M4 Pro 24GB for 48GB or get the M4 32GB

[craigsmac]

Hey everyone,

I appreciate your help.

I bought a MacBook Pro M4 Pro (14-inch, 24GB) and I'm hitting 83% memory pressure with 4.9GB swap usage during usage when doing multiple uses. Coming from an Intel MacBook Pro where I never have not experienced these SWAP issues.

My usage: Safari (8.5GB+), development tools (15.5GB), standard productivity apps multitasking. I could single task more to reduce RAM/swap overhead, but that defeats the purpose of upgrading, I'm guessing and I only buy a new MacBook every 5 years.

The question: Should I return it and get a refurbished 48GB M4 Pro model instead? Or step down to a refurbished base M4 with 32GB (less CPU/GPU but more memory than my current 24GB)?
I don't have lots of money but don't want to regret staying with 24gb if I can try and find another refurb machine and save more money to get one.

• Any tips for managing memory pressure on 24GB if I keep it?
• Should I go to the M4 and 32GB ?

Since RAM can't be upgraded later, this is my one shot to get it right. The cost difference is significant but constant swapping if doing multi things can be a pain, but maybe I need to just life with it..

What would you do? Thanks for any advice! 🙏

 

[giffut]

When you use the memory section in the app "Activity Monitor", check if the memory pressure is turning yellow or even red while working the Macbook with your specific usage pattern.

Paging is always much slower and taxes the internal storage.

Red is the paging of all memory requests to disk. Yellow means, some meory requests are organized to page to disk. Even with the green line, minor paging exists. It's not relevant and part of MacOS memory algorithms.

MacOS always uses all available memory. Only the color of the memory pressure line, so to speak, gives you the indication that you are running out.

___
Green = all is good, you have plenty of memory - no need for more

Yellow = all memory is taxed at the limit and some paging occurs - might need a little more if this is staying all the time (+8GB)

Red = all memory requests are now paged to storage - you definitely need much more (+16Gb)

 

[smirking]

• Any tips for managing memory pressure on 24GB...

Just one tip. Don't.

If a similarly spec'd Intel machine was perfectly fine for you, a similarly spec'd Silicon machine is going to smoke anything your Intel Mac could do. If you spend a lot of time staring at activity monitor, you will always find evidence to confirm what it is you fear.

Since it appears you're a dev as well, I'll just point out that excessive memory usage to the point that your system slows down is often a symptom of another issue rather than being the root cause of your problems. More memory never hurts, but under normal usage conditions you're unlikely to notice anything being off even if you're in yellow memory pressure most of the time (as I sometimes am).

If you know for absolute certain that you need the memory, you probably do. If you have to ask, you probably don't.

 

[Honza1]

Short version: do NOT bother, check the memory pressure over time when you load the machine a lot, and if it is green or only occasionally yellow, you are fine...
Unless you are doing something which requires lots of memory at once, like movie processing or large image processing, or (like me) need to run VMs with other OS, do not waste time looking at memory on these Mx macs. Current system is really trying to use as much memory as possible all the time to optimize user experience. I have just few apps open on 32GB M1Pro, no VM, and system is using large fraction of memory and even swap file. 32GB RAM: 27GB memory used + 2.4GM swap used.
Just VSCode is using over 6GB and it has basically opened only two repos with not that much code in them, in background since yesterday. Chrome is using few GB also etc...
Unused memory is wasted memory.
When needed, system will dump what is not needed either completely or in swap and make memory available for current needs. There are times when I load three VMs, each with ~8GB memory footprint, for work and still have no observable slowdown. That means, that my system has only 8GB RAM left for macOS and macOS applications and is still happy camper, I do not see any user issues.
By the way, internal SSD where you swap is insanely fast and matches in speed what memory speeds were just few RAM generations ago. Swapping is not really that big deal anymore.

 

[bzgnyc2]

Hey everyone,

I appreciate your help.

I bought a MacBook Pro M4 Pro (14-inch, 24GB) and I'm hitting 83% memory pressure with 4.9GB swap usage during usage when doing multiple uses. Coming from an Intel MacBook Pro where I never have not experienced these SWAP issues.

Do you remember how much each of those same applications used on your Intel Mac? If I recall, no Intel MacBook/Pro had more than 16GB of RAM so it is interesting that you are running out of RAM presumably doing the same thing on a machine with 24GB.

