If that's the case, and assuming your current machine has 32GB of RAM, then don't get 16GB. RAM is RAM, you will need as much as you need. It's unfortunate that during the early days of M1, many youtubers are spreading hoax about how 8GB RAM in M1 magically "equals" to 16GB in intel.
Yeah exactly, the misinformation that overly excited youtubers were spreading around has caused a lot of confusion. I'm not in a rush to upgrade - my system is going on 9 years old but for my needs it still feels brand new. The mac studio is a huge disappointment so far and the m1 mini is kinda worthless for me at this point with 16gb memory. A piece of software I use, TotalSpaces, isn't ready for M1/Monterey anyway.
CPU alone is quite powerful. Execution is lacking: 8GB is not enough + OS is very bad at cleaning the cache + memory leaks on latest 2 MacOS(bigsur and monterey).
There certainly is worth merit in saying how unified is more efficient where volatile memory is concerned but it is also important to understand how it is being managed. One might argue that allowing web pages free access and fill up 2-3 gigs of garbage is rather suspect where management is concerned. We can blame those that make the web pages but alas, it is the end users' systems that suffer, and in turn, that makes it also the browser and perhaps OS maker to step in.
That is funny. I had rMBP 13 2012 with 8GB RAM/128gb ssd for 8 years, there were only few times when i saw a beachball or had the system lagging. Overall when lagging, i was tracking the activity monitor, so 99% of the time I just had CPU (dual core only) maxed out at 100% use which obviously created slowdowns if ever. My RAM was always sitting between 5 to 7 GB. It has Sierra on it. My RAM pressure is green.
Yes, things have changed. I recall when Apple's computers could handle things nicely with 8 gigs. Today, things are very different and it is a shame that Apple does not smooth out these issues and correct age long foibles people have complained about. Hardware has usually been ahead of software and now it is more obvious when the difference is substantial.
I think one of the biggest issues is VRAM usage. If I open say a 300MB TIFF file in preview just to look at it, VRAM usage spikes and does not release itself for what seems like forever, even after Preview is closed. This in turn creates chunkier performance elsewhere. I'm using an RX580 eGPU too!
There are times I cannot help but think of the earlier DOS PC days where we used RAM managers and were very careful how DOS behaved in handling "upper memory" and the same for apps. One would think by 2022 that a company like Apple would have mastered how their hardware behaves with the OS and apps. The words sadly that come to mind are pathetic and hapless.
I never had a DOS computer, was born a Mac from the beginning haha! My uncle had an Amiga here in the states which didn't seem out of place then but apparently it was. I remember my dad and uncle talking about how System 6 would bring up real multitasking. What a time.
Commodore was the get-all for multi-tasking. DOS used items like DesqView that would slice up the processor time between applications giving the appearance of multi-tasking. Fun days back then.
