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

[alien3dx]

If you're a dev I don't understand why this question is being asked. Get more ram. You can build whatever to test your app with less ram, but you probably need the additional ram for tools, debugs, etc. Oh, and to have enough ram to test your app with various ram levels.

The reason i got 8 gb because it's fast and more on travel instead of pure development. If you're home developer or in house it's better to wait and get m1x(if available). Ram more important on IDE (uhh java) and emulator. Like me i don't depend on emulator instead of real device which reduce more memory consumption.

 

[Phil77354]

I have to say that after following this thread since it was first posted, I'm more confused than ever regarding RAM for Macs with the new M1 chips.

The impression I had from Apple's introduction of their new silicon and MacBook models was that the operating concept with their own M1 chip and architecture was such that the computers use of RAM was fundamentally different from what we've been used to with Intel based Macs.

Therefore the amount of RAM needed would be less for a M1 MacBook than for an otherwise equivalent Intel MacBook, everything else being equal (usage, applications, etc).

And Apple therefore are spec-ing the M1 MacBooks with less RAM as standard, and less RAM as the maximum upgrade.

This all made sense to me until I started reading all of these user opinions which don't consistently support the expectation that 8GB RAM would be sufficient for most users.

For myself, I'm waiting for the next generation iMac, and it will be interesting to see what RAM options are offered for that model, as well as newer MacBooks as they are introduced.

If I was purchasing an M1 MacBook today, I would be spending the extra $200 to get the 16GB RAM, even aside from the debate here. It just seems to me to be a relatively small investment to make, to give the MacBook the best possible capability and given that it can't be upgraded after purchase.

(My own late 2014 iMac has 32GB RAM, which is far beyond what I realistically need for any uses I have, but it was easy to do and inexpensive. Why not?)

 

[cmm]

I have to say that after following this thread since it was first posted, I'm more confused than ever regarding RAM for Macs with the new M1 chips.

The impression I had from Apple's introduction of their new silicon and MacBook models was that the operating concept with their own M1 chip and architecture was such that the computers use of RAM was fundamentally different from what we've been used to with Intel based Macs.

Therefore the amount of RAM needed would be less for a M1 MacBook than for an otherwise equivalent Intel MacBook, everything else being equal (usage, applications, etc).

And Apple therefore are spec-ing the M1 MacBooks with less RAM as standard, and less RAM as the maximum upgrade.

This all made sense to me until I started reading all of these user opinions which don't consistently support the expectation that 8GB RAM would be sufficient for most users.

For myself, I'm waiting for the next generation iMac, and it will be interesting to see what RAM options are offered for that model, as well as newer MacBooks as they are introduced.

If I was purchasing an M1 MacBook today, I would be spending the extra $200 to get the 16GB RAM, even aside from the debate here. It just seems to me to be a relatively small investment to make, to give the MacBook the best possible capability and given that it can't be upgraded after purchase.

(My own late 2014 iMac has 32GB RAM, which is far beyond what I realistically need for any uses I have, but it was easy to do and inexpensive. Why not?)

You mean a company lied and fluffed the tech of their product? Say it isn't so!

 

[NJRonbo]

I see this thread has been beat to death but here's my take. I bought the M1 pro at costco in mid december, it was on sale and came with 8gb of ram. I assumed apple was full of **** in their marketing speak regarding the ram. I can wholeheartedly report now that indeed they were full of ****. I haven't tried a 16gb arm mac yet, and honestly probably won't (at least for a LONG time).
FWIW, I am a power user, but I bought the 13 M1 because I was having surgery and was disallowed from lifting more than 5 pounds for 6 weeks, so it filled that purpose. I didn't expect to do anything intense on it, just use iterm, chrome, messages, textedit, intellij for light work, vlc etc.. But I found it constantly unusable as it was OOMing. It has sat on one of my desks unopened now for more than 4 weeks and I'll be returning it in the next day or three.

What exactly was your unit doing? What is 00Ming?

 

[cmm]

What exactly was your unit doing? What is 00Ming?

I can't give you literal specifics of the load as I didn't bother copying the output from ps aux (or activgity monitor, if you prefer). oom == out of memory

 

[Ace McLoud]

I got the 8GB mini when it came out, will definitely get the 16GB next time.
Depends heavily on your use case and the kind of apps you're running, of course.

I usually run 2-3 browsers for development work, with dozens of tabs. Some smaller developer tools, 1 or two Java IDEs.

I sometimes see slowdowns, which never happens on older and slower 16GB Intel machines.

