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

[armoured]

yes

I like this answer, as it is a very succinct response to the question "Is a 6gb swap suggesting 8gb ram not enough?."

A 6gb swap definitely DOES suggest 8gb ram is not enough.

Now the caveat: as far as I can tell the swap tends to grow over time (since last reboot) and macos doesn't always 'release' swap memory/reduce the size of the swap file, although often it does. And there are a few corner cases where you might see it that are due to errors/memory leaks rather than a real, ongoing and persistent need for more memory. (I've had a runaway process take up 40gb+ of memory and almost lock up the mac until I could force-quit it).

But it's true: a large swap file strongly suggests ram is insufficient and worth looking into. And if I was given that data point without more info/ability to check a bit whether something unusual was going on, first best guess would be that more memory would be good for that user.

 

[armoured]

When buying any computer that its RAM is not upgradeable, get the most RAM you can get. I would get 16GB, even if it meant to wait longer until I have the money for it..

Ummm, no, not always. At Apple's prices for example there is no way I would pay the $400 to go from 16 to 32gb in the other pro models, and definitely not the $800 to go to 64gb. For me benefit above 16 is there but not that substantial, and above 32gb way in excess of what I need.

Obviously these are not for the M1 models but this is still the pricing for memory in the Intel Macbook Pros and Minis. I'd like to believe Apple will change the pricing for extra memory when they move to apple silicon for these too - but I'm not optimistic at all.

I don't usually complain about apple's pricing but you just have to look at how extra memory is priced to see how excessive it is: to go from 8 to 16 or 32gb on the Intel laptops/minis, it costs basically $200 per 8gb - but the next step from 32gb to 64gb is priced at $100 per 8gb. It's literally half the price per gb. And I seriously doubt they're losing money or greatly reducing their margin on that bump from 32 to 64gb.

And when there is an apple silicon laptop that allows more memory and if they priced that bump from 16gb to 32gb at $200, I would absolutely consider paying that difference. The $400 pricing diff is absurd.

 

[sky87]

I have both the 8 and 16 MBA currently. I read this and to satisfy my curiosity I did full shutdown and a boot. There was no difference. I tried 3 times. Little to no difference.

I did a clean boot and did the awake test you did. Both came on at the same time. This was with nothing loaded. I then booted up safari, Firefox with a few tabs. Opened pages and numbers. Again the lid test was, for me, identical.

I have both side by side because I wanted to see for myself if the additional 8 gig justified the hefty 200 dollar upgrade. And for my current use cases not really. With that said I do keep Macs for awhile and may want to add the 16 for my own piece of mind.

Not doubting what you’re saying it just didn’t have a perceivable difference in my limited tests.

Edit - Also not saying the 16 isn’t going to be faster. I just wanted to see for what sounded like trivial tasks if there was a distinct difference.

I also tested out something similar last night with the 8/8/512 and 8/16/1tb MBAs I currently have - just restarted both of them at the same time and logged into both of them at the same time. They seemed to take almost exactly the same amount of time to boot up and login. So a similar experience to what you had!

 

[sky87]

I like this answer, as it is a very succinct response to the question "Is a 6gb swap suggesting 8gb ram not enough?."

A 6gb swap definitely DOES suggest 8gb ram is not enough.

Now the caveat: as far as I can tell the swap tends to grow over time (since last reboot) and macos doesn't always 'release' swap memory/reduce the size of the swap file, although often it does. And there are a few corner cases where you might see it that are due to errors/memory leaks rather than a real, ongoing and persistent need for more memory. (I've had a runaway process take up 40gb+ of memory and almost lock up the mac until I could force-quit it).

But it's true: a large swap file strongly suggests ram is insufficient and worth looking into. And if I was given that data point without more info/ability to check a bit whether something unusual was going on, first best guess would be that more memory would be good for that user.

Interestingly though I've been trying out an 8GB and a 16GB MBA, and both have gone up to 8-9GB of swap. The difference is that the memory pressure on the 8GB goes up to around 50% and occasionally into the yellow, whereas the 16GB has stayed under 25% and never into the yellow.

 

[petvas]

Ummm, no, not always. At Apple's prices for example there is no way I would pay the $400 to go from 16 to 32gb in the other pro models, and definitely not the $800 to go to 64gb. For me benefit above 16 is there but not that substantial, and above 32gb way in excess of what I need.

