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

[DocMultimedia]

I upgraded to 16gig. When you can't upgrade for yourself in the future I tend to add more. Five years from now you never know how things will be. I'm mostly worried about how virtualization might run for a few really old programs I still need to run.

 

[NJRonbo]

So how do we do this? Ask the person to buy a 8gb and try? And see the difference? I feel maybe that’s the best way to go about it.

No, it's just odd that there are all these reviews with people opening up every app on their 8GB device and they can't max out the memory.

Then a few posts back, we have a guy just opening a few apps and he's pushing the 16Gb limit.

It kills me when I see this fluctuation as I don't know what to expect from SOC memory.

 

[Pressure]

I just got the 16GB/1TB MBA and Spotlight is currently indexing my files, email, etc. Currently 11GB/16GB used. I'm glad I went with more RAM. Your results may vary, I've got hundreds of thousands of emails and about 500GB in use on my disk.

View attachment 1676815

But your memory pressure is green, not yellow or red.

It means the system perfectly serve your memory needs.

Q: What does memory pressure mean in macOS's activity monitor?

A: Its a way to see the demand on RAM (memory)

• macOS uses a new, more efficient way to manage RAM
• It includes and goes well beyond the simple memory compression that Windows and Linux do
• macOS can do more with significantly less RAM because macOS has been modernized to focus on lowering memory usage to reduce RAM requirements
• That means that the old ways to look at memory usage do not work on macOS
• Apple’s new method to disclose the demand on RAM is to use a complex approach that calculates “Memory Pressure”
• Memory Pressure tells you that how stressed the RAM is, so when memory Memory Pressure is low, green, then your system will perform normally as expected
• When Memory Pressure is yellow then your system will still behave normally but it give you advance notice that if you add more workload, similar to what you are already doing then you could go into the Red zone
• When Memory Pressure is Red, then it is telling you that you may notice some sluggishness because the memory system is completely occupied
• It is not a big problem if the system goes yellow or reed for short periods of time, in fact, you might not even notice any effect at all

 

[NJRonbo]

But your memory pressure is green, not yellow or red.

It means the system perfectly serve your memory needs.

Q: What does memory pressure mean in macOS's activity monitor?

A: Its a way to see the demand on RAM (memory)

• macOS uses a new, more efficient way to manage RAM
• It includes and goes well beyond the simple memory compression that Windows and Linux do
• macOS can do more with significantly less RAM because macOS has been modernized to focus on lowering memory usage to reduce RAM requirements
• That means that the old ways to look at memory usage do not work on macOS
• Apple’s new method to disclose the demand on RAM is to use a complex approach that calculates “Memory Pressure”
• Memory Pressure tells you that how stressed the RAM is, so when memory Memory Pressure is low, green, then your system will perform normally as expected
• When Memory Pressure is yellow then your system will still behave normally but it give you advance notice that if you add more workload, similar to what you are already doing then you could go into the Red zone
• When Memory Pressure is Red, then it is telling you that you may notice some sluggishness because the memory system is completely occupied
• It is not a big problem if the system goes yellow or reed for short periods of time, in fact, you might not even notice any effect at all

That's good information and clearly explains the post I referenced. I feel better!

 

[Jimmy James]

Exactly. People are being willfully ignorant. There's tons of reviews from people showing how incredibly hard they're pushing the 8gb machine and it isn't faltering in the slightest.

Isn’t one factor that swap file performance is really fast and not noticeably affecting performance? I wonder how that affects drive longevity for those that keep their machines for a long time.

 

[Ethosik]

The more RAM you have, the more the system will use. I think people fall in the trap of using Activity Monitor on 16GB of RAM and seeing 11GB used and assume they need 16GB of RAM. On my 128GB of RAM system, my computer with just a few Chrome tabs open is taking up 50GB of it. It doesn't mean I need more than 50GB, as the less RAM I have the less it will take up. And I have tested everything I do with 8GB - 1080p video editing. Memory pressure is green and it only takes a whopping 20 seconds longer to export my video. I am not running into any issues even with After Effects on some 1080p projects.

 

[Ethosik]

Isn’t one factor that swap file performance is really fast and not noticeably affecting performance? I wonder how that affects drive longevity for those that keep their machines for a long time.

