Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

ssgbryan

macrumors 65816
Jul 18, 2002
1,488
1,420
What on earth could you possibly be doing where 16GB of RAM is not enough?

I work at a big 3 bank supporting the fixed income trading business and have a hefty work rig (32gb ram, core i7, SSD, 6 monitors, etc).

I have multiple applications open that are resource and ram intensive, from multiple trading platforms, Bloomberg application, java intense applications, outlook, tons of massive excel docs (with macros) all open at the same time. The highest I've ever seen my RAM usage hit is 13GB. I would never expect a laptop to be able to run all of this at once, nor would I want or need to.

I'm curious as to what you do or use a laptop for where 16GB of RAM is not sufficient. If anything, I find that there are bottlenecks such as shared Microsoft application resources, where excel would lockup access and outlook, which become problems long before reaching double digits of RAM usage.

3d art.

It isn't that hard when you have open Zbrush, Poser, Vue, Photoshop etc. Each one has it's own workspace and I alt-tab as needed.

And don't get me started on rendering - that needs every core and every byte of ram I can throw at it.
 

544263

Suspended
Feb 24, 2011
227
264
Here it is. You may want a thick semi-portable Mac Pro, because in your mind you're never far from a charger. Other people don't have the same view and need a portable workhorse that lasts for multiple hours without a charger. The latter group most likely outnumbers the former.

that other group can buy a macbook 12". period.
[doublepost=1479804412][/doublepost]
off topic but do you think there will be an magic keyboard with touch bar for the desktop?

honestly, don't care.
 

BiscottiGelato

macrumors 6502
Mar 11, 2011
323
166
This is getting ridiculous. Even the prior gen MacBook Pro 15" did not use desktop class DDR. Why does anyone expect that Apple will opt for higher power consuming DDR chips than before?

I looked this up, someone correct me if I'm wrong. Early/Mid 2015 MacBook Pro 15" uses DDR3L. Early/Mid 2015 MacBook Pro 13" uses LPDDR3. So the best one'd expect Apple to do is use DDR4L in their 2016 MacBook Pro 15". But DDR4L doesn't exist yet. And then Intel does not yet support LPDDR4....

And then people jump to the conclusion that Apple should've fatten up the 2016 MBP to accommodate for desktop DDR chips??? Which was never done before in the previous gen, thicker MBPs? So I guess people want the Mac to grow bigger than the previous gen? Do you think Apple will lose more customers with a temporary 16GB RAM limit, or lose more customer with a new form-factor that is thicker and heavier than the previous one? If anyone of you wannabe pro users are in Tim Cooks shoes, you will probably bankrupt Apple in a flash.

I can now conclude there are 2 majority class of Apple users.
1. Image conscious socialites who doesn't care what's inside the box as long as the Apple logo is there.
2. Professional wannabes that don't even know what they are talking about, and attack Apple for any change that doesn't float their niche boat.

There are things that Apple screws up on, and things that makes perfect sense. With the latter more often than the former, as between their experienced executive team and engineering team, they indeed know better than the wannabe consumers most of the time. And this time, the decision makes perfect sense to me.

It's typical that upon a big form-factor upgrade, Apple device doesn't have that much of a price/performance improvement. If you dig the new form-factor and despise the price/performance, simply just wait for refurb or the next refresh. If you don't even dig the new form-factor, then just go buy some Windows POS and stop pretending that Apple owes you something. They owes you nothing, and you owes them nothing. If you really wanna carry around a Windows brick, feel free to vote with your wallet. I'll stick with a thin and powerful package in the form of a 2016+ MacBook Pro

Again, highlighting a quote from someone that seems to knows his stuff

From https://macdaddy.io/macbook-pro-limited-16gb-ram/

"Apple have never made big compromises in their engineering, and to switch to DDR4 memory now just to support 32GB would be relatively ABSURD given the disadvantages which are outlined in this article. They would be more likely to replace the Intel CPU with their in-house manufactured ARM CPU in order to support LPDDR4." *emphasis mine​

By this logic, DDR4+32GB proponent are equally absurd.

The article also correctly points out that for those screaming, the laptop for you would've been the 17" version. But apparently that user base is too cheap and did not generate enough revenue to justify another SKU from Apple.

Power-users that must have 32GB RAM and wouldn't have mind carrying a 17" brick, what's wrong with the iMac or the Mac Pro anyways?