Obviously these are not for the M1 models but this is still the pricing for memory in the Intel Macbook Pros and Minis. I'd like to believe Apple will change the pricing for extra memory when they move to apple silicon for these too - but I'm not optimistic at all.

I don't usually complain about apple's pricing but you just have to look at how extra memory is priced to see how excessive it is: to go from 8 to 16 or 32gb on the Intel laptops/minis, it costs basically $200 per 8gb - but the next step from 32gb to 64gb is priced at $100 per 8gb. It's literally half the price per gb. And I seriously doubt they're losing money or greatly reducing their margin on that bump from 32 to 64gb.

And when there is an apple silicon laptop that allows more memory and if they priced that bump from 16gb to 32gb at $200, I would absolutely consider paying that difference. The $400 pricing diff is absurd.

I meant get the most you can afford. Don't get the standard 8GB as this will not be enough if your needs change..

 

[armoured]

Interestingly though I've been trying out an 8GB and a 16GB MBA, and both have gone up to 8-9GB of swap. The difference is that the memory pressure on the 8GB goes up to around 50% and occasionally into the yellow, whereas the 16GB has stayed under 25% and never into the yellow.

Interesting. What are you running that takes up so much memory?

Anyway, glad I wrote 'suggestive of' a need for more memory - your info says not definitive.

 

[armoured]

I meant get the most you can afford. Don't get the standard 8GB as this will not be enough if your needs change..

Well, okay, restated this way it's less ridiculous. But even so I don't agree: I literally can afford much more, but there are no plausible cases where I need above 32gb, and even the extra money to 32 from 16gb doesn't make much sense - again, even though I can afford it.

I don't even agree for all users for the standard 8gb - there are some users for whom it is and will be enough in most plausible cases. (Although personally I'd suggest to many or even most users to go to 16gb, that's up to them).

"The most you can afford" doesn't make sense for most people in any area. It's a personal choice of trade-offs and outsiders' advice only goes so far. Different people have different priorities, budgets, needs, etc.

It's fine to say "the extra $200 may be worth it and you should really think about it." But there's no blanket advice that works for everyone - at least for cases where the base machine works pretty well, which by most accounts the base M1s do (there have historically been some models that were - in my view - really badly spec'd and shouldn't have been sold; the last iMac with internal hard drive instead of ssd comes to mind).

 

[sky87]

Interesting. What are you running that takes up so much memory?

Anyway, glad I wrote 'suggestive of' a need for more memory - your info says not definitive.

The one that really pushes the swap rate up to 8-9GB on both the 8GB and 16GB is when I sort through my photos. Not even editing, just sorting through and deleting photos. Otherwise most of the rest of the time it doesn't go up quite that high. I need to test out the 16GB machine a bit more though, have had it for less than a day at this point.

But I'm surprised by how much memory is being taken up by some of my apps like Goodnotes (500MB-1GB) and Notability (around 500MB). Though given they have files with over a thousand pages (textbooks) it probably isn't that surprising. Then add on a number of pdfs on Preview, multiple Safari tabs, Whatsapp, and somehow everything seems to take more memory than I anticipated...

 

[armoured]

I also tested out something similar last night with the 8/8/512 and 8/16/1tb MBAs I currently have - just restarted both of them at the same time and logged into both of them at the same time. They seemed to take almost exactly the same amount of time to boot up and login. So a similar experience to what you had!

This is a weird one - I can't really understand why a 16gb should start up faster than the 8gb. Unless there's some massive amount of programs open or that start on login.

Taking a bit longer to get to usable when opened from sleep - that makes a bit of sense to me as I definitely experience this with an intel laptop - more likelihood of having to retrieve from swap / call up programs when waking.

Oh wait - I just thought of one reason, a bit obscure, why rebooting may take a bit longer for a machine with less memory AND that has been heavily using the swap. All disk/ssd related - either deleting the previous swap file and/or running trim and/or ssd 'collection'/maintenance routines; this would be more likely if the drive closer to full. This is a bit speculative but would explain at least partly.

I wouldn't think this would happen frequently or take all that much time but possible e.g. apple forces these routines during the reboot. (Keeping in mind that apple assumes most people reboot infrequently and they are not optimising the system to boot quickly).