High quality SSDs have a limited lifespan, but would essentially require you to write 330GB+ of data to the drive every single day and it would still last 5 years. A few GB here and there swapping will not significantly impact the SSD life.

 

[Spindel]

...I wonder how that affects drive longevity for those that keep their machines for a long time.

Probably no more effect than your browsers cache folder.

 

[chelsel]

The more RAM you have, the more the system will use. I think people fall in the trap of using Activity Monitor on 16GB of RAM and seeing 11GB used and assume they need 16GB of RAM.

I believe that is correct the more RAM you have the more the OS will use it. However, I feel there must be a performance benefit if the system is using the additional RAM otherwise why would the system allocate it.

 

[IG88]

Isn’t one factor that swap file performance is really fast and not noticeably affecting performance? I wonder how that affects drive longevity for those that keep their machines for a long time.

Not sure I've ever seen Apple rate their SSD. But rule of thumb for Samsung SSD is around 1000 full drive writes.
So a 256 GB SSD, let's say that's 250 TB for a round number. 5 years.

That's around 140 GB per day every day for 5 years.

 

[Ethosik]

Not sure I've ever seen Apple rate their SSD. But rule of thumb for Samsung SSD is around 1000 full drive writes.
So a 256 GB SSD, let's say that's 250 TB for a round number. 5 years.

That's around 140 GB per day every day for 5 years.

Yep, and when you get to 512GB or 1TB it gets to 330+ GB per day.

 

[IG88]

However, I feel there must be a performance benefit if the system is using the additional RAM otherwise why would the system allocate it.

Doesn't work like that. It won't free up RAM until it needs it for some other task.

I've seen my Macs keep their RAM usage up even when I close out of all open apps, because it's cached a ton of files in RAM and it never needed the RAM for anything else. Mainly app memory related.

 

[thegiftofdom]

This is my current usage, and this is my above average use case while I'm working. My Mac is not cool, but it is not hot, it is slightly warm, and it is still very comfortable to use on my lap(if I were to put it on my lap, I'm currently at my desk). The system shows absolutely no signs of slowing. I am currently using 31 tabs of chrome, 3 of which are decent sized excel sheets, 14 tabs of Safari, and I have a 4k Youtube video playing while I work. I'm leaving a couple of pages open that I wouldn't normally leave open just to test the systems limits. I also have Messages open as well,Slack, as well as the Notes, and the Music app. My 2019 16gb i7 Spectre would be warmer than this under this current work load. Now I don't know all the ins and outs of the "swap used" numbers, but I was told that as long as your memory pressure is green, it means that your system is using memory well within the limits of your Ram.

Edit: Like my earlier post, I am connected via HDMI to an external monitor and my iPad Pro with Sidecar.

 

[IowaLynn]

Q: the SoC and memory package were designed for only two slots like always(the iMac i assume is 4). Knowing the way Apple prices memory options, 2 x 16GB would add over $400 to the price. And these first edition m1's are like prototypes using existing designs. Not a redesigned mac mini.

From MacPlus to SE/30 and IIx, to the IIcx/ci series was gradual evolution. From Mac Pro 1,1 to 5,1 and now 7,1 over a decade. Redesigns take time, too much for us.

My SE/30 had a sockeded 68030 but production models were sadly soldered. Same fir the ROM even though there were 4 sockets there never was any upgrade, would have liked for 1MB and fix the dirty ROM to have full 32-bit support. Enter the IIcx that came months later, had i known then in Jan 1989 I'd have waited.

There working on A16 now @ what, 4nm?
And I'm waiting on sidelines to see what pans out.

 

[IG88]

I'm waiting on sidelines to see what pans out.

Yeah. Different people have different use cases and all. I personally see my M1 MBA as sort of a stop gap until Apple has fully migrated away from Intel.

Since I already intend to trade it in a year or 2, I figured why not go for the base MBA and just see what it can do, instead of my typical $400 to $500 SSD and RAM upgrade on something I know I won't keep very long.

A fully redesigned 14" MBP is prob my next want.

The battery life on this thing is insanely good. Steve would be proud.

