PSA: you probably don’t need 32 or 64Gb RAM unless you know you need it.

[hans1972]

Users Reporting 'Memory Leak' Issues After Updating to macOS Monterey

Some users who recently upgraded to macOS Monterey are experiencing a bug known as a "memory leak," a scenario in which a specific macOS...

www.macrumors.com

Never seen this meesage "run out of application memory", but mac os is using much more memory as windows and is slowing down, if the ram usage is close to the maximum physical ram capacity.

No amount of physical memory will save you from a memory leakage esp. in the operating system. It's just a matter of time before you run out of memory.

If you look at the picture in this article, Firefox is using close to 80Gb of RAM, and so 32Gb wouldn't be enough either.

 

[salvatore.p]

Please show us a video where the 16Gb slows down with some browser windows open using Safari and the video is constructed in such a way we can make sure the result is true.

If Windows doesn't use all available RAM as fast as possible it's a poorly designed operating system. There is almost no cost to using all the memory.

Why anyone would fill a MBP with only Safari windows?
What does it should mean in real world?
A tabs in background can be frozen or moved to swap when ram pressure is high and then just reloaded when user reopen it.

Those youtube videos are misleading. They pretend to dimostrate that if 16gb of ram is enough to take a lot of application (every of which is basically only opened) a 32gb upgrade is useless.

If you actually use (USE, which doesn’t means that you just open the app) just four apps (in my case: Safari (less than 6 tabs), Xcode (with a simulator), Android Studio (with simulator) and MS Teams) you will experience slowdowns with a 16gb Mac Mini.

One Android Emulator alone eats ~4,5 gb of ram.
One iPhone Simulator alone eats ~1,5gb of ram.
Android Studio alone eats ~1,5gb of ram.
MS Teams alone eats ~1gb of ram.

How can a system maintain its snappiness if more half of the ram is already taken by ACTIVELY USED?

Using one of these alone is a joke for these machines, but using all at the same time is probing.

 

[ASX]

I have no need for this macbook anymore. The eye strain is too much for me. Glare display and pwm => headache and bad focus.

I will return it and use my better windows laptop (the cpu performance is the same, the gpu, trackpad and keyboard is much better, it has dc dimming. 300 hz, much faster response times and anti glare coating. i only miss the fald hdr display there, but you can't have it all ).

 

[ErikGrim]

What part of "unless you know you need it" didn't people read?

 

[ericwn]

Why anyone would fill a MBP with only Safari windows?
What does it should mean in real world?
A tabs in background can be frozen or moved to swap when ram pressure is high and then just reloaded when user reopen it.

Those youtube videos are misleading. They pretend to dimostrate that if 16gb of ram is enough to take a lot of application (every of which is basically only opened) a 32gb upgrade is useless.

If you actually use (USE, which doesn’t means that you just open the app) just four apps (in my case: Safari (less than 6 tabs), Xcode (with a simulator), Android Studio (with simulator) and MS Teams) you will experience slowdowns with a 16gb Mac Mini.

One Android Emulator alone eats ~4,5 gb of ram.
One iPhone Simulator alone eats ~1,5gb of ram.
Android Studio alone eats ~1,5gb of ram.
MS Teams alone eats ~1gb of ram.

How can a system maintain its snappiness if more half of the ram is already taken by ACTIVELY USED?

Using one of these alone is a joke for these machines, but using all at the same time is probing.

I don’t think anyone would argue with you, it’s was more a kind reminder to back up the above claims about the superiority of Windows when it comes to RAM. Which- surprise surprise- have not been provided since ASK is now returning the machine anyway. Until their next upset post.

 

[aevan]

@aevan

Trust me . I have seen the slow down of 16 gb models with my own eyes. And i have compared Windows 11 with mac os 12 ram usage. Who has the experience you or me? And who is using a fast desktop pc for comparison? If you only use this macs, of course you don't know what fast means.

I will never understand why some users who have obviously no idea about the problems saying this is not true, because it's not in their favour, the "mighty" 16 gb mac they own is untouchable . Btw the problem i mentioned has been documented by many websites.

I’ve been using 3 different Macs with 16Gb RAM for the past 8 years, and I am using one now. Never, not once, have I seen a slowdown while browsing or doing anything similar. Of course, you might have witnessed certain slowdowns, but I doubt they were due to RAM, and even if they were, these were some very specific cases.

You’re spreading confusion and people who are less technical might start to believe you need 32Gb to get a smooth running computer. So many MacBook Airs out there, so many people without issues - and you’re trying to convince people a MacBook Pro will slow down unless it has 32Gb RAM?

I have a very fast 12-core AMD PC with 32Gb RAM and Windows 11, it does not work faster in regular tasks than my 5-year old MacBook Pro with ”just” 16Gb RAM, quite the opposite.

