M4 Macbook Pro: 16 GB vs 24 GB Unified Memory

[rwh63]

for the average user, is there much to gain by spending another $200 to get 8 GB more of memory? i realize that with today's laptops there isn't much hope of self-upgrade, so what you buy is what you get. also considering 512 GB vs 1 TB of storage. another $200 difference. this is more of a question of internal vs external storage.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

There are about 800 threads asking the same question of what was formally the base 8GB vs. 16GB. Fans will overwhelming push base as plenty for everyone... even some "99%" will be slung. Fans always push what Apple has for sale now. Later, when there is a problem with sometimes very passionate advice like this, they'll basically blame you for buying too little back in 2024 and recommend buying a new Mac as the remedy. That's great for Apple and not so great for you... but crucial to considering such input: they are fans of Apple, not you.

The key to your question depends on how one interprets average. You'll likely get a bunch of "I only have 8GB and that's plenty for everything I throw at it" replies... and "I'm still doing just fine with only 4GB on my MB."

What you need to do is NOT think about the great ambiguity of "average" but try to best guess what you want to do with this Mac for life of device. Try to anticipate the most demanding things you'll do with it up to and including about year 2031 or so. If you can anticipate getting into anything that spikes RAM need, you probably need to pay up the hefty premium for that extra 8GB... because you can't add it later without buying a whole new Mac.

Same with storage but not quite the same degree of consideration since you can lean on external storage if you need more later. The hassle in external storage with a laptop is just connecting/disconnecting and carrying the extra stuff everywhere you may need it. That may seem like a very small hassle, but it can be a practical hassle every time you want to use the laptop.

Again, try to anticipate maximum future storage needs on device. If you can imagine getting towards about 80% of 512GB, pay up for 1TB. If nothing you do or anticipate is likely to fill more than about 50%-70%, you are probably OK with 512GB... mostly because you can fallback to an external drive if you don't imagine what you will actually need in the future very well.

Between the 2, prioritize RAM. There is no adding it later. But if you can afford both and think you'll need both, save up and pay (too much relatively) for both... and then not worry about this stuff for life of device.

Some may chime in arguing for base RAM because SSD SWAP can cover some spikes in RAM demand. That's true. But too many writes wear out SSDs and when the internal SSD conks, you have to buy a new Mac. So get enough RAM to minimize SWAP use and you don't have to worry about this issue either. Some fans will argue that SWAP should not be a concern because "modern SSDs can..." but hop back to similar worries about the SSD part of "Fusion" drives to see the same kind of "don't worry about it" posts and then search threads for problems with worn out SSDs in Fusion drives. Again, fans push/rationalize whatever Apple has for sale now. So anything you get from fans is very biased in support of the Corp’s objectives. Caveat Emptor!

Bottom line: if you can wildly guess/imagine a need for the added RAM through about 2031, pay up for it. And the same for upgrading the SSD though- if pinched- you can deal with the added hassle of external storage if you opt to not get enough internal SSD to cover your own needs through about 2031.

I hope this is helpful.

 

[throAU]

The way I look at it:

If you need anything GPU related go for 24 GB.

Why?

For discrete video cards, like the M4 GPU can perform similarly to - 8 GB of VRAM isn't much.

So that's 8 GB out of your pool for the GPU.

If you only have 16 GB, that only leaves 8 for the rest of the OS if running anything reasonably GPU heavy. If you go 24, you have double the RAM left for the Cpu when running something needing 8 GB of VRAM.

If you don't do anything GPU heavy 16 is probably fine.

That said, consider your usage and look at the total cost of the system you're buying vs. the cost of the incremental upgrade and consider how it will impact system longevity.

Extra 8 GB of RAM is a couple of hundred dollars on a machine worth 4 figures, and RAM is a real limiting factor on system usefulness over time.

 

[DeepSix]

I thought long and hard about it too because the price difference between the base model and the Pro model here in Canada is $600. I chose the Pro model for a few reasons.

- 50% more ram (valuable when video or photo editing).
- Has two fans vs one in the base model
- less fan noise compared to the base model. It's pretty significant. The fans don't spin up as much because there are two.
- double SSD read and write speed

And having the extra cores is a nice bonus.

But yeah every YouTube review Ive watched, they all said that the Pro model is the one to get even over the base model and it's beneficial in stuff like video and photo editing (what I use it for)

I don't think the Max chip is worth it. Ive seen many reviews that said skip the max. It has very little gain over the pro model.

 

[fw85]

16GB is just fine for most users, even those that buy Macbook Pros.

People generally don't really understand how RAM caching and preloading works, so when they buy a 32GB machine and open activity monitor - they'll see that with nothing but a browser open, their Mac is using 15GB of RAM - and will immediately proceed to pat themselves on the back, just how amazingly they have foreseen their need for more.

The reality is that unused RAM == wasted RAM, so MacOS (and other OSes for that matter) always attempt to utilize as much as they can by pre-loading or caching stuff. This mechanism has been standard for many years now.
That's how you end up with way higher RAM usage than you'd expect, and it's very misleading to think it reflects your requirements.
Thus, on a 16GB system if you also just open a browser, suddenly you're only using 8GB of RAM with the exact same use case.

The only thing you're potentially missing out on is milliseconds that could be saved here and there by the OS being generous with RAM over-committing and having it e.g. cache some app you usually open, but it's closed right now - so the next startup takes .3 of a second instead of .5

 

[throAU]

I don't think the Max chip is worth it. Ive seen many reviews that said skip the max. It has very little gain over the pro model

It literally has approximately 2x the GPU power, 2x the encoders and higher available ram capacities.

If you don’t need those things sure. But saying there is little gain over the pro is just false.

 

[DeepSix]

It literally has approximately 2x the GPU power, 2x the encoders and higher available ram capacities.

If you don’t need those things sure. But saying there is little gain over the pro is just false.

On paper yes. I've read reviews that said that the marginal performance jump wasn't worth it. Going from the base model to the pro model you'll see a bigger increase.

 

[throAU]

On paper yes. I've read reviews that said that the marginal performance jump wasn't worth it. Going from the base model to the pro model you'll see a bigger increase.

It really depends what you're doing.

Games are ~ 2x frame rate
GPU based Renders are ~2x rate
Video exports can be up to 2x rate