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M1 Max 32GB vs 64GB RAM? Use cases for each

Hi all! Is there any designer here?

I mainly use Illustrator and Photoshop for my work. I think I will go for M1 Max for sure but just struggling with the choice of Ram, whether it is 32gb or 64gb. My struggle is that probably M1 Max with 32gb would already run Illustrator and Photoshop in flying colours? 64gb with M1 Max would be too overpowered?

I am now working with my macbook pro with 2.9GHz intel i7 chip, 16gb ram. And it is constantly out of Ram and got super frustrated on it.
 
Goldfire said:
I've got 64GB on my 2019 16", so I'm getting 64GB on the M1 MAX since I routinely max it out (I do game dev). So, just depends on your usage.
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my 64 2019 lags all the time, I was so excited for the laptop and 64gb of ram . My MacBook Air m1 with 16 never lags. So I decided to ditch the intel and get the 14.2 inch with 64 and probably never think about ram again.
 
issey said:
Hi all! Is there any designer here?

I mainly use Illustrator and Photoshop for my work. I think I will go for M1 Max for sure but just struggling with the choice of Ram, whether it is 32gb or 64gb. My struggle is that probably M1 Max with 32gb would already run Illustrator and Photoshop in flying colours? 64gb with M1 Max would be too overpowered?

I am now working with my macbook pro with 2.9GHz intel i7 chip, 16gb ram. And it is constantly out of Ram and got super frustrated on it.
Click to expand...
I use those as well on my m1 air 16 was fine most of the time, but I went with 64 just to be safe.
 

Macworld recommends: BUY​

A new MacBook Pro is a big investment, and the 16-inch model means spending at least $2,499 and likely over $3,000. But if you need the power it provides, get one now. Every new Mac is always the best Apple has ever made, but the 16-inch MacBook Pro is a gigantic leap both over the prior model and in the history of the MacBook Pro, and we think you’ll be very pleased with your purchase.

Our only recommendation is to get as much storage and memory as you can afford. The 16-inch MacBook Pro starts at 16GB of RAM and goes up to 32GB with the M1 Pro and 64GB with the M1 Max chips. The upgrades aren’t cheap, but they’ll be well worth the investment years from now when your machine is still running as smoothly as it was when you bought it.
 
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For my usecase the 1TB M1 Max 32GB is the sweet spot.

I do commercial photo editing with large composite files (around 3 GB per image) and lots of pixels and layers.

My work horse is Affinity Photo and it rarely uses more than 10-12 GB ram. Only if I need to work on several images at the same time. But I must say that the Affinity Apps have always been optimized for the latest Apple Tech even on older Macs. They do the heavy lifting mainly with the GPU (rendering).

Currently the bottleneck is clearly CPU/GPU for me even though I have only 16GB ram.

Everything beyond the internal SSD size is going to the archive on an external drive.
 
arvinsim said:
I am getting the 64GB 2TB configuration because I am selling my PC and 2019 16” MBP with the same configuration.

Just want one machine to do everything.
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Same configuration here - consolidating/selling bunch of old laptops, iPad old iPhones to have just one really good computer. Only question remaining for me is what monitor to pair it with...
 
I’m used to video/image production and new to gaming development, so I bought the 16’ M1 Max 32GB w 32 cores.

If I need 64GB unified RAM, I’m likely working with a team, which at that point, would use a MacPro station (but not needed here).

I don’t need 64GB Ram. If I ever do, it will be with an upgrade 3-4 years from now if I feel my use case has grown more intense. Application performance potential is there in terms of optimizing for fast unified memory. It’s a paradigm shift from discrete memory archeteture.

The conversation becomes less about if there is enough RAM to handle heavy workflows and computations, and more so about what new opportunities are there for a processor that move and manipulate a massive quantity of data per second. When the possibilities become clearer, it will probably be three years from now.

I will say this is first ever MacBook (and computing platform) to ever be a true all in one device that is also flexible, powerful, and caters to professionals and creators.
 
AmazingTechGeek said:
If I need 64GB unified RAM, I’m likely working with a team, which at that point, would use a MacPro station (but not needed here).
Click to expand...

What has been brought up is that this MBP is a portable Mac Pro, with equal computer power (or whatever power) as the Mac Pro... so if larger screen is needed, just hook the MBP up to an external.