Guess what I'm saying is the M1 Macs are faster and better at running with 8GB, but they can't do miracles, especially with mixed Apple/Intel/Java apps.

Now I pretty much expected this when buying the 8GB, but didn't want to wait for the 16GB to become available, so I'm not complaining.

 

[Mike Boreham]

Depends heavily on your use case and the kind of apps you're running, of course.

....M1 Macs are faster and better at running with 8GB, but they can't do miracles........

These two extracts from Ace's post about sum up the whole subject IMHO

 

[ofarlig]

I also think it comes down to how long you plan on keeping the device, I see these as first gen devices that will be replaced within a year so unless I really need more RAM right now I wouldn't pay extra for it. But then again I don't really sweat the unit at all, might even return it and go back to the iPad Pro as that is faster and smoother for every day tasks.

 

[dieselm]

I also think it comes down to how long you plan on keeping the device, I see these as first gen devices that will be replaced within a year so unless I really need more RAM right now I wouldn't pay extra for it. But then again I don't really sweat the unit at all, might even return it and go back to the iPad Pro as that is faster and smoother for every day tasks.

My experience is my 16GB M1 is much smoother than the 8GB M1 it replaced.

Even still, it really hammers the SSD with swap writes. Smartctl reports 60TB lifetime writes already and 2% of expected lifetime wear (1TB disk) so far and i've had it about 2 months.

At this rate, the SSD will last 7-8 years if the numbers are right - not terrible. If I had opted for a smaller SSD (256gb) or RAM (8GB), it might only last less than 2 years with my usage pattern, so worth keeping in mind.

 

[majormike]

It's super simple, if you just do web browsing and office docs then go for 8 gigs, for anything more, 8 Gigabyte won't suffice and will hurt you not even in the near future but already now.

 

[majormike]

I’d rather get the 8gb and save the money use it for upgrading to next year’s m2.

Wtf whaf a capitalistic and wasteful recommendation. Yeah just get a new Mac every year, that's the safest bet ? I dunno, if somebody right now needs already more than 8 gigabytes of RAM, how is it going to help them?

On the second hand market btw, they'll get a lot more value having the BTO 16 GB model vs 8 which the majority has and will probably get back what they've invested into the additional ram straight away.

 

[antwormcity]

I hate the idea of already buying something with a plan to upgrade in a few months or a year. I have seen limitations with my 8/256 M1 Air. I could go the mid range M1 Air 16/512 7c or 8c GPU, and be done with what looks like a powerful machine.

The thought of selling off my 8/256 soon makes me cringe, I am inching to the return window in a couple of days when my FedEx label 'expires'. There are times when my swap goes as high as 6GB, and minimum 700MB-1.5 GB if running very light with 5 browser tabs, a word processor doc and Acrobat. Xcode or Spyder launch start taking more swap space. Driving a 10-bit external 4K display @60fps most of the time with intermittent use on a couch.

Activity monitor showed Yellow memory pressure intermittently and a times consistently with normal use. We are spoiled by these tools, not sure how much we all monitored back in the days.

Not surprising - one off - there is sluggish behavior at times - tearing in an Acrobat document once in a while (Hello Adobe!?).

This thread has been beaten to death, and now that we see excessive swaps in some systems, it becomes even more mysterious whether to spend your money in the present or in the future. :/

 

[geejay9876]

The machine capabilities never were a problem, the software is the problem. My first work Apple had 32 KB. But then you have software developers who are pushing things to the limits and suddenly you need a CP/M extension card from Micro Soft to run dBASE or whatever on your Apple. In the end I was using the original Apple RAM and processor only to play games, all the serious stuff needed the CP/M card.

Irrespectively of what Apple is hyping, 8GB was the standard in the last 5 years or so. Things move on, get 16GB. I doubt that in 2-3 years time anyone will like to touch a non-expandable 8GB PC or Mac. Same as no one would buy a non-expandable 4GB machine today.

 

[alien3dx]

The machine capabilities never were a problem, the software is the problem. My first work Apple had 32 KB. But then you have software developers who are pushing things to the limits and suddenly you need a CP/M extension card from Micro Soft to run dBASE or whatever on your Apple. In the end I was using the original Apple RAM and processor only to play games, all the serious stuff needed the CP/M card.

