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Is 8gb enough for a 'daily driver' for a lot of tabs, some game dev of ios games, and other stuff?
- Thread starter Zellio
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And yet. I have 8 gb m1 pro and never use more than 6 gb. Email, QuickTime safari, numbers, pages, preview. All good. Besides, if you have an app open but have not used it and need the ram, no harm, no foul if an unused app gets paged out. Loading it would still be faster than opening from scratch
No, the only way to tell how much you need is to observe what you are actually using, I did 8 gb is fine
And it appears you do not know what growing exponentially means. If apps were growing exponentially, then you would need 16, 32, 64, and 128 gb of ram, not 16. Your needs would keep growing in a really fast and increasingly fast manner
Based on my experience with 16GB M1 Pro: for basic day to day uses like email, browsing with tens (not hundreds) of tabs, office docs, Zoom, viewing smartphone photos, 8GB would be fine (based on Activity Monitor memory usage).
But if you have any software that is more CPU/GPU/memory intensive, 16GB is highly recommended and is very good value for its cost.
Doing photo editing of large files I am frequently in yellow memory pressure with many GB swap, and that is with 16GB.
But if you have any software that is more CPU/GPU/memory intensive, 16GB is highly recommended and is very good value for its cost.
Doing photo editing of large files I am frequently in yellow memory pressure with many GB swap, and that is with 16GB.
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Where can we review the entire set of Fishrrman’s rules?
Yes but actually no.
“Running out of ram” used to be (and still is for many machines, not macbooks) a massive problem. When you run out of ram, your computer uses your hard drive as ram. (Called swap). With old slow machines, the hard drive is really sinfully slow, your computer starts to choke.
Newer macbooks have really fast storage. So even when you run out of ram, youre not beachballing for hours. It just feels kinda sluggish.
That said, M1 shares memory between the gpu and cpu. So you can expect much less than 8gb to be useable depending on the graphical demands of the moment.
For casual computing on macos with an ssd, even 4 gb does ya. But add to that the gpu demands and that you want some game dev…. Which sometimes involves emulation. Ugh. It would be pain.
So basically:
I would do 16. But youll be fine with 8.
P.S: to all people posting about “how much memory you’re using” stop. Unused ram is wasted ram and in modern operating systems memory pressure is all that matters. Post memory pressure screenshots.
“Running out of ram” used to be (and still is for many machines, not macbooks) a massive problem. When you run out of ram, your computer uses your hard drive as ram. (Called swap). With old slow machines, the hard drive is really sinfully slow, your computer starts to choke.
Newer macbooks have really fast storage. So even when you run out of ram, youre not beachballing for hours. It just feels kinda sluggish.
That said, M1 shares memory between the gpu and cpu. So you can expect much less than 8gb to be useable depending on the graphical demands of the moment.
For casual computing on macos with an ssd, even 4 gb does ya. But add to that the gpu demands and that you want some game dev…. Which sometimes involves emulation. Ugh. It would be pain.
So basically:
I would do 16. But youll be fine with 8.
P.S: to all people posting about “how much memory you’re using” stop. Unused ram is wasted ram and in modern operating systems memory pressure is all that matters. Post memory pressure screenshots.
Countless threads and comments regarding this subject over the last 12 monthsCitation please!
So it’s not based on anything from the Macrumors team or their articles but individual opinion pieces just like I indicated in my initial post, got you. Still, no harm in buffering that up a bit to 16.
Will 8 work? Sure. Obviously it depends what you really mean by 'a lot of tabs' and what else is running. Will 16 be better? Again, sure. Especially if you're running Xcode and have much else open. MORE is never going to be bad, it's just that at some point it will not buy you much.
I have an 8/512 system but I bought it knowing I will likely get the Air redesign if it does a few things I want. If not, it's OK for my needs.
I have an 8/512 system but I bought it knowing I will likely get the Air redesign if it does a few things I want. If not, it's OK for my needs.
You did fine with 8GB ram doing Dev and having Safari with multiple tabs open in the background?
I've returned my M1 Mac Mini 8gb and got 16gb instead.
Price difference isn't huge, and everything is eating more and more RAM.
Let's wait 2 years and we will see how you will do with your 8GB.
8 GB is fine for entry level.
If you plan to open up Blender, Photoshop, Unity3D, Teams and Chrome with 20 tabs, you’d better get 16 GB.
If you plan to open up Blender, Photoshop, Unity3D, Teams and Chrome with 20 tabs, you’d better get 16 GB.