 

[armoured]

The one that really pushes the swap rate up to 8-9GB on both the 8GB and 16GB is when I sort through my photos. Not even editing, just sorting through and deleting photos. Otherwise most of the rest of the time it doesn't go up quite that high. I need to test out the 16GB machine a bit more though, have had it for less than a day at this point.

Is this using apple photos or some other program?

And yep, this is actually pretty memory intensive. They're (presumably) keeping screen-ready versions (i.e. decoded from raw or jpeg or whatever with edits applied), and various sizes, of multiple photos all at once. A browsable screen of say 40 photographs has a lot of info. A good thing in that faster - usually - but memory intensive. Some programs more so than others.

 

[sky87]

Is this using apple photos or some other program?

And yep, this is actually pretty memory intensive. They're (presumably) keeping screen-ready versions (i.e. decoded from raw or jpeg or whatever with edits applied), and various sizes, of multiple photos all at once. A browsable screen of say 40 photographs has a lot of info. A good thing in that faster - usually - but memory intensive. Some programs more so than others.

Using just the default photos app (since it syncs across all my devices connected to iCloud). That makes sense that they're just keeping them ready in storage until needed!

 

[nobackup]

When you trade in next November, your $200 / 16GB upgrade will more than pay for itself.
You always want something to trade with.

So M1 changes the rules mostly in Europe there is no premium paid fir more ram. It’s all about the SSD.

however don’t forget this is the slowest arm machine that Apple will ever make, so like back in the 2000’s when they were making the first transition to Intel. Most people just got what they needed at the time as every year the releases some new shiney shiney. Saving that 200 now. So that you take a lower hit when the next best thing hits the market might be a better way to go. As I’m sure in the next 2 years three will be some design changes. And people will forget quickly that they invested the 200 not to want the new shiney design.

Let’s also hope they bring back the 12 with 2 USB4 and at least the M1

 

[Chairman.Jobbie]

Fwiw, I had a clear thought last night to go with the 8gb M1 Air.

Reasoning:
- My primary motivation to buy an M1 was to offload my Intel MBP (keyboard, fans, heat etc etc) to M1.
- I will happily use the M1 Air for 12-24 months. I'll save max money right now.
- In that time Apple may release an M1X / M2 / 14" MacBook. I'll then buy something with 16gb ram if I need it.
- This potential new 14" may get a redesign - no screen bezels & less boxy design (I like the Air wedge).
- I'm guessing the 13.3 Pro will be discontinued with a 14" release and Apple with have 14" & 16" MacBooks.
- An 8gb Ram Pro w/similar spec to the Air seems like an oddity. Its like a stop gap release until M1X/14" is ready.
- I think the 13.3 Air will continue as is - the super popular low price everyday laptop it is.

- Who knows, I might just stick with the 8gb Air long long term - at this price point its damn good value.
- This actually feels like the right move instead expending energy & money on this purchase.

Lets see 8 Jan ?.

(ps answering a diff post - the swap disk does dynamically change between 2gb upto 6gb, currently 3gb on Air)

 

[Ethosik]

My M1 Mini base with 8GB is running like it's on steroids without generating any heat compared to the i7 Mini with double the RAM.

Since the M1 Mini runs so cold with dual displays and doesn't thermal throttle anymore, I ditched the cooling fan I had underneath i7 !

This is the reason why I am replacing my 2019 i9 iMac. 10 seconds in to exporting a 1080p video and the fans are maxed out. 1080p should be no sweat for any computer these days, my 2010 Mac Pro 6-core exports the same projects just as fast. Only thing is I miss out on HEVC.

 

[russell_314]

This is the reason why I am replacing my 2019 i9 iMac. 10 seconds in to exporting a 1080p video and the fans are maxed out. 1080p should be no sweat for any computer these days, my 2010 Mac Pro 6-core exports the same projects just as fast. Only thing is I miss out on HEVC.

You're comparing an AIO to a workstation... I realize one is newer but still they are two different animals. Try a 2019 Mac Pro LOL

 

[armoured]

This is the reason why I am replacing my 2019 i9 iMac. 10 seconds in to exporting a 1080p video and the fans are maxed out. 1080p should be no sweat for any computer these days, my 2010 Mac Pro 6-core exports the same projects just as fast. Only thing is I miss out on HEVC.