Irrespectively of what Apple is hyping, 8GB was the standard in the last 5 years or so. Things move on, get 16GB. I doubt that in 2-3 years time anyone will like to touch a non-expandable 8GB PC or Mac. Same as no one would buy a non-expandable 4GB machine today.

as newbies complain, apple will use all the ram or useless. As old folks developer, manage your ram as min as possible not eat em all ram buffet

 

[alien3dx]

I hate the idea of already buying something with a plan to upgrade in a few months or a year. I have seen limitations with my 8/256 M1 Air. I could go the mid range M1 Air 16/512 7c or 8c GPU, and be done with what looks like a powerful machine.

The thought of selling off my 8/256 soon makes me cringe, I am inching to the return window in a couple of days when my FedEx label 'expires'. There are times when my swap goes as high as 6GB, and minimum 700MB-1.5 GB if running very light with 5 browser tabs, a word processor doc and Acrobat. Xcode or Spyder launch start taking more swap space. Driving a 10-bit external 4K display @60fps most of the time with intermittent use on a couch.

Activity monitor showed Yellow memory pressure intermittently and a times consistently with normal use. We are spoiled by these tools, not sure how much we all monitored back in the days.

Not surprising - one off - there is sluggish behavior at times - tearing in an Acrobat document once in a while (Hello Adobe!?).

This thread has been beaten to death, and now that we see excessive swaps in some systems, it becomes even more mysterious whether to spend your money in the present or in the future. :/

I stick to two mode, m1 future will be 16/32 gb mac mini and travel 8 gb macbook air. If you need to cut cost max em all for time period but pricy

 

[UBS28]

The machine capabilities never were a problem, the software is the problem. My first work Apple had 32 KB. But then you have software developers who are pushing things to the limits and suddenly you need a CP/M extension card from Micro Soft to run dBASE or whatever on your Apple. In the end I was using the original Apple RAM and processor only to play games, all the serious stuff needed the CP/M card.

Irrespectively of what Apple is hyping, 8GB was the standard in the last 5 years or so. Things move on, get 16GB. I doubt that in 2-3 years time anyone will like to touch a non-expandable 8GB PC or Mac. Same as no one would buy a non-expandable 4GB machine today.

No, 5 years ago, 16 GB was the standard. Heck, my 2013 15" MBP has even 16 GB RAM with 512 GB of SSD, which is a laptop of 8 years ago.

 

[UBS28]

It's super simple, if you just do web browsing and office docs then go for 8 gigs, for anything more, 8 Gigabyte won't suffice and will hurt you not even in the near future but already now.

But why buy a new computer if all you do is that type of stuff? You can do that with a $300 laptop from a few years ago too.

 

[mi7chy]

No, 5 years ago, 16 GB was the standard. Heck, my 2013 15" MBP has even 16 GB RAM with 512 GB of SSD, which is a laptop of 8 years ago.

8GB is what my 12 year old 2008 laptop had.

 

[PsykX]

On the second hand market btw, they'll get a lot more value having the BTO 16 GB model vs 8 which the majority has and will probably get back what they've invested into the additional ram straight away.

Impossible.
If your Mac loses, say 20% of its original after 1 year, that 16GB will easily lose 35-40%. Base models never lose as much as upgraded models because Apple's upgrades are extremely costly if you look at the value they really add.

 

[RobbieTT]

No, 5 years ago, 16 GB was the standard. Heck, my 2013 15" MBP has even 16 GB RAM with 512 GB of SSD, which is a laptop of 8 years ago.

Can you point at this difficult-to-find model of MBP where the base specification was 16/512 GB please?

 

[pshufd]

"On the second hand market btw, they'll get a lot more value having the BTO 16 GB"

Costco has the Pro at 16 GB/500 GB and The Apple Store carries the Air at 16 GB/1 TB so you don't strictly need to get them BTO - but you do have to buy larger configurations.

In general, everything on Macs depreciates with time. You will get more than a lesser spec'd model but still less than the retail price of the original option.

 

[cmm]

Where is this 16GB pro machine at costco? I only see 16gb with the intel CPUs, not the any of the m1s....

 

[pshufd]

Where is this 16GB pro machine at costco? I only see 16gb with the intel CPUs, not the any of the m1s....

Did you check online or in the store? I'll double-check that it's an M1 in the store the next time I'm there.

 

[cmm]

Online just now... I was in the Manhattan store yesterday and they only had 8GB m1s as well. I'm heading back to the Manhattan store today so I'll let you know if anything has changed in a day...

 

[Phil77354]

Where is this 16GB pro machine at costco? I only see 16gb with the intel CPUs, not the any of the m1s....

I do not believe that Costco carries the 16GB version.