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

[smithdr]

Hi Aevan:

I took your advice and posed my question on a couple of websites (FCP and Blackmagic Forum). An interesting discussion came out of the Blackmagic Forum. Here is the URL:

Blackmagic Forum • View topic - MBP16 M1 Max 32 or 64 GB

forum.blackmagicdesign.com

I have chosen to go with 64 GB RAM.

Don

 

[Ricebucket]

Nope, windows 11, playing far cry 4, tomocon viewer( CT , MRI scans) etc absolutely no lag with latest parallels

huh? windows 11 for ARM?

 

[Delarock]

huh? windows 11 for ARM?

was on windows 10 with insider profile and automatic. got update on windows 11

 

[sir grotius]

There tend to be three groups of people here regarding this debate.

1. Tech downers that always say that everything is overkill, too expensive, and unneeded unless you're in X position or using Y application, but of which are rarefied
2. Actual power users who are too busy creating content to post here
3. Casual tech fans that like the best and newest of everything, and for whom the idea of not spec'ing out the machine would be somewhat of a letdown

I'm the quintessential #3.

 

[ducati1212]

There tend to be three groups of people here regarding this debate.

1. Tech downers that always say that everything is overkill, too expensive, and unneeded unless you're in X position or using Y application, but of which are rarefied
2. Actual power users who are too busy creating content to post here
3. Casual tech fans that like the best and newest of everything, and for whom the idea of not spec'ing out the machine would be somewhat of a letdown

I'm the quintessential #3.

oohh ooohh number 3 number 3.

 

[elmateo487]

just another thought that might be worth considering ... rumours quite early on appeared about excessive SSD usage and life span on M1 devices. People with 8Gb machines talking about 10-15% life used in months. I can only assume that this would be down to excessive swapping. After nearly a year, my 16Gb M1's SSD is only 2% used but I also don't have the need for some of the more memory hungry apps listed above (on my M1 Mac, the Mac Pro is a different matter).

Unless Apple have announced a logic board replacement scheme to allow for the cheaper replacement of the SSD (that's passed me by), I'd hate to think how much it'd cost to replace an M1 Max board just cause the hard drive has worn out in 2-3 years due to significantly insufficient RAM for the workflows asked of it.

That 10-15% usage was a bug with the reporting software. The software has been updated now and people are no longer chewing through the SSD that fast.

 

[chengengaun]

Stores won’t carry M1 Max + 64 GB, it’s a custom spec. You may find the base M1 Max/32GB/1TB in probably very limited quantities if you get lucky on launch day.

Actually Apple Stores do carry 14" M1 Max 64GB/2TB and 16" M1 Max 64GB/4TB in limited quantities, and sometimes only one colour at a time.

Meanwhile, I went with 64GB as I worked with large datasets. (And text files.)

 

[MarkAtl]

That 10-15% usage was a bug with the reporting software. The software has been updated now and people are no longer chewing through the SSD that fast.

I don’t know exactly why but over a year my M1 MBP 8/256 wrote 180TB to the SSD, and it was used primarily for documents (Google Docs and Office). That seems like more then a reporting software bug.

 

[archi penko]

I still haven’t been able to find any direct real world comparisons or reviews between these two UM / RAM amounts

 

[aevan]

Actually Apple Stores do carry 14" M1 Max 64GB/2TB and 16" M1 Max 64GB/4TB in limited quantities, and sometimes only one colour at a time.

Meanwhile, I went with 64GB as I worked with large datasets. (And text files.)

Whoa, that 66Gb BBEdit file is really impressive!

What is it, if you don't mind me asking? Your local library in a single text file?

 

[chengengaun]

Whoa, that 66Gb BBEdit file is really impressive!

What is it, if you don't mind me asking? Your local library in a single text file?

Your guess is not too far off actually - it's the metadata and log files, among other things Of course I didn't use BBEdit to do all the processing, but it is impressive that BBEdit can operate on such files without crashing.

 

[aevan]

Your guess is not too far off actually - it's the metadata and log files, among other things Of course I didn't use BBEdit to do all the processing, but it is impressive that BBEdit can operate on such files without crashing.

Definitely putting that 64Gb RAM to use there! Yeah, it‘s incredible, but makes sense - from everything I’ve heard - BBEdit is one solid piece of software!

 

[elmateo487]

I don’t know exactly why but over a year my M1 MBP 8/256 wrote 180TB to the SSD, and it was used primarily for documents (Google Docs and Office). That seems like more then a reporting software bug.

Check again, but the terminal software you used to find those numbers was reporting wrong.

 

[Zammir]

Yeah it's the question of the century. Some say 64 is overkill but who's to say what's to come in the future AND if Apple's architecture runs differently... I do video editing with lots open and idk if I would have been fine w/ 32. ??‍♂️ $

 

[Freida]

M1 Pro 16gb!