 

[aevan]

According to Rene Ritchie, you should always buy the maximum amount of ram if you are planning to keep the laptop for a few years.

That’s just a general advice and he certainly didn’t mean the maximum possible. In fact, he has a video where he’s talking about which MacBook Pro to buy and he says:

Now, most people won’t need more than 16 gigabytes, of course. But if you really are pushing the limits of your existing machine, if you’re doing tons of pro work in multiple pro apps across multiple pro displays all at the same time, now you can feed all those cores, all those apps and all those screens with up to 64 gigabytes.

Source:

And I would agree, if you’re doing tons of pro work in multiple pro apps across multiple pro displays all at the same time, yes, you need more than 16Gb RAM. (I would also add running a lot of VMs to that line). Some people really need more, it’s not a scam. I think the best indicator is exactly what he says: if you’re pushing the limits of your existing machine. However, even that can be tricky to tell, because it is quite possible your bottleneck is not RAM but rather CPU or GPU performance, even though you might assume otherwise.

But for a lot of people (and my guess for the vast majority of people here, based on what they are saying their usage is) no, you don’t need more. Not today, not in quite a few years from now. If you do want to buy more, sure, go ahead, I mean, you might cut a few seconds off your work from time to time and only you know if that’s worth $400 or 500 euro or whatever the cost of the upgrade is in your country.

 

[aevan]

One Android Emulator alone eats ~4,5 gb of ram.
One iPhone Simulator alone eats ~1,5gb of ram.
Android Studio alone eats ~1,5gb of ram.
MS Teams alone eats ~1gb of ram.
How can a system maintain its snappiness if more half of the ram is already taken by ACTIVELY USED?

That usage is quite fine for 16Gb RAM, because of how memory management works (system moves or compresses data around to make sure what you’re currently working on has sufficient resources). You’re nowhere near needing more with that usage and if these are your main spenders, you could probably get by with 8Gb, honestly. System will be quite snappy. You could run twice the number of apps with such usage and system would still be snappy with 16Gb.

This is based on what you wrote above, of course, there are plenty of development workflows that make good use of more than 16Gb. It depends on the projects, number of them you want open simultaneously, etc.

You need more RAM in case you need to have large files loaded into memory, so we’re talking about 20+ Gb projects that need to be loaded in entirety (so, not apps, but open projects) while you work on them (think about loading a ton of instruments in an audio project, for example). Or if you have intense swapping (the process of fast, constant moving of data in and out of memory).

 

[allnight]

The title is literally the exact same thing I say to everyone, if you need more ram you'll know, if you need to question it and can't justify it, then you don't need it. In the majority of cases, this reasoning tends to work.

 

[svenmany]

Ok, sorry, I don't have proof for 1%. But since you're obviously a man of science, lets do an experiment:


Come on, man.

So, I'm not a man of science, but let's put aside why you assume I'm a man.

Regarding your 99% of photoshop users, you probably don't have a well defined population in mind. Some could also be software developers? Some might use virtual machines? Some might be other kinds of graphic artists?

Your post explains why a typical user, while using Photoshop (and nothing else) probably won't need 32 GB of RAM. It was well reasoned. But, this thread was about how much RAM to buy.

 

[tdbrown75]

I may go ahead and buy an additional 32GB RAM, just to set it on my desk as a trinket.

Tim

 

[ericwn]

So, I'm not a man of science, but let's put aside why you assume I'm a man.

Regarding your 99% of photoshop users, you probably don't have a well defined population in mind. Some could also be software developers? Some might use virtual machines? Some might be other kinds of graphic artists?

Your post explains why a typical user, while using Photoshop (and nothing else) probably won't need 32 GB of RAM. It was well reasoned. But, this thread was about how much RAM to buy.

So the more complex and tasking users would then fall in the category that know they need more RAM, right?

 

[ASX]

I have a very fast 12-core AMD PC with 32Gb RAM and Windows 11, it does not work faster in regular tasks than my 5-year old MacBook Pro with ”just” 16Gb RAM, quite the opposite.

I have 5900X @ 4.5 ghz all core equipped with pcie x4 4.0 ssd and it's a lot faster than this mac book pro m1 max.
And the pwm flickering + glare display is so much annoying. I have to return it.

I forced me to use it yesterday a longer time. Omg. Afterwards i knew what people are talking about eye strain and bad focus.

 

[aevan]

I have 5900X @ 4.5 ghz all core equipped with pcie x4 4.0 ssd and it's a lot faster than this mac book pro m1 max.
And the pwm flickering + glare display is so much annoying. I have to return it.

I forced me to use it yesterday a longer time. Omg. Afterwards i knew what people are talking about eye strain and bad focus.

Ok, so you generally just dislike the computer. In the past few days I’ve seen you complain about macOS design, price, performance and now pwm flickering. Obviously, this is not a computer for you - return it. This is perfectly fine, not every product is for everyone and you have every right not to like something. But stop convincing people you need 32Gb just to get smooth operation on this computer, because that is just not true.

