MacBook Air M1 7 core w 16gb ram vs 8 core w 8gb ram

[despina]

this is actually my first macbook in general and i’m very confused as to which one to pick between the 7 core gpu with 16gb of ram or 8 core gpu with 8gb of ram, cause everyone says different stuff. i’m a normal user i’d say, i watch a lot of movies/videos, tend to listen to music while doing other tasks, i want to do some very light gaming and i don’t really do much editing. please leave any suggestions you have (also i plan on keeping this computer for at least 5-6 years if that helps)

 

[Rck1984]

There will be advice for 16GB, but with your workload a base model M1 (7/8/256) is totally fine.
I don't think that extra GPU core, or another 8GB of RAM is going to make a difference for your use case.

 

[pldelisle]

Base model is totally fine for you.

 

[darngooddesign]

8GB RAM, 7 Core GPU, and the amount of storage you want. I'm not sure why anyone would suggest more than that for your needs.

 

[magbarn]

Depends on what you mean about light gaming. I’m in a different camp, you’re keeping it for half a decade, spend the extra $50 and just get the full gpu. Get the 16gb if you’re lazy like me and have up to 40 tabs of webpages loaded up at once when I’m not working 🤣

 

[despina]

ohh thank you all for your answers, i think i’ll stick with 8gb ram after all

 

[despina]

Depends on what you mean about light gaming. I’m in a different camp, you’re keeping it for half a decade, spend the extra $50 and just get the full gpu. Get the 16gb if you’re lazy like me and have up to 40 tabs of webpages loaded up at once when I’m not working 🤣

hmm that’s got me thinking now cause i do that too, and by light gaming i mean some sims and i wanna try some apps like among us now that they’re supported

 

[brig2221]

My opinion is, if you don't already know why you need 16 GB of RAM, you then know you don't need 16 GB of RAM.

I have a base MBA (7 GPU cores), and this things takes everything I throw at it. The only caveat I would throw out there is, if you plan on keeping your new computer for 5 years or more, I would definitely invest in the RAM upgrade.

All that said, I think we will see some real nice incremental jumps over the years from M1 to M2 to M3, so I have a feeling a lot of people out there (myself included) are going to have a hard time holding onto their computers for too long (keeping in mind I just upgraded from a Mid 2012 non-retina MBP).

 

[despina]

My opinion is, if you don't already know why you need 16 GB of RAM, you then know you don't need 16 GB of RAM.

I have a base MBA (7 GPU cores), and this things takes everything I throw at it. The only caveat I would throw out there is, if you plan on keeping your new computer for 5 years or more, I would definitely invest in the RAM upgrade.

All that said, I think we will see some real nice incremental jumps over the years from M1 to M2 to M3, so I have a feeling a lot of people out there (myself included) are going to have a hard time holding onto their computers for too long (keeping in mind I just upgraded from a Mid 2012 non-retina MBP).

yes that’s why i was thinking the ram upgrade since i definitely cant get a new one when the next gen is released