Not all tech savvy so my question may across as dumb -
I use my MBP 13" 16GB RAM for heavy excel and power points. Occasionally photo editing using photoshop. Running heavy stats model (occasional) and rest for light browsing and stuffs.
Do you recommend M1 Max 64gb or M1 Max 32 GB?
Thanks in advance

 

[Freida]

Too many people here who confuse need with desire. I'm amazed how many people actually ordered overkill machine or even thing that they are smart "futureproofing"
What a waste of money!
Most of us here use computers for a very very long time so we have massive "data" to know. Each person that has used something for the past 10 years know:
a) roughly their needs
b) what was their bottleneck during those years
c) how fast this need changed

D) there is no FUTUREPROOFING!!! - unless you change jobs or pickup new hobby etc. your needs have got relatively the same curve so all of you who are going for 64gb and would be ok with 16gb are basically wasting money and lying to yourself.

Its their money though so you can waste it however you like it

 

[ASX]

32 gb are more future proof than 16 gb which are even for the present not enough. Consider it's shared memory with gpu, the ram is not only for cpu.

I buy machines not because i need it actually. But i need it maybe in the future. I'm using RTX 3090, im not needing it for now. But when im in the right mood, maybe i play a gpu demanding game. Like the BF 2042 beta recently.

Nobody should buy something only for the present, the moment. He/she should think about the possibilities which may come. Nobody can predict the future.

 

[januarydrive7]

32 gb are more future proof than 16 gb which are even for the present not enough. Consider it's shared memory with gpu, the ram is not only for cpu.

I buy machines not because i need it actually. But i need it maybe in the future. I'm using RTX 3090, im not needing it for now. But when im in the right mood, maybe i play a gpu demanding game. Like the BF 2042 beta recently.

Nobody should buy something only for the present, the moment. He/she should think about the possibilities which may come. Nobody can predict the future.

In the future, perhaps all modern systems will not be functional, and humanity has to go back to using legacy hardware for survival against the alien invaders who shut down our modern systems. You should buy everything, just in case.

 

[MarkAtl]

Check again, but the terminal software you used to find those numbers was reporting wrong.

I used DriveDx.

 

[archi penko]

Finally I found a comparison

Basically they both run the same… no lags no stops, even though in this test the 32 GB MBP uses ~20 some gigs, the 64, uses ~50 some gigs RAM

I don’t know how that can make sense. The applications are clearly taking as much Ram as they need, limited by the system. But I don’t understand how they can run equally smoothly?

 

[januarydrive7]

I don’t know how that can make sense. The applications are clearly taking as much Ram as they need, limited by the system. But I don’t understand how they can run equally smoothly?

Having data stored in RAM does not necessarily mean you're using it. My guess is the eviction strategy is about the same (~12 gigs of ram free on both systems), so the extra RAM usage you're seeing has less to do with what is required to run smoothly vs. how macOS decides to evict data from active memory.

A better comparison would continue down until it doesn't run smoothly, then you'd know the actual requirement (for this specific workflow).

 

[ASX]

Nope, when it reaches over 12 gbyte + 1.3 gbyte ram reserved it slows down. If you are ok with it buy the 16 gb version. In my opinion it's very unhealthy if you push the limits in the present so hard. Such an expensive notebook is a future investment. The save of 200 - 400 US Dollars are not worth the slowdown and risk in the future it's much oftenly slowing down. As i said nobody would consider accepting such a low amount of non upgradeable ram when it would be a windows laptop for 2200 - 3000 Euros.

 

[januarydrive7]

Nope, when it reaches over 12 gbyte + 1.3 gbyte ram reserved it slows down. If you are ok with it buy the 16 gb version. In my opinion it's very unhealthy if you push the limits in the present so hard. Such an expensive notebook is a future investment. The save of 200 - 400 US Dollars are not worth the slowdown and risk in the future it's much oftenly slowing down. As i said nobody would consider accepting such a low amount of non upgradeable ram when it would be a windows laptop for 2200 - 3000 Euros.

Could you post screen grabs of the memory pressure you're experiencing when ever 12GB are active?

I've seen your posts regarding screen technology, and I'm no expert, so I have nothing to say regarding the apparent issues there. However, with my experience in operating systems and architecture design, what you've repeated over and over about opening tabs and seeing slowdown seems incredibly suspect --- this is how memory management works. The most efficient memory management schemes lazily eject from memory, so you'll often have nearly all of your RAM showing as wired even if its not actively being used, and when you actually need more, unused memory will be ejected. What would need to happen to see the significant slowdown you've described would be some sort of thrashing, where you're actively swapping active memory up and down the memory hierarchy. I simply don't buy it.

 

[Zammir]

it's so confusing that no one can easily answer this lol. 32 or 64 on mac?

 

[hajime]

In the future, perhaps all modern systems will not be functional, and humanity has to go back to using legacy hardware for survival against the alien invaders who shut down our modern systems. You should buy everything, just in case.

Looking forward to that day. Should be fun.