My usage: Safari (8.5GB+),

This seems high. Unfortunately we seem to be in an era of overwrought websites chewing up memory on inefficient browsers. I am assuming that you are seeing 100MB or less at the start of a blank Safari session? Is it just that you need a lot of tabs open or do you have a few tabs that drive most of that?

development tools (15.5GB)

I assume that is the standard Xcode suite?

, standard productivity apps multitasking. I could single task more to reduce RAM/swap overhead, but that defeats the purpose of upgrading, I'm guessing and I only buy a new MacBook every 5 years.

A Mac Mini 2018 with 8 GB of RAM running Mojave can multitask Docker/SQL Server, Azure Data Studio, Tableau, Excel, PowerPoint, iTunes, Mail, Calendar, and Notes surprisingly well (i.e. no dropped audio, no beach balls, negligible additional lag relative to just one app) with some tuning. The newer macOS do take up more RAM though not triple. I do keep thinking about upgrading the RAM on mine to 64GB since it's the last RAM upgradable model and it's pretty cheap these days, but it just amuses me how well the thing runs with 8GB.

I am not a fan of already dipping into swap at the start of a fresh session. That is, if I need swap just to open the applications I need to open then I probably have too little RAM. If in the course of a session I end up with all the above running then I expect some swap usage. If the system isn't glitching (e.g. audio dropouts, beach balls, irritating levels of lag) I wouldn't run to upgrade RAM.

One note, the Memory Used and Process-level Memory shown in Activity Monitor are somewhat misleading. The latter does not appear to be just RAM and then some applications seem to allocate tons of memory they don't actively use. I've also done my own tests to confirm that I can use without penalty more than what is left by Physical Memory - Memory Used as reported from Activity Monitor. So I wouldn't assume I need as much as shown for a listed process (e.g. Safari) unless it was an app I wrote (e.g. I wouldn't configure a machine with 16GB just to run Safari).

What I would look at in your case in the output of "top" (my go to is "top -u -s 10 -S"):
PhysMem: 15G used (2651M wired), 1199M unused.
VM: 26T vsize, 1975M framework vsize, 0(0) swapins, 0(0) swapouts.
Swap: 0B + 0B free. Purgeable: 1745M 19880(0) pages purged.

The swapin/sswapouts is the actual swapping in each refresh period. Then keeping that off to the side I would consider more RAM or looking at excess usage if swapins/swapouts was high while doing my ordinary work.

 

[raythompsontn]

Paging is always much slower and taxes the internal storage.

Swap is only used when switching between applications. Swapping is not a continuous activity with dozens of transactions a second. Swap does not stress the internal storage anymore than saving files, even applications with auto-save. Somehow people get the idea that swapping is massive disc activity when swapping is not. A large swap file is not really a big deal. Application performance is the metric, not swap.

 

[ignatius345]

Swap is only used when switching between applications. Swapping is not a continuous activity with dozens of transactions a second. Swap does not stress the internal storage anymore than saving files, even applications with auto-save. Somehow people get the idea that swapping is massive disc activity when swapping is not. A large swap file is not really a big deal. Application performance is the metric, not swap.

Exactly. Even in the bad old days of HDDs, when you could hear the drive physically spin up when reading and writing files to switch what was loaded into RAM, the pain only lasted a few seconds and then you were merrily on your way with the app you'd switched to. And nowadays, as people are noting, it's just a quick blip you might not even notice.

I could personally give a rat's ass what color my "memory pressure" is, so long as the machine is doing what I want without making me wait too much.

 

[craigsmac]

Thank you everyone, it's so nice to see help and feedback from people here.

I'm thinking what is the best solution I'm trying to not overcook this and also not upgrade if I dont have too..

I've taken some snap shots below to look at what happening, I think I'm over thinking it as it's a new laptop and trying to work out whats working and not..
While I like the laptop and think maybe I can manage the 24gb looking at the upgrade I can only get 26gb if I stay with a pro processes.

 

[ignatius345]

Thank you everyone, it's so nice to see help and feedback from people here.

I'm thinking what is the best solution I'm trying to not overcook this and also not upgrade if I dont have too..

I've taken some snap shots below to look at what happening, I think I'm over thinking it as it's a new laptop and trying to work out whats working and not..
While I like the laptop and think maybe I can manage the 24gb looking at the upgrade I can only get 26gb if I stay with a pro processes.

