Need to upgrade Macbook Pro due to suspected lack of RAM (laggy)

[mbpistop]

Hey guys,

I currently own a 2017 MacBook Pro 13" Retina with the following specs:
Processor: 3.1 GHz Intel Core i5
Memory: 8 GB 2133 MHz DDR3
Storage: 256 GB SSD

My workload generally consists of running around 20 Chrome tabs and one Bootcamp Virtual Machine simultaneously. I also connect my laptop to two external monitors via HDMI which might add a little to CPU load. As expected, this is causing my MBP to lag.

I took screenshots of the Activity Monitor and it seems like 7.2 GB of RAM (without VM running) is being used whereas only 60-70% of my CPU is being used. So based on this, I suspect it is the lack of RAM that is causing the performance bottleneck.

Here are the screenshots showing RAM and CPU usage at peak activity:
https://ibb.co/8mtT3sW
https://ibb.co/tbfJtHV

I need to upgrade so that I do not face this bottleneck. So I wanted to ask what I should upgrade to keeping my workload requirements in mind:

1. Assuming I am running a Bootcamp VM which might take up to 4 GB RAM and around 20 Chrome tabs, would 16 GB RAM suffice or would I need to upgrade to 32 GB of RAM?
2. Will the default 1.4 GHz processor suffice or would I need the 1.7 GHz or 2.4 GHz processor? It seems like it should suffice based on the Activity Monitor screenshot but thought I should check with you guys anyway.

Thanks for the help! Cheers!

 

[onespeedvelo]

From the screenshot I see "Swap Used" at almost 2 GB. This is the RAM writing data to disk when it doesn't have enough capacity. So yes you are using your RAM fully however it should not slow down your Mac excessively on macOS because the SDD in the MBP are super fast and the OS is very smart in optimising resources . Are you using Boot Camp or a VM? Boot camp is when you are running Windows "natively" on your machine. It is not a virtual machine. They are different things.

Also Windows has a much worse RAM management than macOS so yes if you run Windows then you need to upgrade your RAM. Windows is a RAM hog! On Mac this would be less of a concern I believe.

Another thought. If you are using 2 monitors on top of that you might simply missing on GPU power. The 13" has only integrate intel Graphics right? Adding an external GPU via thunderbolt could help. Don't know about Windows though.

 

[mbpistop]

From the screenshot I see "Swap Used" at almost 2 GB. This is the RAM writing data to disk when it doesn't have enough capacity. So yes you are using your RAM fully however it should not slow down your Mac excessively on macOS because the SDD in the MBP are super fast and the OS is very smart in optimising resources . Are you using Boot Camp or a VM? Boot camp is when you are running Windows "natively" on your machine. It is not a virtual machine. They are different things.

Also Windows has a much worse RAM management than macOS so yes if you run Windows then you need to upgrade your RAM. Windows is a RAM hog! On Mac this would be less of a concern I believe.

Another thought. If you are using 2 monitors on top of that you might simply missing on GPU power. The 13" has only integrate intel Graphics right? Adding an external GPU via thunderbolt could help. Don't know about Windows though.

Thanks for the reply.

Well I have installed Windows via Bootcamp but sometimes I run the Bootcamp partition as a virtual machine on my MacOS simultaneously via VMWare Fusion. This allows me to use both my MacOS and Bootcamp Windows OS at the same time. However, when doing this it can only use the amount of RAM I allocate to the VM through VMWare Fusion so Windows memory management is not as much of a concern.

It does not slow down my Mac excessively but it slows it down to a point where it is annoying and I feel makes me less productive. I am a full-time trader using my Mac for making money so I do not want this to be an issue.

You are right about the 13" only having integrated intel graphics. However, my Mac seems to be sometimes laggy even when the two external monitors are not connected which makes me suspect it is solely a RAM issue.

From reading your reply, it seems like the safer bet would be to go for a 15" MBP with 32 GB RAM and a better graphics card? Am I correct in assuming this? The only drawback is that it would run me around $1,000 extra for the upgrade.