BTW, OP, ALWAYS shop the refurbed Macs on apple.com. They're 15% cheaper than new and come with the same warranty. Here's a 16/512 M1 Air for $1229. Basically, going refurb gets you the extra 8gig RAM for the same price as a new in store 8/512 machine:
Refurbished 13.3-inch MacBook Air Apple M1 Chip with 8‑Core CPU and 8‑Core GPU - Space Gray
Originally released November 2020|13.3-inch (diagonal) LED-backlit display with IPS technology; 2560-by-1600 native resolution at 227 pixels per inch|16GB unified memory|512GB SSD1|Touch ID sensor|720p FaceTime HD Camera
www.apple.com
I note that Xcode is not on that list. Something the OP will need if he is using his Mac for iOS app development.
For office, browsing, some light photo editing etc, 8GB is enough IMO.
As a game developer myself, however, I would go for the 16GB just to be on the safe(r) side, though. You can do it with 8GB but depending on what you’re developing, and what with, it’s not going to be nice.
UE4, even when targeting mobile platforms, for example would really not be pleasant.
Unity might work better with it, but 16GB sound like a better idea for dev.
Those are just the ones I’ve used frequently, mind you.
As a game developer myself, however, I would go for the 16GB just to be on the safe(r) side, though. You can do it with 8GB but depending on what you’re developing, and what with, it’s not going to be nice.
UE4, even when targeting mobile platforms, for example would really not be pleasant.
Unity might work better with it, but 16GB sound like a better idea for dev.
Those are just the ones I’ve used frequently, mind you.
On Apple Silicon, yes -- absolutely. My brother had the 16GB M1 Air, then accidentally spilled tea on it, which broke it, and bought an 8GB M1 Air as a replacement (plus AppleCare...).
I stress tested his 8GB one out of curiosity and I couldn't make it choke. I opened an instance of Minecraft from Mojang's official launcher and entered a world (2GB RAM -- a little more in reality), opened another instance of Minecraft using MultiMC and entered the world (another 2GB+ RAM), then opened dozens and dozens of RAM-hungry Safari tabs (e.g. B*zzFeed) and all the applications in his dock -- keep in mind this is while both Minecraft instances are actually running (with the player in a world and not paused) and are 'hard-reserving' 2GB RAM each.
The thing still didn't choke. When I went back, most browser tabs were still loading from RAM. Only a small percentage were loading from swap and the difference was barely noticeable. The Minecraft instances were no longer achieving a perfect 60 FPS each, but only dropped a little (like 40-50 FPS). Everything was still very responsive.
Btw who would actually be running 2 instances of Minecraft at the same time especially on an ultraportable...? ? When I closed the MultiMC one everything was running at full speed again (locked at 60 FPS in the Mojang one, swap loading diminished, the little bit of GUI lag disappeared, etc).
Although there are some very specific situations where it probably wouldn't be able to save you if you don't have enough RAM, Apple is really working some dark magic with their unified architecture.
Also, I really don't buy the theory perpetuated by some (e.g. Linus Sebastian) that Apple will only offer like... 3 years or less of software support for the M1 models (and the 8GB in particular), or that they (again mainly the 8GB one) will majorly slow down with future updates. Now that they control the hardware, software, and SoC, Apple is in a better position than ever to ensure that these computers run well for a very long time, and they would incur a ton of negative press if they dropped support earlier than usual. Furthermore, it looks like we're going to be using 64-bit computing pretty much indefinitely, and the 8-bit to 16-bit to 32-bit to 64-bit saga was overwhelmingly the primary factor that made RAM needs continue to increase for so long (notice how it has stopped since 64-bit became the standard somewhere around 2008-2013).
Before Apple Silicon, I would always recommend 16GB as the default for any non-workstation computer, but Apple Silicon has changed that -- and the "how much RAM do you need?" consensus from the tech community at large still doesn't seem to have fully updated yet despite overwhelming evidence that 16GB is not necessary for the vast majority of people if the machine in question is running Apple Silicon. Looking at the bigger picture, Apple Silicon is all about efficiency whereas x86 machines are... not. That's the ultimate reason why the amount of RAM you need has decreased.
I stress tested his 8GB one out of curiosity and I couldn't make it choke. I opened an instance of Minecraft from Mojang's official launcher and entered a world (2GB RAM -- a little more in reality), opened another instance of Minecraft using MultiMC and entered the world (another 2GB+ RAM), then opened dozens and dozens of RAM-hungry Safari tabs (e.g. B*zzFeed) and all the applications in his dock -- keep in mind this is while both Minecraft instances are actually running (with the player in a world and not paused) and are 'hard-reserving' 2GB RAM each.
The thing still didn't choke. When I went back, most browser tabs were still loading from RAM. Only a small percentage were loading from swap and the difference was barely noticeable. The Minecraft instances were no longer achieving a perfect 60 FPS each, but only dropped a little (like 40-50 FPS). Everything was still very responsive.