View attachment 2528600

View attachment 2528599View attachment 2528601

My feeling is that if you do whatever your normal workflow is (without looking at numbers) and you are hitting actual perceivable slowdowns that would impede your work, because of large apps you're using, then maybe consider spending more on RAM. But if it all works smoothly and you can't tell the difffence without peeping all these stats, just carry on. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[Timpetus]

The other thing to consider is that, depending on how new it is, there may be indexing and other system processes going on in the background that will be completed over the first week or two of use. Once those are done, you may see more time spent in the green.

For my purposes, I needed all the RAM I could get, so I bought an M1 Max with 64GB/2TB when they were on sale. Woot has had the same configuration a few times, I think it was about $1600 last time I saw it come up! I still use up most of the RAM when I use MainStage to play keyboards in my band.

 

[craigsmac]

The other thing to consider is that, depending on how new it is, there may be indexing and other system processes going on in the background that will be completed over the first week or two of use. Once those are done, you may see more time spent in the green.

For my purposes, I needed all the RAM I could get, so I bought an M1 Max with 64GB/2TB when they were on sale. Woot has had the same configuration a few times, I think it was about $1600 last time I saw it come up! I still use up most of the RAM when I use MainStage to play keyboards in my band.

thank you, it's crazy how much you notice the RAM on a new machine when working compare to the old one..

 

[craigsmac]

My feeling is that if you do whatever your normal workflow is (without looking at numbers) and you are hitting actual perceivable slowdowns that would impede your work, because of large apps you're using, then maybe consider spending more on RAM. But if it all works smoothly and you can't tell the difffence without peeping all these stats, just carry on. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

that's a really good point, I notice a small slowdown but I was more focused on the numbers than anything..

 

[craigsmac]

Exactly. Even in the bad old days of HDDs, when you could hear the drive physically spin up when reading and writing files to switch what was loaded into RAM, the pain only lasted a few seconds and then you were merrily on your way with the app you'd switched to. And nowadays, as people are noting, it's just a quick blip you might not even notice.

I could personally give a rat's ass what color my "memory pressure" is, so long as the machine is doing what I want without making me wait too much.

lol lol I remember hearing the drive spinning and the fan taking off like a jet... I think I need to do this and not focus on the numbers like anything new you it's look at it again and again to confirm it's good..

 

[craigsmac]

Swap is only used when switching between applications. Swapping is not a continuous activity with dozens of transactions a second. Swap does not stress the internal storage anymore than saving files, even applications with auto-save. Somehow people get the idea that swapping is massive disc activity when swapping is not. A large swap file is not really a big deal. Application performance is the metric, not swap.

that's a really goodpoint.. thank you good way to think about it

 

[craigsmac]

When you use the memory section in the app "Activity Monitor", check if the memory pressure is turning yellow or even red while working the Macbook with your specific usage pattern.

Paging is always much slower and taxes the internal storage.

Red is the paging of all memory requests to disk. Yellow means, some meory requests are organized to page to disk. Even with the green line, minor paging exists. It's not relevant and part of MacOS memory algorithms.

MacOS always uses all available memory. Only the color of the memory pressure line, so to speak, gives you the indication that you are running out.

___
Green = all is good, you have plenty of memory - no need for more

Yellow = all memory is taxed at the limit and some paging occurs - might need a little more if this is staying all the time (+8GB)

Red = all memory requests are now paged to storage - you definitely need much more (+16Gb)

thank you, ive been watching the monitor and now looking at what area it hits, thank you for explaining this.. nice having a new toy but maybe I'm looking at it to much on if it's performing via numbers not apps

 

[bzgnyc2]

Swap is only used when switching between applications. Swapping is not a continuous activity with dozens of transactions a second. Swap does not stress the internal storage anymore than saving files, even applications with auto-save. Somehow people get the idea that swapping is massive disc activity when swapping is not.

I don't believe modern UNIX (which includes macOS) actually "swap" as originally defined these days. macOS's VM is quite advanced and uses a combination of on-demand allocation, memory compression, and paging.

On the plus side, macOS can juggle multiple bloated programs surprisingly well. An 8GB system can handle multiple applications whose total Memory used is >8GB.

However, if an active thread/process -- or combination of -- have a memory working set greater than RAM, the system will page and it can be quite intense. I have written programs that demonstrate this and they will drive gigabytes of drive writes very quickly.

A large swap file is not really a big deal. Application performance is the metric, not swap.

Agree I wouldn't worry about the size of the swap file all else being equal and would focus on system/application performance/responsiveness. If those are off, the typical user is most practically served by the red/yellow/green stoplight visual of Memory Pressure.