Another article from the same guy https://macdaddy.io/apples-new-macbook-pros/

"that 100 watt-hour ceiling, and that they are using the best components that they can given that ceiling.

Using the other 24 watt-hours available wouldn’t be enough to move the RAM & CPU up to the desktop counterparts in their laptop and still have reasonable battery life, so given the components they are restricted to using a 76 watt-hour battery is enough. With no such ceiling maybe they would have used very different components and created a larger machine. Since that was never an option that is a moot point.

This is also why the only laptops currently available which support >16GB RAM are huge, like this one which weighs 17 pounds (8KG), or are smaller but have terrible battery life. This battery capacity limitation goes a long way to explaining a lot of the problems with current laptops from all manufacturers."​

There are just such overwhelming evidence that Apple have made the correct choice on their new 13" and 15" MBPs. For those that needs more, nobody is stopping you from buying this pig.

DSC09872.0.jpg
 
Last edited:

octopi

macrumors member
Mar 27, 2014
79
197
UK
So why didn't they make the ram socketed? If they didn't solder it to the board and made it socketed the user could have upgraded the ram when the cards became available, which they will.
 
  • Like
Reactions: albebaubles

BiscottiGelato

macrumors 6502
Mar 11, 2011
323
166
So why didn't they make the ram socketed? If they didn't solder it to the board and made it socketed the user could have upgraded the ram when the cards became available, which they will.

You still don't get it. If the DDR4L spec doesn't exist, Apple is forced to go with DDR3. How do you plug in a DDR4L DIMM against a DDR3 bus? Besides, RAM have been soldered on since the last gen rMBP probably for space/airflow reasons. Which I also agree that for the minority that actually upgrades their RAM, it's probably better to improve weight/size/airflow for the rest of us.
 

jadot

macrumors 6502a
Apr 6, 2010
533
504
UK
This is why you are not the target audience. Most people use their laptop 90% on the go. Thinner, lighter, excellent battery life are very important to me. When you travel around the world every pound counts.

When I'm looking for power and flexibility in my pro spec laptop for my business every £ counts. More than a tiny increase in weight.

off topic but do you think there will be an magic keyboard with touch bar for the desktop?

Why? Because of the gimmickry of it? It doesn't make a whole load of sense to me to add a touch bar to a desktop/bluetooth keyboard. It's going to need some processing power, and a chip. What- in the keyboard? How much do you thing that's going to cost? If you really want it it might make more sense ergonomically to add it to the Magic Trackpad as a strip along the top or bottom, but I don't think that the keyboard needs to be more expensive. Think about how you might be using the touch bar and in what Apps. Do 'smart keys' make more sense?

If anything the keyboard might be improved by having an optional version with the famously missing number keypad. Y'know - without wires.

Personally I don't need any more touch interfaces for my workstation. We've got Wacom, Cintiq, Magic Trackpads, Magic Mouses, iPads & Pencils. A touchbar's gonna give me what? Some emojis?

"but it's pretty, and colourful!"

Please.
 

diipii

macrumors 6502a
Dec 6, 2012
618
552
UK
It's pretty obvious now that desktops are invisible to Apple so this was an opportunity missed to offer a world beating, tower-blasting laptop for professional use. This should have been a computer capable of easily running Avid, Da Vinci, Pro Tools etc etc and putting a revised version of FCP back on top. This should have been the Mac Pro in portable form, 17" screen, running from an AC outlet with battery backup. But Apple remains blinkered about pads and phones and associated froth, doggedly creating a reputation as the overpriced Walmart of digital toys.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Burger Thing

Sonic

macrumors regular
Aug 4, 2006
206
63
i don't want a mbp later than 2015 (don't like keyboard, touchbar, want magsafe, the port changes were too radical in one step), i don't wan't a mac pro later than 2012 (need internal storage, dual cpu, gpu options), i don't want an iphone later than SE (size, headphone, don't like haptic button), i never wanted a watch. previously i wanted everything apple made. i hope this laptop improves over the next couple of generations otherwise i'm not sure what i'll replace my 2012 with...
 

MacBH928

macrumors G3
May 17, 2008
8,749
3,903
Tim Cook thinks Jobs made Apple a success because the formula was "thinner and lighter products=money".