Btw who would actually be running 2 instances of Minecraft at the same time especially on an ultraportable...? ? When I closed the MultiMC one everything was running at full speed again (locked at 60 FPS in the Mojang one, swap loading diminished, the little bit of GUI lag disappeared, etc).
Although there are some very specific situations where it probably wouldn't be able to save you if you don't have enough RAM, Apple is really working some dark magic with their unified architecture.
Also, I really don't buy the theory perpetuated by some (e.g. Linus Sebastian) that Apple will only offer like... 3 years or less of software support for the M1 models (and the 8GB in particular), or that they (again mainly the 8GB one) will majorly slow down with future updates. Now that they control the hardware, software, and SoC, Apple is in a better position than ever to ensure that these computers run well for a very long time, and they would incur a ton of negative press if they dropped support earlier than usual. Furthermore, it looks like we're going to be using 64-bit computing pretty much indefinitely, and the 8-bit to 16-bit to 32-bit to 64-bit saga was overwhelmingly the primary factor that made RAM needs continue to increase for so long (notice how it has stopped since 64-bit became the standard somewhere around 2008-2013).
Before Apple Silicon, I would always recommend 16GB as the default for any non-workstation computer, but Apple Silicon has changed that -- and the "how much RAM do you need?" consensus from the tech community at large still doesn't seem to have fully updated yet despite overwhelming evidence that 16GB is not necessary for the vast majority of people if the machine in question is running Apple Silicon. Looking at the bigger picture, Apple Silicon is all about efficiency whereas x86 machines are... not. That's the ultimate reason why the amount of RAM you need has decreased.
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That was an initial implementation of an unreleased game… they have since reworked the M1 engine significantly. Would be curious to see whether things have changed.
This doesn’t mean much and M1 is not unique in this regard. Any Intel Mac is the same and even in models with the dGPU a portion of the system RAM will be used to mirror the data in the GPU RAM.
.
If I disable use of the GPU in Lightroom, they use about the same amount of memory.
I conclude that GPU usage does use more RAM on Apple Silicon than on Intel (with separate GPU VRAM). In the case of Lightroom and Photoshop, a lot more.
See this post of mine in another thread for an example:
#70
I would love to argue that my choice of 16GB for M1 was as good as 32GB for Intel, but I'm afraid it isn't really, not for my work.
Running Lightroom on my 14" M1 Pro (with 16GB RAM), it uses about twice the amount of memory as on my 2020 Intel iMac (with 32GB RAM), for the exact same work.
If I disable use of the GPU in Lightroom, they use about the same amount of memory.
I conclude that GPU usage does use more RAM on Apple Silicon than on Intel (with separate GPU VRAM). In the case of Lightroom and Photoshop, a lot more.
See this post of mine in another thread for an example:
#70
I would love to argue that my choice of 16GB for M1 was as good as 32GB for Intel, but I'm afraid it isn't really, not for my work.
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Nope. Especially if you use an external 4K(+) monitor, or god forbid DisplayLink for multiple monitors, 8GB of ram really doesn't cut it for the M1 Air/"Pro."
Can you make it work? Sure. Is it going to be pleasant as a daily driver for what you described? No.
I've used the following Mac laptop configs over the past few years:
8GB Intel MBP
16GB Intel MBP
8GB M1 MBA
16GB M1 MBA
32GB M1 Max
I can tell you even that even the 16GB MBA can be brought to its knees with a large enough number of tabs, multiple monitors, and some basic stuff going on in the background (or alternatively, a bunch of tabs in the background and something else in the foreground.) Not going to say my tab management is optimal or anything but you specifically mentioned "a lot of tabs" so...
Just in general, when people ask this question I feel like, if you have to ask, the answer is most likely NO. When in doubt, get more ram (I kinda wish I could've gotten a 64GB M1 Max but the lead times were atrocious, and I don't really NEED it)
Can you make it work? Sure. Is it going to be pleasant as a daily driver for what you described? No.
I've used the following Mac laptop configs over the past few years:
8GB Intel MBP
16GB Intel MBP
8GB M1 MBA
16GB M1 MBA
32GB M1 Max
I can tell you even that even the 16GB MBA can be brought to its knees with a large enough number of tabs, multiple monitors, and some basic stuff going on in the background (or alternatively, a bunch of tabs in the background and something else in the foreground.) Not going to say my tab management is optimal or anything but you specifically mentioned "a lot of tabs" so...
Just in general, when people ask this question I feel like, if you have to ask, the answer is most likely NO. When in doubt, get more ram (I kinda wish I could've gotten a 64GB M1 Max but the lead times were atrocious, and I don't really NEED it)
Depends how many is a lot of tabs in your book, but I would say definitely go with the 16. In my personal use with hundreds of tabs, 16gb is way way better than the 8 I used to have in my MacBook, which was always in the red.