I refuse to buy an Apple Silicon Mac with only 8 GB RAM!

[Queen6]

I'm aware that 8 GB RAM as of now fits most people's needs. And that the Si/ARM SoC technology isn't as RAM dependent as x86.

But macs are so expensive that I want them to last for regular use for a very long time. We know nothing of that now.

I have had my 2012 mini since 2013 and it works just fine. But, then, I installed 16 GB RAM immediately, and feel secure with that. 8 GB RAM for the future, not upgradeble, no way.

If the entry level gets 16 GB of RAM, and today's prices continue, I'll buy one. But not otherwise.

What do you think?

Go buy a PC then. Nobody cares, my meagre 8GB 13" MBP's have put both our kids through very expensive private schooling with ease. If you need more RAM, you know so and if you don't more fool you. Lot more to a Mac than just the memory capacity...

Q-6

 

[pdoherty]

Not sure why the cost of, or that it’s private, schooling matters. Weird flex.

 

[jasoncarle]

I am so glad you let me know, I was up all night wondering if you would or would not refuse to buy an Apple Silicon Mac with 8GBof RAM. I am sure Tim Apple was losing sleep over it along with all the top execs.

 

[Queen6]

Not sure why the cost of, or that it’s private, schooling matters. Weird flex.

Point being you don't need a super computer and Apple knows that....

Q-6

 

[mpetrides]

Not sure why the cost of, or that it’s private, schooling matters. Weird flex.

FWIW mentioning both makes sense to me. The point is that the poster is willing and able to pay for what he/she perceives as quality yet purchased an entry-level MBP and was satisfied. As for mentioning that the school was private, that is significant because US public education is “free” yet the poster chose to pay for what was perceived to be higher quality. Find something substantive to criticize rather than picking non-existent nits.

 

[pdoherty]

(Never mind)

 

[spcopsmac21]

I've had a few hackintoshes myself.

While OpenCore is works great, it will not be able to help when Apple drops Intel Mac support in macOS.

You’re 100% wrong. Virtualization is far from its infancy. When code exists to emulate windows on top of apple silicon. The reverse already exists.

 

[pastrychef]

You’re 100% wrong. Virtualization is far from its infancy. When code exists to emulate windows on top of apple silicon. The reverse already exists.

You're wrong.

If it's even possible to run the Apple Silicon version of macOS on x86 hardware, it will be through emulation, not virtualization.

Intel is already having difficulty keeping up with Apple Silicon, add in the overhead of emulation and your "value" proposition goes out the window.

There's also the need to write GPU drivers for the Apple Silicon version of macOS. Since Nvidia dropped support for macOS, no one has stepped up to the plate to write drivers for macOS. What makes you think the situation will change when Apple drops support for Intel based Macs? Who wants to run macOS with no graphics acceleration?

 

[ADGrant]

As I always say, overpriced products don't sell well (all other things being equal) and the price will change to accomodate that or the product will be discontinued. But I notice people claim a lot of things are "overpriced" that sell very well. In that case, they don't really mean "overpriced" in terms of the market, but overpriced for them personally (i.e. either not in their budget or they personally don't see value where many others do).

The 13" M2 MBP is overpriced because for $1700 you can buy the much better 14" MBP. If you configure the 13" M2 MBP with 16g of RAM and 512gb of SSD (the minimum I would consider) the list price from Apple is $1700. Yes you can probably get the 13" for a hundred dollars or so of list but why would anyone want to.

And yes, I did just buy a base 14" MBP, for my 12 year old daughter. If I was buying a computer for myself I would get something with more RAM and a larger SSD.

 

[usagora]

The 13" M2 MBP is overpriced because for $1700 you can buy the much better 14" MBP. If you configure the 13" M2 MBP with 16g of RAM and 512gb of SSD (the minimum I would consider) the list price from Apple is $1700. Yes you can probably get the 13" for a hundred dollars or so of list but why would anyone want to.

And yes, I did just buy a base 14" MBP, for my 12 year old daughter. If I was buying a computer for myself I would get something with more RAM and a larger SSD.

You're making the common mistake or projecting your wants and needs to everyone else and then declaring it's "overpriced" just because you personally don't see the value for you. For many people, that 1" smaller screen is highly desirable for portability, just like you hear people saying they wish they would bring back the 12" MB even though we have 13" MBA and MBP.

 

[1800AirTAG]

So, AlixSPQR, post creator, after 17 pages of comments, do you still feel the same about the 8GB of RAM?

And also, are you still following your own thread?

 

[BlueGhost]

What would be useful is if one of the standard models came with 16GB – even if you were paying the same premium. That way, getting 16GB wouldn't entail a special order from Apple, so it would mean you could pick one up from other retailers and that might help when there are sales on etc.

Several retailers do stock more than the standard configurations, B&H for example. Believe I've seen 16GB MBAs on the B&H website. BestBuy usually does not. Have not checked other retailers.

 

[AlixSPQR]

So, AlixSPQR, post creator, after 17 pages of comments, do you still feel the same about the 8GB of RAM?

And also, are you still following your own thread?

Yes, and yes.

 

[curnalpanic]

And here I was, worried that 16 GB would not be enough for me.

Maybe it should be 16 GB standard on MBA, and 32 GB on MBP? IOW everything should be twice of what it currently is.

 

[kasakka]

And here I was, worried that 16 GB would not be enough for me.

Maybe it should be 16 GB standard on MBA, and 32 GB on MBP? IOW everything should be twice of what it currently is.

Honestly yes. Apple is notorious for nickle and diming for RAM and disk space compared to the competition. Alternatively halving the cost of RAM/disk space upgrades would go a long way as now we are paying through the nose for the upgrades and it also makes it harder to just buy a Mac from a store when the configuration you really want isn't available off the shelf. No Apple stores in my country.

