Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Is 16GB it RAM GOOD or am I better with 32GB for new iMac.

jaybar

jaybar

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Dec 11, 2008
2,176
666
Hi

I ordered an i5 2017 27 inch iMac with a 512GB SSD and 16GB of RAM. Computer is used for email, internet, streaming music, word processing (MS word). Some of the word processing documents can be long and contain photos. We have 80GB of data on the hard drive of our former iMac we very very rarely edit PDF documents or photos. Am I good with 16GB of RAM or would I be better served by 32GB? Cost is not an issue and I would in fact prefer Apple to install the memory if I did it.



Jay
 
I honestly can't see you needing more then 16GB of ram for basic web browsing and word processing.

32GB would be overkill for what your doing. Now if your planning to keep this computer for the next 7-10 years, we may be talking a different story.
 
  • Like
Reactions: agmmac and colodane
Nyy8 said:
I honestly can't see you needing more then 16GB of ram for basic web browsing and word processing.

32GB would be overkill for what your doing. Now if your planning to keep this computer for the next 7-10 years, we may be talking a different story.
Click to expand...

I agree.
 
sounds very much as if you're about to waste some money.

video editors need that much ram because if a picture is worth a thousand words, 40 seconds of video is a thousand pictures.
 
Last edited:
jaybar said:
Hi

I ordered an i5 2017 27 inch iMac with a 512GB SSD and 16GB of RAM. Computer is used for email, internet, streaming music, word processing (MS word). Some of the word processing documents can be long and contain photos. We have 80GB of data on the hard drive of our former iMac we very very rarely edit PDF documents or photos. Am I good with 16GB of RAM or would I be better served by 32GB? Cost is not an issue and I would in fact prefer Apple to install the memory if I did it.



Jay
Click to expand...
As far as I know the 27 inch has a user accessible ram bay at the rear of the 27 inch iMac. Not only could you upgrade it yourself easily without disassembling it but if you prefer Apple to upgrade it later it would probably not cost much since opening the ram bay would not require a tear down.
 
I am in the same boat with others, 16GB will suffice. And with the user-accessible door, you can always bump to 32GB easier later in life. And at a cheaper rate than Apple will give you.
 
OP wrote:
"I ordered an i5 2017 27 inch iMac with a 512GB SSD and 16GB of RAM. Computer is used for email, internet, streaming music, word processing (MS word)."

I chuckle at posts like this.

Even 16gb is overkill for what you posted above.
8gb would have been fine.

And you're worried about not having 32? ;) ;)
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1050792
Things that benefit from lot of memory: adobe photoshop with many layers, illustrator with dozens or hundreds of layers, premiere, final cut pro, certain scientific applications with huge datasets, 3d cad with very large complex models, virtual machines.

Things that don't: multitasking, web browsing (even with 50-100 tabs), word processing, sanely constructed spreadsheets.
 
jaybar,

As others have mentioned, you have no need at all for 32GB of RAM. If you pay Apple to install it now, it truly would be a wasted resource. Unless you get into serious video editing, you will not need need more than 16GB of RAM for at least the next 5 years. And if you do need more RAM in 4 or 5 years, it is drop-dead simple to install it yourself for a tiny fraction of what you would pay now...or if you really needed to, you could buy the RAM yourself in 4-5 years and then pay a local computer repair shop $30-$40 to install it.

If you want to beef up your iMac and your money is burning a hole in your pocket, you would be far better off bumping up to 1TB of SSD storage. That may not be needed now, but you will certainly need the extra SSD storage far before you will ever need more RAM.
 
Well if "cost is no issue" then just do it, should not even be a question. Having said that, I have 8, I'm a very light user no more than normal 5 tabs open with 6.62 used (right now, for example) so RAM usage does add up fast. Go for it!
 
jaybar said:
Hi

I ordered an i5 2017 27 inch iMac with a 512GB SSD and 16GB of RAM. Computer is used for email, internet, streaming music, word processing (MS word). Some of the word processing documents can be long and contain photos. We have 80GB of data on the hard drive of our former iMac we very very rarely edit PDF documents or photos. Am I good with 16GB of RAM or would I be better served by 32GB? Cost is not an issue and I would in fact prefer Apple to install the memory if I did it.



Jay
Click to expand...

I have 16gb of ram and I am using Logic Pro x. I think you will be fine lol
 
signuphere said:
Well if "cost is no issue" then just do it, should not even be a question. Having said that, I have 8, I'm a very light user no more than normal 5 tabs open with 6.62 used (right now, for example) so RAM usage does add up fast. Go for it!
Click to expand...

It doesn't "add up fast".

I'm a web packrat. I've kept bookmarks for forum arguments I've won ten years ago. I have hundreds of bookmarks, organized into folders and subfolders, and subsub folders. Which means that I can easily open up 200-300 tabs on a whim.

It doesn't add up fast. It means that some webpages will consume 200 MB, and some will consume 30 MB, and some will consume 600 MB, and memory pressure won't go yellow, or red. It means it's a silly exercise, because even with multiple screens and ADHD and speed, it takes more time to read the webpages than it does to render them.

this what it looks like with more tabs than you could possibly use.
Screen Shot 59.png
 
Last edited:
I only have 4GB of RAM on my Macbook Air and things are plenty snappy for me. MacOS uses available resources far more efficiently than does Windows. If you have MSWord on there, that may gum up the works some, I don't know; I mainly stick to first-party and Mac-exclusive applications. I avoid Chrome and anything built using Electron. But even worst-case scenario, 16GB should be more than enough for years of Mac usage to come.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back