Is 8gb enough for a 'daily driver' for a lot of tabs, some game dev of ios games, and other stuff?

[macintoshmac]

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.

You are missing the OP's point. They have a beast of a system for heavy lifting.

 

[Zellio]

Well, I only have 30 tabs open (Even though some are youtube and taking up more) and my 16gb machine is using nearly 6gb swap file, so yeah I'm gonna want 16gb..

 

[leman]

.

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.

Is Lightroom doing the same work on Intel and Apple platform? More specifically, does it use the GPU in the same way? Is it possible that it is more reliant on GPU processing when running on ARM Macs? Or that there is some software issue that makes it overuse GPU memory?

 

[shenfrey]

You should always get the most ram you can afford, I too hate hearing this kind of response but it's absolutely true.

 

[jinnyman]

If you run multiple heavy stuff, 8gig is not enough. Eventually, you get to feel sluggish hiccups when under heavy paging.
I tried 8 gig, and eventually replaced it with 16gig as my sig shows. I don't regret a bit

 

[geta]

These days 16GB should be the minimum, and 32/64GB if you’re using program that needs extra memory. Also 32GB would be nice if you planing to keep it for 5+ years.

 

[darngooddesign]

If you keep your laptop two years 8GB is fine for now, but if you keep your laptop 5+ years then go for 16GB.

 

[4743913]

No. 16GB is a bare minimum going forward.

sorry but 32GB is the new 16GB

 

[fakestrawberryflavor]

I barely think 16GB is enough tbh, just barely cutting it in 2021. Apple does a pretty ok job with memory management but its still just barely enough and I would expect to get 3 years out of a 16GB machine with a 'really good' experience. Sure it will 'work' but why struggle through it with bare minimums? imo

 

[BarredOwl]

sorry but 32GB is the new 16GB

Agreed!

 

[jumpcutking]

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

Yes, as a video editor, developer, coder - my needs exponentially grow.

 

[jkozlow3]

I don't really understand all the comments about how 8GB isn't sufficient and how 16GB is the MINIMUM many of you would consider. For heavy power users, sure. But is everyone really a power user?

I'm not a power user, but I do tend to open way too many tabs and leave a lot of stuff running simultaneously.

My 8GB M1 MacBook Air easily runs 25-30 Safari tabs, MS Outlook, Excel, Word, Apple News, the Dropbox client (Intel client - not native Apple silicon), etc. simultaneously and hasn't skipped a beat. I have all of this open as I type this. My memory pressure stays between green and yellow and my swap stays in the 0-100MB range. I haven't noticed any hint of a slowdown whatsoever.

No, I'm not doing gaming, video-editing or software development. If I did these things, I'd probably need to close a few apps down that I didn't need running.

I considered getting a 16GB MBA. But with Christmas sales, I was able to get a base 8GB model for $799. Due to the sale pricing, the cost difference to upgrade to 16GB (a custom configuration) would have been pretty significant. So I decided to grab an 8GB base model from Costco and try it out. I have 90 days to return it. So far, I see no reason to however. It's a great machine and meets all my needs perfectly well.

Just wanted to add another perspective. Yes, if I could have gotten a 16GB model for a small upcharge, I probably would have done so. Would it have made a difference in my case? Probably not. But going from 8GB to 16GB would have been a minimum $300 price increase due to the sale pricing on the base model - a 38% increase in cost. If I decide to upgrade to the M2 MBA in 2022/2023, I probably won't take a large hit if I sell my base 8GB MBA since I got it for a great price.

 

[Macbookprodude]

Short: Yes.

Slightly Longer: Yes, over about 3 years (my opinion).

Yes, I would tell op to just upgrade the memory to 16GB.. oh wait, its soldered, so he will have to get a new Logicboard and install it in place.

 

[Macbookprodude]

I don't really understand all the comments about how 8GB isn't sufficient and how 16GB is the MINIMUM many of you would consider. For heavy power users, sure. But is everyone really a power user?

I'm not a power user, but I do tend to open way too many tabs and leave a lot of stuff running simultaneously.

My 8GB M1 MacBook Air easily runs 25-30 Safari tabs, MS Outlook, Excel, Word, Apple News, the Dropbox client (Intel client - not native Apple silicon), etc. simultaneously and hasn't skipped a beat. I have all of this open as I type this. My memory pressure stays between green and yellow and my swap stays in the 0-100MB range. I haven't noticed any hint of a slowdown whatsoever.

No, I'm not doing gaming, video-editing or software development.

I considered getting a 16GB MBA. But with Christmas sales, I was able to get a base 8GB model for $799. Due to the sale pricing, the cost difference to upgrade to 16GB (a custom configuration) would have been pretty significant. So I decided to grab an 8GB base model from Costco and try it out. I have 90 days to return it. So far, I see no reason to however. It's a great machine and meets all my needs perfectly well.

Just wanted to add another perspective. Yes, if I could have gotten a 16GB model for a small uncharge, I probably would have done so. Would it have made a difference in my case, probably not. But going from 8GB to 16GB would have been a minimum $300 price increase due to the sale pricing on the base model - a 38% increase in cost. If I decide to upgrade to the M2 MBA in 2022/2023, I probably won't take a large hit if I sell my base 8GB MBA since I got it for a great price.

16GB is the minimum I would consider. 32/64 maybe too much, but in 2030 who knows if 64GB will be

 

[jkozlow3]

16GB is the minimum I would consider. 32/64 maybe too much, but in 2030 who knows if 64GB will be

Most people don't keep their machines for 8 years or attempt to spec them for that type of lifespan. I'll happily upgrade my machine every 2 years or so to stay current with technology just like I do with my iPhone.