 

[TrueBlou]

Incredible number of replies to this thread.

OP doesn't want to buy base laptop or pay for upgrade.

Nuff said

That basically sums it up

I totally get that 16GB is a minimum for a lot of people, myself included. But there are a lot of casual users, you know, the sort that aren’t us and wouldn’t likely even visit this forum, for whom 8GB will suffice. Heck even I managed a year on an 8GB M1 Air.

With component prices (and everything else) being what they are, Apple, and many other suppliers may as well build a base model at a slightly more palatable price point, for those who really wouldn’t benefit from more RAM.
I’ve even just bought a Windows laptop with only 8GB, it’s not something I actually need very often, so there’s no point spending more, indeed 99% of the time just now, it’s merely functioning as a backup server, just so it’s being used for something.

Nothing wrong with choice, and it’s nothing new, nor is paying more for a higher specification. I’ll grant you, Apple has some hilarious upgrade pricing at times, but then, when you’ve been a Mac user for decades you know that’s nothing new either, we just can’t do upgrades ourselves any more, damn the price of ‘progress’

 

[planteater]

Point being you don't need a super computer and Apple knows that....

Q-6

Which is a point lost on so many on this forum.

Apple is actually doing a good job covering the incremental levels of product specifications at this time, and the base entry point is a great machine itself. If they were to increase the base RAM, they'd be impacting a huge segment of their customers. Doing so would be an incredibly foolish move. People that think the base should be 16 should take their blinders off and realize their own use case is not the use case of everyone. That is, if they even need 16 themselves.

 

[Queen6]

Which is a point lost on so many on this forum.

Apple is actually doing a good job covering the incremental levels of product specifications at this time, and the base entry point is a great machine itself. If they were to increase the base RAM, they'd be impacting a huge segment of their customers. Doing so would be an incredibly foolish move. People that think the base should be 16 should take their blinders off and realize their own use case is not the use case of everyone. That is, if they even need 16 themselves.

If people need more RAM there's multiple options and there's a lot more to a Mac than it's memory. If I needed 16GB in the 13" MBP, I'd likely wait on a deal for a 14" and avoid the BTO chain. These new Apple Silicon Mac's are extremely potent, even the base models.

Always seen it as a pointless argument. If you need more RAM, storage then you need it. If you don't no need to overpay and certainly not be scared into additional upgrades. I used my 13" MBP's in engineering roles and never had an issue with the base models. People just need to understand their usage/workflow.

Q-6

 

[spcopsmac21]

You're wrong.

If it's even possible to run the Apple Silicon version of macOS on x86 hardware, it will be through emulation, not virtualization.

Intel is already having difficulty keeping up with Apple Silicon, add in the overhead of emulation and your "value" proposition goes out the window.

There's also the need to write GPU drivers for the Apple Silicon version of macOS. Since Nvidia dropped support for macOS, no one has stepped up to the plate to write drivers for macOS. What makes you think the situation will change when Apple drops support for Intel based Macs? Who wants to run macOS with no graphics acceleration?

The people behind OpenCore have done amazing things. Don’t count them out just yet. I’ve gotten an intel dedicated GPU running , with acceleration on the newest beta. On a pc. Not running the intel flavor of the OS.
And that took a week. All at 20% below performance with the base model M1 iMac. Image what I could do with a month. Or a year. What two hundred guys in their free time could do.

 

[pastrychef]

The people behind OpenCore have done amazing things. Don’t count them out just yet. I’ve gotten an intel dedicated GPU running , with acceleration on the newest beta. On a pc. Not running the intel flavor of the OS.
And that took a week. All at 20% below performance with the base model M1 iMac. Image what I could do with a month. Or a year. What two hundred guys in their free time could do.

You're running an Apple Silicon version of macOS?????????

You got acceleration from an Intel ARC GPU????????

I never knew the OpenCore team was that big. I thought it mostly vit9696 and a handful of others.

 

[spcopsmac21]

You're running an Apple Silicon version of macOS?????????

You got acceleration from an Intel ARC GPU????????

I never knew the OpenCore team was that big. I thought it mostly vit9696 and a handful of others.

Not standard acceleration. A separate protocol.

 

[pastrychef]

Not standard acceleration. A separate protocol.

I don't understand. What does that mean?

Are you running an Apple Silicon version of macOS on Intel based hardware by using OpenCore?

 

[spcopsmac21]

I don't understand. What does that mean?

Are you running an Apple Silicon version of macOS on Intel based hardware by using OpenCore?

It’s running on an AMD processor. Still trying to figure out the correct way to spoof the AES. But so far emulating AES works pretty well. iMessage and Time Machine are not cooperating.

 

[pastrychef]

It’s running on an AMD processor. Still trying to figure out the correct way to spoof the AES. But so far emulating AES works pretty well. iMessage and Time Machine are not cooperating.

You are still running an Intel version of macOS.

There are no drivers for Intel Arc GPUs in macOS. There's no way you have acceleration.

Being able to run macOS on some AMD CPUs is nothing new. I did it before OpenCore was ever released using Clover. I posted about it here.

I don't know what you're talking about in regards to spoofing AES.

 

[spcopsmac21]

You are still running an Intel version of macOS.

There are no drivers for Intel Arc GPUs in macOS. There's no way you have acceleration.

Being able to run macOS on some AMD CPUs is nothing new. I did it before OpenCore was ever released using Clover. I posted about it here.

I don't know what you're talking about in regards to spoofing AES.

Two weeks of busted fingers and yes. Running apple silicon flavor of Mac OS on an AMD PC. Not perfect. But it only took two weeks.