What are the run/export times for these projects on the M1s vs the 2019 imac? Comparable, better, slower?

To some degree the desktops (all types) are designed to run flat out even if it means spinning up the fans.

But I think the M1s are showing that this is a false trade-off, that the intel/massive GPU approach is wasteful and eventually still runs out of speed advantages.

I'm looking forward to getting an M1 airbook, mainly because I want the extra battery life and no fans. If it's actually faster than the equivalent intel (as most are saying), that's amazing, I would have been fine with a bit slower even.

There are some things I want extra speed/power for. But that's only one of the issues I care about.

 

[Ethosik]

You're comparing an AIO to a workstation... I realize one is newer but still they are two different animals. Try a 2019 Mac Pro LOL

6-core Xeon in 2010....the i9 at 8 cores and faster clock speed SHOULD be much better....but its not. 1080p has pretty much plateaued a decade ago. I was working on 1080p videos back in 2008.

And my 2013 rMBP at the time exported 1080p videos the same speed as my 2010 Mac Pro too. Its just 1080p should be no sweat for any computer but the fans GREATLY ramp up on my iMac on just 1080p video.

 

[Ethosik]

What are the run/export times for these projects on the M1s vs the 2019 imac? Comparable, better, slower?

I don't have my system yet. Should be here in a week or so.

 

[Ethosik]

If my most intensive usage is Final Cut Pro projects from time to time (nothing crazy, only 4k from phone sources), do you think I'd benefit from 16GB?

Or is that usage not really RAM intensive?

4K video editing would definitely benefit from 16GB of RAM for sure. Check out Max Tech channel though. They did a video on Intel iMac comparing all RAM from 8GB to 128GB. If you are fine with a little slower export times of 8GB with 16GB of RAM then 8GB is fine for you. If not, I would get 16GB definitely.

 

[russell_314]

6-core Xeon in 2010....the i9 at 8 cores and faster clock speed SHOULD be much better....but its not. 1080p has pretty much plateaued a decade ago. I was working on 1080p videos back in 2008

A CPU isn't a computer. It's one component. If you're looking to buy a computer post on the forums exactly what you're going to use it for, what you currently have, and what your expectations are. There are a lot of knowledgeable people that can give advice. It seems you had some incorrect exceptions with the hardware you bought. I hate it when people go out and spend thousands on a computer only to be disappointed because they bought the wrong thing based on bad advice or just an impulse buy. I've had friends do this and come to me later and the only thing I could do at that point was advise them to sell it and what to get as a replacement.

 

[Ethosik]

I found this thread https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/swap-is-used-even-though-50-of-ram-is-still-free.2222254/

"If you want to monitor which way your memory is trending, just watch the memory pressure indicator. Yours is extremely low, as your system is pretty much idling."

"Don't worry about memory use. On a modern computer, the OS should be using lots of memory. Don't even worry about "low" memory. Worry about running out to the point it compromises performance."

"This is why Apple introduced a "memory pressure" graph. Because looking at the individual numbers is a bit more complicated than it may appear.

The big take-away for the past decade or two with regards to memory management (in pretty much every modern platform) is this:

Stop trying to out-smart it.

As above, ignore it until performance becomes a problem, THEN go trying to diagnose the issue (and start with the "memory pressure" reading). Don't go trying to diagnose issues that do not exist."

I quickly scanned it, ill read it properly later, but there is some good stuff that fits this thread well.

Yep. I have seen swap used with JUST chrome open on Windows with 128GB of RAM. And only a handful of tabs, not dozens.

Bottom line: Unused RAM is wasted RAM. People look at their RAM usage on 8GB, see its using it all and think "I need 16GB". But your system is designed to use ALL RAM. This is why, Adobe especially, pretty much all of my 128GB of RAM is used for just 1080p video editing. Adobe uses ALL RAM, but as I found out and has been discussed with people here, 1080p video editing with 128GB of RAM is WAY overkill (I got it from generalized recommendations thinking it would help, but it didn't). Maybe in some odd way Adobe is benefiting from that extra RAM with just 1080p video, but it is clearly not visible to the user. So it is clearly overkill.