 

[wacomme]

Yeah. Different people have different use cases and all. I personally see my M1 MBA as sort of a stop gap until Apple has fully migrated away from Intel.

Since I already intend to trade it in a year or 2, I figured why not go for the base MBA and just see what it can do, instead of my typical $400 to $500 SSD and RAM upgrade on something I know I won't keep very long.

A fully redesigned 14" MBP is prob my next want.

The battery life on this thing is insanely good. Steve would be proud.

This is also my rationale for the base model Air purchase.

Michael

 

[Macrumorsss]

I am going with 8gb as i have bo idea what the M1 chip performance looks like long term. I am going with a base model to try it out. In the future i will invest on more if needed.

 

[chelsel]

Also note, for any performance benchmarking with your new M1 the system does a LOT of housekeeping at the beginning, for example Spotlight index rebuilds (which makes all of your documents keyword searchable), also the QuickLook Thumbnail generator runs which generates the quick look previews. Until these processes are done your M1 Mac is probably going to seem a little less than spritely (as all new Macs would feel when a large migration of data has been made).

 

[Sanpete]

If you participate actively on this forum then you're more likely to need 16GB or more memory.

Ha, I thought you meant this site is a memory hog, but turns out it isn't. It's an energy hog.

Wow, a lot of ARM engineers here I see.

Nobody can tell how macOS handles memory on ARM after this couple of days. Virtualisation isn't even possible and only a couple of apps is running natively.

So I bought 16GB to be sure and ignored all the "8GB should be enough' bs. Since it's only 200 dollar, why argue about it anyway...

A wise choice for anyone who prefers spending $200 to carefully following an argument.

 

[jazz1]

Ha, I thought you meant this site is a memory hog, but turns out it isn't. It's an energy hog.


A wise choice for anyone who prefers spending $200 to carefully following an argument.

I suppose it depends on how much a rush a buyer is in...meaning I suppose you could go with the 8GB RAM, and if you could tell it wasn’t working within the return window, you could return it. I went with 16GB, and I am so old school I worry if that will be enough

 

[m1maverick]

This is also my rationale for the base model Air purchase.

Michael

Me too. At $200 the 16GB RAM upgrade represents almost 30% of the base system cost. Increasing the SSD to 512GB along with the RAM upgrade is almost a 60% increase over the base price. Since these are first generation Apple Silicon I decided to go entry level and then upgrade when higher performance / capable systems are released. I would think I could get at least 50% of my $700 purchase price back at that time.

 

[Sanpete]

I suppose it depends on how much a rush a buyer is in...meaning I suppose you could go with the 8GB RAM, and if you could tell it wasn’t working within the return window, you could return it. I went with 16GB, and I am so old school I worry if that will be enough

I don't object to people buying 16GB, of course. I was objecting to the dismissal of an argument one lacks the patience to follow as BS.

 

[omenatarhuri]

When I’m doing my dev stuff there’s usually more than 24GB in use. Luckily got 32GB in my 2018 MBP.

I wouldn’t get stingy with that if your doing any multitasking at all. Programmers these days are awful and don’t care about memory usage lol.

 

[jerryk]

Unless 8GB works well and you plan to replace when a redesign drops.

That is where I am. These machines are the first generation designs. By late next year we may have gen 1.5 or gen 2 designs. I view these machines as the first step, not an end step and don't plan on overbuying.

 

[Phil A.]

I’ve picked up a Mac Mini so I can evaluate how well the M1 will support our essential apps (so far, the answer is pretty well with a few glitches) and to have an M1 to play with for the next few years or so until I can justify replacing my MacBook Pro and there is an alternative for my Mac Pro. As it’s not going to be a daily use machine, I just went with the base 256GB/8GB.

My initial observations are that the M1 isn’t some magical processor that makes 8GB work like 16, and it absolutely does start paging pretty quickly and about the same as an Intel 8GB machine would.

Yes, the SSD is fast (but no faster than the higher end Intel MBPs) which mitigates the paging compared the the old HDD days, but paging is still slower than not paging and 8GB is still 8GB

I really like the mini and am impressed by its performance for the money, but it is what it is: an entry level machine and I’m sure much faster and better machines will be with us in the next year or so