For this top tier premium price of admission it's weak sauce. It should have been 6 GB or go home for them.
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iPad Pro Ipad Pro 2018: Only 4gb of RAM
- Thread starter cibonak
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This seems arbitrary. What makes the 1TB device more worthy of 6GB RAM? I can’t imagine going from 4 to 6 is costing Apple that much.
Performance. I personally wouldn't buy an SSD without a RAM cache near term. The norm seems to be 1MB RAM per 1GB storage on their SSDs. RAM on iOS devices are shared between general processing, graphics and storage.
That said, with RAM on the chipset, it seems like manufacturing a separate chipset for a relatively low volume product would cost them more. Granted, $10 x 10 million iPads is a pretty significant cost savings, too.
That doesn’t make sense on a mobile device like the iPad though. The whole point of the cache is to offload from system memory while waiting to write to the drive. If the cache is the system memory then what benefit is gained? Also, just because you have a 1Tb drive, it doesn’t mean the current data set you are writing to the drive is any larger than a device with a smaller drive.
Heck, the price I paid for it... Damn better be 6gb of ram across all models. My 10.5 had 4gb, this new iPad is supposed to be next gen all powerful and ****.
How this will anger me and probably others:
Data undoubtedly confirms that the 6GB models perform measurably better than the 4GB models with PhotoShop, AutoCAD, and anything else that was demonstrated on stage. Something that undoubtedly indicates that the demonstrations could only occur with a 6GB memory A12X. Would need confirmation that a 1TB model/6GB iPad was used for these demos...
I plan on using the AutoDesk offerings. If I find out that a 6GB/1TB model *objectively* and without any possible doubt outperforms my 4GB/256GB model solely because of a shortage of RAM, I’ll be very vocal about it and share my data here. Not cool, and very deceptive.
I’m not sure if these objective comparisons will be possible... and I’m hoping any differences are not noticeable.
Data undoubtedly confirms that the 6GB models perform measurably better than the 4GB models with PhotoShop, AutoCAD, and anything else that was demonstrated on stage. Something that undoubtedly indicates that the demonstrations could only occur with a 6GB memory A12X. Would need confirmation that a 1TB model/6GB iPad was used for these demos...
I plan on using the AutoDesk offerings. If I find out that a 6GB/1TB model *objectively* and without any possible doubt outperforms my 4GB/256GB model solely because of a shortage of RAM, I’ll be very vocal about it and share my data here. Not cool, and very deceptive.
I’m not sure if these objective comparisons will be possible... and I’m hoping any differences are not noticeable.
Most people here are missing the point. This is actually the SAME conversation I had with people concerning the MacBook Pros when they were stuck with 16GB max from 2011 to (mid) 2018.
My reasoning back then was:
I got a 2011 MBP with 16GB... which was (barely) enough. It lasted me 7 years! If I were to spend 4.5k on a new machine I'd not get 16GB again. While still (barely) okay now... it wouldn't last me another 7 years... not even another 3.
Same is true now with iPad Pro. If you are freaking rich and buy a new one every year anyways... it won't matter.
But the truth is
iPad Pro was released in late 2015. That is three years ago. The CPU was, on average, 25-35% of the speed that the new ones are (looking at geekbench scores for a rough estimate). These iPads shipped with 4GB RAM. Which was and STILL is fine, today.
But also looking at the past... When the iPhone 6 and iPad Air came out... they both had 1GB which was perfectly fine back then... but renders the devices almost unusable now (and for a number of years already) if you ask me.
Since iPad Pro is supposed to be a Pro device... and commands a premium to match... with Pro software like Photoshop etc. just coming out... 4GB will NOT be enough very... very soon!
And when people review the 2019 iPad Pros one of the headlines will be how much improved the performance is because of the additional RAM.
Let's not forget... Apple needs an update strategy... this year was about the redesign. Face ID. USB-C. Same gen CPU as iPhone.
Next year's iPad won't be much faster CPU/GPU-wise. YOY increases are already slowing down, and they cannot go below 7nm yet. One of the big improvements will be more RAM. With something between 6-8GB across the board.
TL|DR
I am not saying "don't buy the 2018 iPad Pros". What I am saying is... RAM IS a concern. And next year's models will almost definitely offer more RAM with most everything else staying the same.
I waited 2-3 years for the MBP to hit 32GB RAM... and while the wait was painful it was WELL worth it! Just bear that in mind!
My reasoning back then was:
I got a 2011 MBP with 16GB... which was (barely) enough. It lasted me 7 years! If I were to spend 4.5k on a new machine I'd not get 16GB again. While still (barely) okay now... it wouldn't last me another 7 years... not even another 3.
Same is true now with iPad Pro. If you are freaking rich and buy a new one every year anyways... it won't matter.
But the truth is
iPad Pro was released in late 2015. That is three years ago. The CPU was, on average, 25-35% of the speed that the new ones are (looking at geekbench scores for a rough estimate). These iPads shipped with 4GB RAM. Which was and STILL is fine, today.
But also looking at the past... When the iPhone 6 and iPad Air came out... they both had 1GB which was perfectly fine back then... but renders the devices almost unusable now (and for a number of years already) if you ask me.
Since iPad Pro is supposed to be a Pro device... and commands a premium to match... with Pro software like Photoshop etc. just coming out... 4GB will NOT be enough very... very soon!
And when people review the 2019 iPad Pros one of the headlines will be how much improved the performance is because of the additional RAM.
Let's not forget... Apple needs an update strategy... this year was about the redesign. Face ID. USB-C. Same gen CPU as iPhone.
Next year's iPad won't be much faster CPU/GPU-wise. YOY increases are already slowing down, and they cannot go below 7nm yet. One of the big improvements will be more RAM. With something between 6-8GB across the board.
TL|DR
I am not saying "don't buy the 2018 iPad Pros". What I am saying is... RAM IS a concern. And next year's models will almost definitely offer more RAM with most everything else staying the same.
I waited 2-3 years for the MBP to hit 32GB RAM... and while the wait was painful it was WELL worth it! Just bear that in mind!
This is what geekbench data seems to imply
https://m.gsmarena.com/new_ipad_pro_geekbench-news-34011.php
All 12.9's likely have the 6gb ram to make up for the larger screen.
This makes the most sense to me and what I'm waiting for confirmation of next week. I won't be buying a 1TB iPad as I have no need for that capacity but if the 12.9 256GB has 6GB RAM then I'm probably going to snap one up. If not, I'll stick with my 2017 models for the time being.
Yeah I ordered the 12.9” 256GB configuration. I haven’t had any memory issues but I’ll certainly take more RAM if Apple is offering it.
Not really. I've said it before but with the switch to 64-bit and increase in app sizes, the Air really should've gotten 2GB RAM/32GB base storage minimum.
You can either buy a USB to SD reader adapter or use Airdrop from Mac to iPad, among other options.
This makes the most sense, to me. Kinda like when the first-gen iPad Pros came out, the 9.7" had only 2GB and the 12.9" has always had 4GB.
A 1TB 11” popped up on geekbench with 6gb of ram so the idea that the 11s and 4gb and the 12.9s have 6gb is no more. Seeming more likely it’s exclusive to the 1TB models
This could also help explain the $200 increase in price on 12.9 vs. $150 price increase for the 10.5/11” model.
This didn't happen last year so nothing to back that up unfortunately.
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We don't know which model it was until the internal identifiers have been decoded. So far, ipad8,8 & ipad8,2 have 6GB. ipad8,3 has 4GB.