I am really torn between 8GB vs. 16GB RAM

[AJB1971]

Lisa, from MobileTechReview, has posted a video on this. I know she occasionally visits these forums and she does refer to them in her introduction -

I think part of the issue also stems from the fact that we're getting used to having more RAM than that in some mobile phones. For me personally, it also seems strange to be replacing a machine that's seven years old with one that has the same amount of RAM, but I know that 8GB will be fine for my use case.

 

[fang-woem-rai]

I bought the 8Gb ram 512ssd Mac mini... I am returning it for the 16Gb 1Tb. I have had several issues with memory load and many spinning beach balls. I work off of external t5 and t7 drives so the hard drive space was not a real issue but as I am swapping it out I figured that I might as well upgrade that too. I use 5-6gb just having Mail, Safari and Amazon Music open at a min. I usually close everything to work in DaVinci Resolve but having the freedom to allocate a 8Gb dedicated ram to that application seems like a better option for me and well worth the $200.

That's a good decision but why upgrade from 512 to 1Tb when you have external drives?

 

[throAU]

This is not true, and it is what caused me to waste $500 on 128GB of RAM when all I do is 1080p video editing. I fell in the "More RAM = Better" trap and it was a major waste of money. 8GB of RAM and 128GB of RAM for 1080p video editing is only a few seconds export times.

Definitely there is an upper bound, but it isn't the first step upgrade on Macs . Apple have always been stingy with the baseline memory amount. It's normally half what I'd put in a machine I'd build myself to be comfortable with for the types of usage I'd put the machine to.

My general rule of thumb for apple products which has served me well so far is take the standard base model amount of memory and double it as a baseline.

That will give you breathing room and generally improve performance.

Anything beyond that (which isn't expensive in terms of total system purchase price) and you want to be more seriously evaluating your workload, but that first step - doubling the baseline is usually appropriate if you're anything more than a basic web user.

That first doubling usually gives you around 3x the actual usable RAM for applications and data, as the OS generally tends to consume around 1/4 to half of the baseline amount to run efficiently before you really do much with it. (e.g., 8 GB machine is typically using 4 GB for the OS plus basic web browsing, upping to 16 GB gives you 12 GB free after that instead of 4).

i.e., that first step up in memory upgrade is normally a pretty big bang for the buck.


edit:
128 GB for 1080p is definitely overkill, 64 GB is overkill. But that's far and away beyond what we're talking about here

That said, I ran 16 GB in my 15" 2011 MBP for a while (after the price came down from $1500 for 16 GB to a couple of hundred, lol) and even back then with macOS lion/mountain lion there was a noticeable improvement in performance between 8 and 16. The 4GB it shipped with was a joke.

 

[JeepGuy]

Usually when we say more is better, we are saying 16 or 32, consumer level, not 128 level. To go that high, users should know their exact needs beforehand.

I agree, I spec all the machine for our engineers, and I've never had one ask me for more than 32gb, they usually want a better graphics card over ram.

 

[Ethosik]

128 GB for 1080p is definitely overkill, 64 GB is overkill. But that's far and away beyond what we're talking about here

I definitely agree. Now that I have experienced it I can say that is the case. Its a little bit of a sore spot with me as I didn't know if 128GB would be an advantage to video editing, so I asked for how much RAM to get and was told more = better and max it if possible. I make plenty of money, but still its $500 wasted.

I have been doing just fine with 8GB for just 1080p video editing and there is 0% chance I will get into 4K anytime soon. By that time a newer processor will be way more important than an extra 8GB of RAM.

But I do see some comments about "16GB should be the minimum". If you are just doing 1080p video editing (like me) or just using Word, its a waste of money to get 16GB of RAM.

 

[Illuminated]

I just picked up the 8gb memory Air with 512gb ssd. I am running Premier Rush (easy training videos for a client), OR Lightroom for photo editing. Never really both at the same time. With Premier Rush not being M1 optimized, it still runs great with Rosetta. I'm not seeing heavy usage on the memory, which is nice.

The entire machine is super snappy, but then again, I just got it today. I have until Mid-January to decide if I like it, and if not, I'll swap it out for a 16gb model, which hopefully they'll have some in stock by next month.

 

[throAU]

I definitely agree. Now that I have experienced it I can say that is the case. Its a little bit of a sore spot with me as I didn't know if 128GB would be an advantage to video editing, so I asked for how much RAM to get and was told more = better and max it if possible. I make plenty of money, but still its $500 wasted.

I have been doing just fine with 8GB for just 1080p video editing and there is 0% chance I will get into 4K anytime soon. By that time a newer processor will be way more important than an extra 8GB of RAM.

But I do see some comments about "16GB should be the minimum". If you are just doing 1080p video editing (like me) or just using Word, its a waste of money to get 16GB of RAM.

If you're looking to make better use of your RAM, consider using it with Parallels or VMware to spin up different copies of macOS or Windows for different purposes in order to better protect yourself from malware, etc.

I don't know what you do with your computer, but at least containing "dodgy" web browsing to a different virtual machine you do your internet banking in is a quick easy security win that will just cost you a little RAM and disk space.