 

[jinnyman]

It depends on how much you use your laptop. But unless your usage is modest and not doing many stuff at once, it's better to go 16gig. I don't have a concrete evidence, but at least for me having 16gig of ram in M1 era is sufficient to not wanting more ram for most of the time that I heavily use my machine. This will vary among people, but if you'd knew about ram problem before, you'd know already whether you need or not.

For those people that have had no idea before making purchase decision, it tells that your usage of machine is modest at best, and you probably are better off getting 8gig.

 

[ericwn]

I don't really understand all the comments about how 8GB isn't sufficient and how 16GB is the MINIMUM many of you would consider. For heavy power users, sure. But is everyone really a power user?

I'm not a power user, but I do tend to open way too many tabs and leave a lot of stuff running simultaneously.

My 8GB M1 MacBook Air easily runs 25-30 Safari tabs, MS Outlook, Excel, Word, Apple News, the Dropbox client (Intel client - not native Apple silicon), etc. simultaneously and hasn't skipped a beat. I have all of this open as I type this. My memory pressure stays between green and yellow and my swap stays in the 0-100MB range. I haven't noticed any hint of a slowdown whatsoever.

No, I'm not doing gaming, video-editing or software development. If I did these things, I'd probably need to close a few apps down that I didn't need running.

I considered getting a 16GB MBA. But with Christmas sales, I was able to get a base 8GB model for $799. Due to the sale pricing, the cost difference to upgrade to 16GB (a custom configuration) would have been pretty significant. So I decided to grab an 8GB base model from Costco and try it out. I have 90 days to return it. So far, I see no reason to however. It's a great machine and meets all my needs perfectly well.

Just wanted to add another perspective. Yes, if I could have gotten a 16GB model for a small uncharge, I probably would have done so. Would it have made a difference in my case? Probably not. But going from 8GB to 16GB would have been a minimum $300 price increase due to the sale pricing on the base model - a 38% increase in cost. If I decide to upgrade to the M2 MBA in 2022/2023, I probably won't take a large hit if I sell my base 8GB MBA since I got it for a great price.

Well said. That entry level model works so well for tons of people.

 

[VitoBotta]

I believed what others were saying at first so I bought the 8/512 mini. I regretted it right away because of high memory pressure issues, so I had to buy the 16 model and gave the other one to my wife. I don't use many tabs usually but I also run some apps for web development. So it's a bit different but my advice is that if you can afford 16GB, go for it. It's safer and it will last longer.

 

[the8thark]

Is 8GB enough now for Apple Silicon?
Possibly yes, if your workload is light enough to fit within 8GB. Just remember 8GB on M1 is not 8GB on Intel. Because of want M1 is, you get more bang for your 8GB there.

However, yes there is a catch. The catch being future proofing. If you want to keep the Mac for any length of time, your needs very well might increase to needing 16GB. Even though M1 is better then Intel for RAM usage, we do need to take into account it is 8GB for the entire SoC, no just the GPU (as in separate dedicated GPU/CPU setups).

In my opinion I think 16GB is the sweet spot for casual users and most consumers of content. Totally enough for you for the foreseeable future and when you but a newer Mac, if you keep the 16GB M1 around, you can still use it for a lot of things as a secondary machine.

For prosumers who create content, I think 32GB is the sweet spot, but that is totally outside the scope of this topic and this I will not comment on that further here.

Note Well - I do see that the OP does have more powerful computers as primary machines and this M1 is going to be a secondary machine for consuming content and some light development. Even understanding this, I feel what I said above still stands. As a secondary machine I see less need to keep it bleeding edge like you probably would, your primary machines. The secondary machine can keep chugging along for years and years. To that end I would still recommend the 16GB so you can increase out the lifespan of the secondary machine to as long as possible. Even when M1 stops being officially supported by the most current OS, most if the apps will still be useful and it can still be a decent secondary light development machine for many more years afterwards.

 

[Chevysales]

NO

 

[the8thark]

16GB is the minimum I would consider. 32/64 maybe too much, but in 2030 who knows if 64GB will be

Most people don't keep their machines for 8 years or attempt to spec them for that type of lifespan. I'll happily upgrade my machine every 2 years or so to stay current with technology just like I do with my iPhone.

You would be surprised at how long some people keep their primary daily driver for.
I do not think people specifically spec for 10 years down the track, but future proofing so the machine has a good chance of being viable still in 8 to 10 years? Yes some people do that. For those people who can only afford (or only want to) upgrade once a decade, thinking ahead like this is quite critical indeed.

I am literally in that boat myself. I buy on average once a decade.
My last major new Mac purchase was a 2011 iMac. It died last last year and I replaced it with a very cheap 2012 replacement on ebay to get me by till the M1Pro / M1Max iMacs release and I will buy one of those to last me for the next decade.

 

[Macbookprodude]

I don’t much either on my computers. I am actually typing this on a Titanium G4.. I have a connection to older stuff plus I have a 2010 Mac Pro which all my systems suit me fine.. I am in no hurry to goto best as I have no needs for it - when a time comes my 2010 Mac Pro or my PowerPC Macs can no longer (I mean no longer) access the internet, they will be obsolete to me. We have in the PPC forum some new web browsers being made to keep that platform alive. Sometimes latest and greatest is not with in the price range for a lot of people.

But in reference to memory ? 16GB min, if future proof 32/64.