So the MBP could act as a casual computer or a powerhouse as needed.
 
archi penko said:
What has been brought up is that this MBP is a portable Mac Pro, with equal computer power (or whatever power) as the Mac Pro... so if larger screen is needed, just hook the MBP up to an external.

So the MBP could act as a casual computer or a powerhouse as needed.
Click to expand...
I would really second-guess this! We don‘t know much about the new MBPs yet except for what comes from marketing material and the experience with the M1. I‘m still burned from what was promised with the 2018 MBP and never came true. A laptop is still a laptop and not a workstation.
 
Note apple used 32GB unified ram in all the Pro's for GPU benchmarks and 64GB with Max's......
 
archi penko said:
What has been brought up is that this MBP is a portable Mac Pro, with equal computer power (or whatever power) as the Mac Pro... so if larger screen is needed, just hook the MBP up to an external.

So the MBP could act as a casual computer or a powerhouse as needed.
Click to expand...
I agree. It’s funny because I canceled my 32 go ram Max chip for the 64GB. This computer can handle complex utility. For as much money as I’m spending, I figured I may as well double the RAM.
 
I went all the way in - 16" Max 64GB, 8TB SSD. My primary use case driving this is orchestral music composition - 100+ tracks in Logic, mostly with high end sample libraries (VSL Synchron, EW Hollywood Opus, Spitfire Audio, etc). I wanted as mush internal as possible both for streaming performance as well as mobility without a bunch of external TB SSD's. I'm currently working on a 64GB 10 core iMac Pro in the studio and wanted to at least beat that with something I could just pick up and go without worrying about synchronizing a laptop and desktop. I have an old Apple Cinema Display I will use with the laptop screen, but I feel a 32" XDR display in my future next year in spite of the crazy price. I'm also a photographer, so ...
 
AmazingTechGeek said:
SSD read/write is 7.4GB/s (doubled)
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Ok thanks. I am now using a 27" iMac and and it felt sliiighty sluggish with 32Gb (I have many apps and tabs open). I installed additional 16Gb and it's now blazingly fast (though some RAM is still unused). No swaps at all. I am planning on maintaining the same workload on the 16" too. Does it mean that it's better to get a 64Gb or the new MBP is THAT faster than my iMac RAM and I'll be OK with 32GB?
I can afford 64Gb, but waiting till December to get a custom config is pain...
 

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Appledoesnotlisten said:
Ok thanks. I am now using a 27" iMac and and it felt sliiighty sluggish with 32Gb (I have many apps and tabs open). I installed additional 16Gb and it's now blazingly fast (though some RAM is still unused). No swaps at all. I am planning on maintaining the same workload on the 16" too. Does it mean that it's better to get a 64Gb or the new MBP is THAT faster than my iMac RAM and I'll be OK with 32GB?
I can afford 64Gb, but waiting till December to get a custom config is pain...
Click to expand...
It would be both, but not for the reasons you think. Memory is used differently and managed more efficiently on M1 Series Unified Memory.
 
wilberforce said:
X is variable, depending on the metric and the application
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Exactly. It’s a paradigm shift where memory can be used differently because it speed and bandwidth of the I/O Stream.

Honestly, “Road To PS5” by Mark Cerny is probably the best explanation to what is so interesting about a fast IO. Combining it with more RAM and GPU power feeds the IO streams. The CPU and SSD can easily also use the same data that the GPU is accessing, so the caches can store more critical related functions and use more RAM for more use cases than previously considered or inconceivable
 
wilberforce said:
X is variable, depending on the metric and the application
Click to expand...
Well, my workload is 80% browsing (Chrome, Safari, trading sites, discord, kinda heavy google docs), heavy email client, Telegram, Figma, sometimes heavy PDFs, Xcode (not much) and Docker(not much). I guess it's worth waiting for 64Gb an extra month?
 
I guess it’s a good move to pre order this now through apple’s edu page for automatic discount and wait till December for M1 max 64gb? I’ve been looking at bestbuy constantly and pickup option never becomes available for m1 max 16” 32gb. Was gonna wait till release day if stores will have some or store pickup would be available but I guess they’ll be oos and forever be shipping only until next year? I’ve never really bought a MacBook before on Black Friday but I’m guessing they don’t really do discounts, instead do bundles or free gift card? I heard 64 ram could help with windows emulation for games so I’ll go for 64
 
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