 

[rui no onna]

I don't know what you do with your computer, but at least containing "dodgy" web browsing to a different virtual machine you do your internet banking in is a quick easy security win that will just cost you a little RAM and disk space.

That's what the iPad on a dummy account, guest network and VPN is for.

 

[rui no onna]

Definitely there is an upper bound, but it isn't the first step upgrade on Macs . Apple have always been stingy with the baseline memory amount. It's normally half what I'd put in a machine I'd build myself to be comfortable with for the types of usage I'd put the machine to.

My general rule of thumb for apple products which has served me well so far is take the standard base model amount of memory and double it as a baseline.

That will give you breathing room and generally improve performance.

Anything beyond that (which isn't expensive in terms of total system purchase price) and you want to be more seriously evaluating your workload, but that first step - doubling the baseline is usually appropriate if you're anything more than a basic web user.

That first doubling usually gives you around 3x the actual usable RAM for applications and data, as the OS generally tends to consume around 1/4 to half of the baseline amount to run efficiently before you really do much with it. (e.g., 8 GB machine is typically using 4 GB for the OS plus basic web browsing, upping to 16 GB gives you 12 GB free after that instead of 4).

i.e., that first step up in memory upgrade is normally a pretty big bang for the buck.


edit:
128 GB for 1080p is definitely overkill, 64 GB is overkill. But that's far and away beyond what we're talking about here

That said, I ran 16 GB in my 15" 2011 MBP for a while (after the price came down from $1500 for 16 GB to a couple of hundred, lol) and even back then with macOS lion/mountain lion there was a noticeable improvement in performance between 8 and 16. The 4GB it shipped with was a joke.

Yeah, 4GB was just way too small even back in 2011 regardless of platform (unless running Puppy Linux or something).

With that said, I think 8GB is actually pretty workable for all the non-techies just buying the stock MacBook models from Amazon, Best Buy, Costco, etc. I've used PCs with RAM ranging from 8-32GB from 2009 to now and while 16GB+ offers more headroom, 8GB isn't bad at all and that's even on bloated Windows.

 

[rui no onna]

You can't have enough RAM... totally get 16GB... everything is using more RAM now too

Even browsers are using crazy RAM amounts now. My Firefox browser uses 4GB of RAM sometimes...
& is using over 2GB right now just to watch YouTube...

View attachment 1699332

Yep, and really, I think it's been like that for a long time. Back when I still primarily used the desktop and laptop for web browsing (before I got an iPad Pro 9.7), it was pretty common to see Chrome and Firefox using 6+ GB each.

Safari doesn't appear to be much better RAM-wise. Sure, it reports low RAM usage in Activity Monitor but that's because each tab shows up separately with the name of the webpage.

Now I can actually quantify the far more frequent reloads on the iPad when online shopping (~500MB per tab) versus when I'm just browsing forums and other text heavy sites (~80-100MB per tab).

 

[dogslobber]

Lisa, from MobileTechReview, has posted a video on this. I know she occasionally visits these forums and she does refer to them in her introduction -
[...]
I think part of the issue also stems from the fact that we're getting used to having more RAM than that in some mobile phones. For me personally, it also seems strange to be replacing a machine that's seven years old with one that has the same amount of RAM, but I know that 8GB will be fine for my use case.

Yeah, she's a smart lady who can put it into terms the layman can understand. The point being that 8GB isn't really 8GB for apps but probably around 5-6GB for apps as your monitors display RAM and file cache has to come from that 8GB, amongst other things. So going to 16GB isn't doubling the memory but increasing it but about 2.5x.

 

[alien3dx]

preety sad now people believe youtuber to get max em all ram ?.

 

[lisag]

preety sad now people believe youtuber to get max em all ram ?.

Did a YouTuber tell you to max your RAM? Oh my... I know it wasn't me.

 

[alien3dx]

Did a YouTuber tell you to max your RAM? Oh my... I know it wasn't me.

Hehe, i also watch some of your video before never think you here also.

 

[darkmatter343]

Either 1 of 2 things...

1. You're buying a M1 mac with the plan to upgrade to M2/M3 silicon in 1-2yrs, and in that case I'd save the cash and go with 8gb, regardless of your intended workflow. M2/M3 Apple Silicon is when I think people will plan to hold onto the devices much longer than say they would with the 1st gen M1. The only benefit 16gb would land you is re-sale value, but then you're either saving $$ now with 8gb, or recouping it in 1-2yrs. If you're a power user, then you already know you need 16gb.
2. You're buying the M1 mac with the intention of keeping it for 3+ years, and in that case I would definitely spring for 16gb, unless of course it's sole purpose for existence in your home is media consumption, document editing, and general web browsing, and in that case, 8gb is plenty.

 

[BeatCrazy]

Either 1 of 2 things...