Jobs made Apple a success because he released a superior product in a thinner+lighter form. I hardly remember an Apple product that was released in Jobs days that people favoured the predecessor over the current except for aesthetic reasons not performance or dimensions.

Redesign of the logic boards mean that 32GB will never come to this new laptop design. So much Pro...
 
  • Like
Reactions: dysamoria

scottsjack

macrumors 68000
Aug 25, 2010
1,906
311
Arizona
Ha ha ha. 32GB RAM would have meant not making the new MacBook Pro so thin. A thicker MBP with 32GB RAM would certainly have been more "pro". It is widely believed that Apple doesn't care so much about "pro" any more.
 

mkeeley

macrumors 6502
Sep 18, 2007
444
878
I've never regretted going the Hackintosh route.

It isn't a bad option at all for a desktop, pretty straightforward if you pick the right parts. Doesn't seem so appealing for laptops. For example, just read the amount of instructions to get an XPS running and even then not everything works.
 

Smeaton1724

macrumors 6502a
Sep 14, 2011
836
806
Leeds, UK
You make fair points. I guess it's just crazy to me that people still pay $4,500 for machines they feel are so inferior.
[doublepost=1479778183][/doublepost]

I'd have to think choosing a windows machine is in the back of most of your minds then. Did anyone who needs 32GB actually just settle for the new MBP's then?

I had it in my mind that Apple wouldn't upgrade major specs since early 2015, that's why I got my 2015 machine as soon as I could at launch. Some people were thinking the 13'' Retina Pro would get Quad Core and 32GB RAM and become portable powerhouses, but when I saw what they were doing with the 'New' Macbook I had a hunch the Air/Pro would be merged and that dream wouldn't happen. Also in part due to Intel, so it is not all Apple. I went with 13'', 2.9 Ghz, 16GB RAM and 512GB SSD view a view this may happen.

I don't see how anyone who has 16GB in a Macbook Pro 2015 or earlier can justify the 2016 model at all. My next machine will either be a Dell XPS 15 or I'll build my own rig, many people are facing this decision. If you rely on computing power for work then it isn't an option. We are backed in to a corner here, the only way is to get a secondary machine. That's the thing, over time Macbooks people own will become secondary machines and they won't buy the new ones.
 
  • Like
Reactions: tf_dc and Xi Xone

mkeeley

macrumors 6502
Sep 18, 2007
444
878
Oh dear, oh my, so it would have had to have weighed more than Ive's last movement to still offer acceptable battery life? The horror! THE HORROR!!!! Won't someone think of the CHILDREN!!!! *faints*

My back hurts just thinking of picking up something heavier than a paperclip!!!

Wait, no ... it doesn't....

Let us have the OPTION to CHOOSE a thicker/heavier version, that offers better performance, a much better keyboard, and maintains decent, if not netbook/tablet-like, battery life! JFC! Not all of your users are suffering from terminal wasting diseases!!! I doubt most would mind going back to the "heavy" (EYE ROLL) 5.5 lbs of the 2012 non-retina 15" MBP. Perhaps that could include the 99.5w battery instead of a 76w battery?

Why can't Apple make at least *one* laptop that isn't a huge compromise that puts THIN above all other possible features? Especially when thin doesn't really add anything to how most people actually USE a Pro laptop?


Sigh.

I need a drink...


yada yada

apple.com/feedback

yada yada yada....

You get some who moan about a few grams extra on their phone being too heavy. You forget it's the snowflake generation.
 

zhenya

macrumors 604
Jan 6, 2005
6,931
3,681
We have simultaneous threads where people are complaining about the lack of GPU power, the lack of RAM, and the lack of battery life in these devices. If Apple made the 'Pro' machine all the complainers are asking for, it would weigh 6lbs and get 5 hours of battery life. It would appease a few of the most vocal complainers here (but then they'd find something else to complain about) and the new MBP would literally sell by the thousands. These kind of workstation replacements you are asking for are super-niche machines. No company is selling these in volume, and they don't remotely resemble anything Apple has ever built in the past. It's not going to happen, it's never happened before, and yet you still bought a MBP last time. Why?
 