This is also why my Windows computer uses up 11GB of my 64GB of RAM just by turning on the computer. The more memory you have, the more memory will be used. Doesn't mean Windows 10 requires 11GB+. I can run Windows 10 just fine on 8GB systems....even 6GB systems.

 

[Ethosik]

A CPU isn't a computer. It's one component. If you're looking to buy a computer post on the forums exactly what you're going to use it for, what you currently have, and what your expectations are. There are a lot of knowledgeable people that can give advice. It seems you had some incorrect exceptions with the hardware you bought. I hate it when people go out and spend thousands on a computer only to be disappointed because they bought the wrong thing based on bad advice or just an impulse buy. I've had friends do this and come to me later and the only thing I could do at that point was advise them to sell it and what to get as a replacement.

Are you misunderstanding what I said? I had a 2010 Mac Pro 6-core 8GB of RAM system. 9 years later I got a 2019 i9 iMac 8GB of RAM with 128GB after market install. I HAVE both computers, I am not looking for advice as I got my new Mac mini on order with 8GB of RAM. My point was, for 1080p video editing, my 2010 Mac Pro and my 2019 i9 iMac are the same.

I commented to the person that complained about heat/noise and I just said that is why I am getting rid of my iMac. Where did you see I was asking for advice?!

 

[russell_314]

Are you misunderstanding what I said? I had a 2010 Mac Pro 6-core 8GB of RAM system. 9 years later I got a 2019 i9 iMac 8GB of RAM with 128GB after market install. I HAVE both computers, I am not looking for advice as I got my new Mac mini on order with 8GB of RAM. My point was, for 1080p video editing, my 2010 Mac Pro and my 2019 i9 iMac are the same.

I commented to the person that complained about heat/noise and I just said that is why I am getting rid of my iMac. Where did you see I was asking for advice?!

Clearly you can’t understand what I’m trying to explain. You’re comparing an AIO to a workstation saying one has a newer CPU. Maybe if you asked for advice you wouldn’t be trading in your iMac now.

 

[Ethosik]

Clearly you can’t understand what I’m trying to explain. You’re comparing an AIO to a workstation saying one has a newer CPU. Maybe if you asked for advice you wouldn’t be trading in your iMac now.

Uhhhh I really think you misunderstood what is going on. Check out my post. The person said they replaced their i7 Mac mini due to heat, I responded saying that is why I am replacing my iMac since it maxes out the fans due to the heat.......where did I ask for advice here?!

And the fact that the new M1 macs can do even 4K work without ramping up the fans so much, even in the small laptop environment shows the problem with the Intel heat in the iMac. The iMac definitely has better cooling than the Macbook Air....which has none. Yet it can stay cool working on 4K videos. The SAME reason that user replaced their i7 Mac mini is the SAME reason I am replacing my iMac and why I replied to that comment......Again, where did I ask for advice here?

And to your question, I did ask for advice and was told to MAX it out (which is why I got the 128GB of RAM). How was I supposed to know it wouldn't help? I never used that much RAM before and coming from the Mac Pro with 8GB how was I supposed to know it didn't provide any benefit? And I was told the new systems would clearly benefit, I mean come on 9 years of CPU enhancements alone should have benefited my workflow, but they did not. People probably thought it would help because 90% of people moved to 4K HEVC video editing and not still on 1080p h.264 like me.

There are some things that the Mac mini M1 is doing that beats a $15,000 2019 Mac Pro.....so yeah if I used it for that specific use case and DID have a $15,000 Mac Pro that the Mac mini beats it, I would be replacing it too. I don't see why you are nitpicking my comment to death. It was just a "Hey thats why I am replacing my iMac for too because of the heat it produces and the fans annoy me"

 

[alien3dx]

lol .Seem here keep argue the point of ram. Ram is random access memory and for quick access data not processing. More ram wouldnt produce more faster but combination of proc and ssd.

m1 good from its processor not ram.

** never ever said memory un used ram its waste ram.The real waste is you need 2 seat car but you bought 7 seat wagon.

** the purpose me before i need high ram for quick compiling, putting xcode data into ram much faster in ram drive instead ssd. HIGH risk but when you keep changing and need quick " thats the way".

Same as video rendering , putingg in ram drive maybe little faster and its high risk because of volatile ( shutdown, electrical surge) data lost.