1. You're buying a M1 mac with the plan to upgrade to M2/M3 silicon in 1-2yrs, and in that case I'd save the cash and go with 8gb, regardless of your intended workflow. M2/M3 Apple Silicon is when I think people will plan to hold onto the devices much longer than say they would with the 1st gen M1. The only benefit 16gb would land you is re-sale value, but then you're either saving $$ now with 8gb, or recouping it in 1-2yrs. If you're a power user, then you already know you need 16gb.
2. You're buying the M1 mac with the intention of keeping it for 3+ years, and in that case I would definitely spring for 16gb, unless of course it's sole purpose for existence in your home is media consumption, document editing, and general web browsing, and in that case, 8gb is plenty.

I don’t think resale value is a valid reason. With the upgrade delta of $200+ tax, you’d be lucky to recoup even $50 of that in a few years, in the secondary market. Especially on a lower-end spec machine like the base MBP or Air.

 

[darkmatter343]

I don’t think resale value is a valid reason. With the upgrade delta of $200+ tax, you’d be lucky to recoup even $50 of that in a few years, in the secondary market. Especially on a lower-end spec machine like the base MBP or Air.

Yeah, agreed, which is why when I hear people suggesting to bump up to 16gb, if only because it'll add resale value... ? Never ever purchase an upgrade just so it adds resale value, you'll make more money keeping that money in your hand!

 

[MarkC426]

Either 1 of 2 things...

1. You're buying a M1 mac with the plan to upgrade to M2/M3 silicon in 1-2yrs, and in that case I'd save the cash and go with 8gb, regardless of your intended workflow. M2/M3 Apple Silicon is when I think people will plan to hold onto the devices much longer than say they would with the 1st gen M1. The only benefit 16gb would land you is re-sale value, but then you're either saving $$ now with 8gb, or recouping it in 1-2yrs. If you're a power user, then you already know you need 16gb.
2. You're buying the M1 mac with the intention of keeping it for 3+ years, and in that case I would definitely spring for 16gb, unless of course it's sole purpose for existence in your home is media consumption, document editing, and general web browsing, and in that case, 8gb is plenty.

All this trouble....because Apple gave no option to add more memory by the user.... ?
Maybe the next release will allow for this (even if it is slower ram, not unified).

But then, much like iPhone/iPad they want you to keep buying the newer model.

I am biased being a mac pro user, as I have been able to keep upgrading over 10 years.

 

[JeepGuy]

Yeah, agreed, which is why when I hear people suggesting to bump up to 16gb, if only because it'll add resale value... ? Never ever purchase an upgrade just so it adds resale value, you'll make more money keeping that money in your hand!

I agree, adding options for resale value is a poor decision, very rarely does it add substantial value.

 

[BeatCrazy]

All this trouble....because Apple gave no option to add more memory by the user.... ?
Maybe the next release will allow for this (even if it is slower ram, not unified).

But then, much like iPhone/iPad they want you to keep buying the newer model.

I am biased being a mac pro user, as I have been able to keep upgrading over 10 years.

User-upgradable memory on Macs ain't coming back.

 

[MarkC426]

It better not go away on the new Mac Pro ?

 

[KShopper]

The Mac Pro will be user upgradable, but all the upgrades will come from Apple in the form of Mac Pro specific custom add-on boards, ala the Afterburner board form factor.

You won't be adding any off the shelf non-Apple hardware to it.

And you won't care because the performance on offer will completely outlcass the competitive offerings anyway.

 

[alien3dx]

The Mac Pro will be user upgradable, but all the upgrades will come from Apple in the form of Mac Pro specific custom add-on boards, ala the Afterburner board form factor.

You won't be adding any off the shelf non-Apple hardware to it.

And you won't care because the performance on offer will completely outlcass the competitive offerings anyway.

most youtuber i saw saying. gooody m1 compare old mac pro.Me temptation is high but...... hard to get here so maybe wait 6 month then decide

 

[fang-woem-rai]

But I do see some comments about "16GB should be the minimum". If you are just doing 1080p video editing (like me) or just using Word, its a waste of money to get 16GB of RAM.

Even for 1080p editing, 16 GB can be very useful. You can use use Word and internet browser(s) at the same time while editing (and it might be useful depending on the type of video you're editing) and your system won't slow down.
M1 is pretty strong and it allows workloads and workflows which demand 16 GB of ram and getting just 8 GB would be unwise.

 

[Ethosik]

Even for 1080p editing, 16 GB can be very useful. You can use use Word and internet browser(s) at the same time while editing (and it might be useful depending on the type of video you're editing) and your system won't slow down.
M1 is pretty strong and it allows workloads and workflows which demand 16 GB of ram and getting just 8 GB would be unwise.

I have my computer to work, so I typically only have FCPX open when working on the video. I only have Word open when writing the script, I print it out or use my iPad when recording reading off the script. But when I am ready to edit my video, pretty much nothing else is open. From my testing 16GB of RAM only provided 5 second improvement on an export that takes 15+ minutes. This is a rounding error in statistics.

Not to mention that my 2010 Mac Pro 6-core 8GB of RAM is just as fast as my 2019 i9 iMac means 1080p pretty much plateaued a long time ago. I actually prefer my 2010 still as it doesn't get EXTREMELY LOUD like my iMac does even 10 seconds into the export process. I have been doing 1080p video editing even on 6GB systems back in 2009.