided to go for the 1TB upgrade over the 16GB RAM upgrade for my MBA since I end up storing mountains of files on my main laptop over time and want to keep this thing for a while.
I'd definitely recommend 16GB for someone who multitasks heavy "pro" software such as 8K video rendering and whatnot. I'd also recommend the MBP for such a person since it has a fan and won't throttle the CPU.
But for anyone else, literally any "average" user who uses their laptop for internet, office, media, messaging, maybe some light creative work like iMovie, Garageband, Logic Pro, media transcoding, etc... 8GB MBA is sufficient.
Remember how crazy fast the iPad Pro is and consider it only has 4GB RAM (the 1TB model aside). And even the iPhones and how much faster they are than Androids with 16GB RAM. When you are dealing with Apple's ARM magic the integration and specialised cores make a lot of difference and raw numbers aren't really a big deal unless you have a specific heavy duty use case that requires multitasking a lot of resource intensive software.
I'd definitely recommend 16GB for someone who multitasks heavy "pro" software such as 8K video rendering and whatnot. I'd also recommend the MBP for such a person since it has a fan and won't throttle the CPU.
But for anyone else, literally any "average" user who uses their laptop for internet, office, media, messaging, maybe some light creative work like iMovie, Garageband, Logic Pro, media transcoding, etc... 8GB MBA is sufficient.
Remember how crazy fast the iPad Pro is and consider it only has 4GB RAM (the 1TB model aside). And even the iPhones and how much faster they are than Androids with 16GB RAM. When you are dealing with Apple's ARM magic the integration and specialised cores make a lot of difference and raw numbers aren't really a big deal unless you have a specific heavy duty use case that requires multitasking a lot of resource intensive software.
I've got an 8GB MBA on the way (coming tomorrow) with a 30-day return window. I'll thoroughly test it and have another MBA with 16GB on the way that should be coming mid-December. While I initially thought I might be just fine with 8GB, as a web developer interested in learning native app development and someone who occasionally does some heavier multi-tasking, I reckon that it's going to be 16GB for me after all.
The good thing is that having the 8GB MBA on its way allows me to sell my MBP (10th gen i5) immediately. The loss in value has been quite crazy these past few days, need to sell asap.
The good thing is that having the 8GB MBA on its way allows me to sell my MBP (10th gen i5) immediately. The loss in value has been quite crazy these past few days, need to sell asap.
Trouble is, all of these things - VM, "Photoshop", "4K" are a piece of string depending on exactly what you are doing.
I've often had a minimal Linux VM or Windows XP with 1GB or less RAM happily running on an 8GB machine for website testing - but if you're talking about running larger GUI apps, huge server-side databases etc. - let alone Windows 10 - then the sky is the limit. Fortunately, the need to continually test websites that need custom code for Windows IE is coming to an end...
NB: We pretty much know that Parallels for ARM Linux and Docker for Mac are coming - which is handy for web developers targeting Linux servers, and that x86 Windows runs (slowly, but maybe OK for some purposes) under UTM/QEMU. I think it is also pretty likely that a way of virtualising Windows 10 for ARM will appear before long.
I received my 1TB/16GB MBA about 6 days ago and it has been flying through everything I put to it (which includes some 4K drone footage in Final Cut (admittedly not super high bitrates), the files from my medium format Fujifilm GFX camera (although Lightroom is broken in the 11.1 beta now) for a freelance project, some very big Illustrator and InDesign files, plus my day job which is mostly Outlook, Google Docs, Teams, Zoom, etc.
That being said, I've been tempted to order a lower-spec machine and returning this one, because upgrading to the 16GB/1TB model almost doubles the cost of the MBA and by stepping down to 8GB/512GB, or even the 7-core model with 512GB, I could save between $500 to nearly $700 which is a heck of a lot.
Any thoughts?
That being said, I've been tempted to order a lower-spec machine and returning this one, because upgrading to the 16GB/1TB model almost doubles the cost of the MBA and by stepping down to 8GB/512GB, or even the 7-core model with 512GB, I could save between $500 to nearly $700 which is a heck of a lot.
Any thoughts?
In my experience 16GB for those who doing creative work is a must. Going 8GB you will notice more slow downs and general smoothness will be impacted.
In Lightroom CC I was hitting 13GB swap and couldn't really use any other apps without a laggy experience.
This is a new machine with new technology (ARM CPU) and therefore there will be software and apps that will not work properly because of compatibility issues. There will also be software developers who will now write programs and apps for the M1 now that it's out. This means as more and more app and software programs get developed, owners of M1 machines are going to try more and more things, they will install more and more things. Then the realisation will kick in that 8GB was not enough because they are the type of person that wants to try all the new things to see just what the M1 is capable of.
But if you are the type of person who is not going to venture into things new when they come out for the M1 and is just going to stick with web browsing, watching video streams and doing the odd bit of video and audio editing then yes, the 8GB machine will be perfect for you.
I have no doubt that in 7 to 8 months time, many M1 8Gb owners will be complaing that their 8Gb is struggling to handle the things they need to do on it because of the reasons above.
But if you are the type of person who is not going to venture into things new when they come out for the M1 and is just going to stick with web browsing, watching video streams and doing the odd bit of video and audio editing then yes, the 8GB machine will be perfect for you.
I have no doubt that in 7 to 8 months time, many M1 8Gb owners will be complaing that their 8Gb is struggling to handle the things they need to do on it because of the reasons above.
Understood. I guess I just think of it as (with only 8 GB RAM) if I'm running a Win 10 VM and I assign it 4GB, that only leaves 4 GB for macOS and I know the Mac is gonna be doing a lot of swapping.
No Win10 for M1 in the immediate future, so I wasn't concerned with that, so base M1 MBA it was.
It seem to me if you have a limited budget and are deciding between more memory and a bigger SSD that a bigger SSD is the way to go. Especially on the MacBook Air as you get the 8th core. I am no power user, but after watching way to many YouTube videos on the new chip based Macs I realized 8gb would be plenty for me. I am no power user, but I plan on Video editing and was initially worried that the 8gb ram was not going to cut it. After doing my research and watching may content creators show off how fast the new silicon works with 8gb I went with the bigger SSD. I think 8 GB will be enough for 90% of the users of these Macs. If your a pro and will be seriously taxing the machine and memory then you best wait until they update the higher end MacBooks/iMac to the new silicon. But seriously for the 90% of the users like me out there 8GB looks to be more than enough.
Yes this could happen. And if it does, I'll deal with it, strike it up as a lesson learned, and my next machine will have more RAM.
Yeah same boat here. Wondering if 16 hbu is overkill for my needs so hard to know. Love the air! Nervous not having a fan for thermal throttling. Then again I just to you tube, office and internet.
I think M1 7 core base with 16G/512GB is the sweet spot.
What an useless disussion this is and always will be.
Get 16GB and go on.
Get 16GB and go on.
Yup.. If you're worried about maybe needing more, just get the 16GB and then don't worry any more? It's kinda like getting a new car with a nice stereo that's got CarPlay and all that, but then you get manual windows and door locks. Or maybe another analogy.. Whatever. I think if you're really concerned you might need 16GB as opposed to 8GB, just spend the extra $200? You won't be able to upgrade later.
I mean you can say that as long as money is no object. I don’t to pretend understand people’s financial concern. $200 is still money.
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I'd guess that a good chunk of people on this forum would not really care about a $200 expense. I see so many people buying MBP 16s and you're not pinching pennies buying one of those. Apple is a luxury goods maker and I'm always amazed at how many well-heeled customers they have around the world.