  • Like
Reactions: BiscottiGelato

Chaos123x

macrumors 68000
Jul 8, 2008
1,698
34
4K of ram is all you will ever need. -_-

Seems like pros only choice these days is to build a hackintosh, or shudder switch to windows o_O

I don't ever want go back to Windows but apple has lost me as a paying customer, and I was one of those mac evangelists who convinced everyone i knew to switch to apple and bought every apple device. I don't desire any of there current products at all.
 

DrBrush

macrumors member
Apr 27, 2016
64
64
There is a lot of discussion in these forums about who needs 16 Gb RAM, whether your use case or my use case does, etc. etc.

I see Apple's point that probably only a small minority of people in the market for a MBP need / want 32 Gb RAM. What Apple need to be careful of though is that those people who are using those sort of computers are typically the people that family and friends call when they are in the market for a new computer and want some advice. So, upsetting those people is not a good idea.

I don't need 32 Gb of RAM now. I don't need a new MBP. But I have provided opinion on the purchase of literally dozens of Apple computers over the last 20 years. And the current MBP irritates me in lots of ways, but in particular the ridiculous obsession with thinness and the compromises that leads to. (And that is before you consider the state of the rest of the line-up).

So when people talk to me and I am openly discussing the possibility of my next computer running Windows (when I have been on a Mac since a Mac SE running system 6) that will have an impact. And while that impact might not show itself today or tomorrow, where will Apple be in 10 years time without the advocates like you and me?
 

Marcos Cerutti

macrumors member
Jun 2, 2009
32
5
São Paulo, Brazil
Pros can't use cable! :mad:
Charge your work tools is the ultimate drawback!

What a bloody excuse. Apple is indeed not worried about pros. Who the hell work for 10 hours a day, who cant plug its device into a charger?
 

Abazigal

Contributor
Jul 18, 2011
20,399
23,907
Singapore
Remember when Apple said they couldn't put GPS in the Apple Watch? 32gb of ram will be available in next year's model as an "innovative" feature. Early adopters always get screwed.

Lord forbid that the next update of a product be better than the previous version.
 

mtennes

macrumors newbie
Oct 5, 2005
15
11
Michigan



Apple marketing chief Phil Schiller has allegedly responded to an email from software developer Ben Slaney to further clarify why the new MacBook Pro maxes out at 16GB of RAM, noting that supporting 32GB of RAM would require a different logic board design which might reduce space for batteries.Slaney himself wrote an article explaining how the new MacBook Pro uses a low power, enhanced version of DDR3 RAM called LPDDR3E, which maxes out at 16GB. To achieve up to 32GB RAM would have required using DDR4 RAM, but its low-power variant LPDDR4 is not supported by the Intel processors powering the late 2016 models.

2016_macbook_pro_lineup.jpg

Using the iStat Menus tool, Slaney determined that, under normal conditions, the LPDDR3E RAM uses 1.5 watts of power. In comparison, he said the notebooks would use about 3-5 watts if they were using DDR4 memory, although this estimate is rather loosely based on tests of DDR4 RAM on Windows-based notebooks.

Slaney said the 2-5 watts saved translates to 10% of overall power usage being dedicated to RAM versus 20-30% that would be required for DDR4 RAM, which, if accurate, helps justify Apple's power versus performance tradeoff.

Schiller previously addressed these power concerns in an earlier comment:Apple's decision is even more justified when considering background power draw, or the energy a notebook uses to go back into sleep mode after regular usage. Slaney said this figure is estimated to be about 50% of overall power draw on an average system when using DDR4 RAM, but only 20% when using LPDDR3 RAM.

Moreover, the new MacBook Pro would get less than 7 days of standby time if it used DDR4 RAM, compared to 30 days with LPDDR3E RAM, he said.The rest of the article reflects upon poor battery life in several Windows-based notebooks with 32GB RAM, part of which can be blamed on the FAA's 100-watt-hour limit on notebook batteries brought on airplanes.

Full Article: "Why the MacBook Pro is limited to 16GB of RAM" on MacDaddy

Article Link: Phil Schiller Says 32GB RAM on New MacBook Pro Would Have Required Battery Compromising Design
 

25ghosts

macrumors 6502
Jan 31, 2008
279
388
Schiller had to come up with some kind of "plausible" explanation to this humongous disaster of a product.

Distaster in the sense of comparing it to the 2015 Model. The MBP 2016 is a GREAT piece of Machinery - if it hadn't been for the 2015 MBP-Persoective !
 
  • Like
Reactions: dysamoria
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.