However as the OP is a developer, I recommend the adage, "when in doubt, measure", etc. I believe a developer has a professional obligation to understand the memory usage/demands of their software and make sure it is appropriate. I would measure and understand the baseline for my system so I could then measure the net demands of my programs/applications/websites/etc.

 

[bzgnyc2]

Thank you everyone, it's so nice to see help and feedback from people here.

I'm thinking what is the best solution I'm trying to not overcook this and also not upgrade if I dont have too..

I've taken some snap shots below to look at what happening, I think I'm over thinking it as it's a new laptop and trying to work out whats working and not..
While I like the laptop and think maybe I can manage the 24gb looking at the upgrade I can only get 26gb if I stay with a pro processes.

View attachment 2528600

View attachment 2528599View attachment 2528601

If your ongoing Page Ins/Outs are 0 while you work, you're probably okay.

I am surprised that most of your RAM is going to Safari. I tend to open a lot of tabs while I work and they do start to accumulate but it still seems like a lot if you are doing most of your work in Windsurf (note I don't use Windsurf so not saying one way the other is normal).

Then you might see if Brave can handle the same workflow/set of websites with less RAM if you are routinely in the Yellow. Based on your other notes, the system is certainly usable like this but I dislike it when my browser consumes most of my system.

P.S.Your Compressed Memory is relatively high. In my experience that is the size of memory pages after compression so there's even more than 7+3GB being demanded by your applications. Then what is likely happening is that macOS is compressing and uncompressing memory as applications (e.g. Safari) need those memory blocks. It does this so quickly (as a side note it's pretty impressive how well it does this) that you probably don't notice but it would likely feel slightly quicker if it didn't have to do this.

 

[craigsmac]

If your ongoing Page Ins/Outs are 0 while you work, you're probably okay.

I am surprised that most of your RAM is going to Safari. I tend to open a lot of tabs while I work and they do start to accumulate but it still seems like a lot if you are doing most of your work in Windsurf (note I don't use Windsurf so not saying one way the other is normal).

Then you might see if Brave can handle the same workflow/set of websites with less RAM if you are routinely in the Yellow. Based on your other notes, the system is certainly usable like this but I dislike it when my browser consumes most of my system.

P.S.Your Compressed Memory is relatively high. In my experience that is the size of memory pages after compression so there's even more than 7+3GB being demanded by your applications. Then what is likely happening is that macOS is compressing and uncompressing memory as applications (e.g. Safari) need those memory blocks. It does this so quickly (as a side note it's pretty impressive how well it does this) that you probably don't notice but it would likely feel slightly quicker if it didn't have to do this.

Thank you for the tips and feedback. I'm looking into Brave now and also considering what else might be happening with the laptop, as it's not the chunkiest stuff but definitely a change.

 

[Basic75]

If I recall [correctly], no Intel MacBook/Pro had more than 16GB of RAM

The last generation of Intel MacBook Pros could be ordered with up to 64GB of RAM, several before that with up to 32GB.

 

[bzgnyc2]

The last generation of Intel MacBook Pros could be ordered with up to 64GB of RAM, several before that with up to 32GB.

Well that serves me right for drawing from memory after a slapdash search...thanks for the correction.

Then that does mean my assumption the OP's new MacBook Pro has more RAM than its Intel-based predecessor.

OP: did you have more than 16 or 24GB on your Intel MacBook Pro?

 

[smirking]

Well that serves me right for drawing from memory after a slapdash search...thanks for the correction.

It was only really available for a couple of years so it's an easy mistake to make. If I didn't own one of them, I probably wouldn't remember.

Intel MBPs from 2018 and 2019 and 13" straggler released in 2020 were the only models to handle more than 16GB.

 

[Fishrrman]

Do you use a comination of apps that require and utilize multi-core performance?

Or... do most of the apps just use "single core"?

REASON WHY I asked:
Compare the single core benchmarks of the m4 vis-a-vis the m4pro.
Are they close, or the same?
(they were on the 2024 m4/m4pro Minis)

I was originally going to buy an m4pro Mini.
BUT... when I realized the single core performance was the same (actually, just a tad FASTER on the m4), I decided to go with the m4, but with "more RAM" instead.

I got m4/32gb/1tb.
Very pleased with the performance.

More RAM is always better.
These days, I'd consider 32gb to be "the baseline"... IF you're someone who has "an eye on the future" (and how the Mac OS will "grow" its memory requirements over the next 5-6 years)...