 

[aevan]

So, I'm not a man of science, but let's put aside why you assume I'm a man.

It was a phrase, but I apologize. I try not to use gender specific terms, but English is not my first language and I make mistakes. I apologize, again.

Regarding your 99% of photoshop users, you probably don't have a well defined population in mind. Some could also be software developers? Some might use virtual machines? Some might be other kinds of graphic artists?

Your post explains why a typical user, while using Photoshop (and nothing else) probably won't need 32 GB of RAM. It was well reasoned. But, this thread was about how much RAM to buy.

Erm, this thread is about typical users, including typical professionals and how they either need more RAM and know it, or they don’t need more RAM. Of course there are use cases where you need more, as you have described. But, again, for the vast majority of users, including Photoshop users, 16 is fine.

 

[ASX]

I dont dislike the computer at all. The low noise levels, hdr and the battery life while using it for office things is nice. But there are too much downsides which i can't put up with.

Nobody would accept only soldered 16 gb shared ram (this ram is not only for the cpu tasks) for a multiple thousand us dollar laptop. But it's Apple. It's so "special", we try to deal with this nonsense customer looting approach.

You are trying to whitewash this tiny amount of ram by telling people 16 gb shared memory is enough for you.

Every browser tab is consuming 150-3XX MBytes. The base system is consuming around 5000 MBytes.

You can calculate by your own which amount of ram is enough when 12-13 gb used is causing a significant slow down.

 

[randolorian]

What about the fact that memory is shared between CPU, GPU, and Neural Engine on the new MBP? I could see 16GB working fine on an Intel Mac but not being enough on an M1 Mac because of the unified memory architecture.

 

[Samuelsan2001]

What about the fact that memory is shared between CPU, GPU, and Neural Engine on the new MBP? I could see 16GB working fine on an Intel Mac but not being enough on an M1 Mac because of the unified memory architecture.

Seems to be a complete non issue as far as I can tell from every review and report I have seen.

 

[davidako]

What about the fact that memory is shared between CPU, GPU, and Neural Engine on the new MBP? I could see 16GB working fine on an Intel Mac but not being enough on an M1 Mac because of the unified memory architecture.

Numerous benchmarks and stress tests prove the opposite.

If you want to give Apple extra hundreds of dollars then spend it on SSD which will actually improve your laptop.

 

[c0mm0n]

Got the 16 Max 32 on day 1, just ordered the 64
I get the nagging screen of ram overload a lot (ok prob a software fix coming)
I don't have leakage per activity monitor, just safari and chrome with dozens of tabs etc...
Didn't even spin a vm yet.
Noticed it started to appear when I plugged external monitor, didn't see it before (GPU prob eating more ressources with external).

Coming from a 32 + 8gb egpu, I'm now "just" 32 and feels like this computer is just too good to not be maxed out.

As a poweruser and If u can afford, just max it.

 

[CarbonCycles]

I can only imagine what the chip architects and system designers are: 1) laughing hysterically at the amount of misunderstanding presented above and 2) cringing on what ppl consider reality

We should probably go back to scrutinizing just how saturated the display are...something more realistic and tangible for everyday use.

 

[ASX]

People without any idea about ram, were thinking the same, regarding the 4 gb hbm of AMD Fury in 2015.

The hbm is so fast, i didn't need more ram 🤣. This macbook pro has only tlc nand flash for swap and some people think the swap is fast enough to compensate the lack of ram. Ram can't be compensated by flash. Flash has only a tiny bandwith of 100-5300 MByte/s depending on the file size. The ram of m1 pro has 200.000 mbyte/s and m1 max 400.000 mbyte/s.

 

[salvatore.p]

That usage is quite fine for 16Gb RAM, because of how memory management works (system moves or compresses data around to make sure what you’re currently working on has sufficient resources). You’re nowhere near needing more with that usage and if these are your main spenders, you could probably get by with 8Gb, honestly. System will be quite snappy. You could run twice the number of apps with such usage and system would still be snappy with 16Gb.

You should try before advising that for that kind of workflow 8gb of ram are enough.

I, with my own eyes, can see slowness on a 16gb M1 Mini. Which I need to use 8 straight hour a day, 5 day a week.
And I can assure you that the slowness appears after a couple of hours of usage, not instantly. The more the system needs to store and compress pages of memory and the more slow became.

Of course, I can get the job done even with this constrain.
That M1 mini is leased from my work company, I have got for free.
If I plan to spend 3050€ on a personal 16” I prefer to spend 3500€ and get a comfortable amount of ram, and not deal with slowness.


People can draw optimistic conclusions watching a youtube testing these machine for less than an hour, but real world is different.

 

[ASX]

Ask this people the same about a desktop computer or non soldered ram laptop. Would they keep 16 gb instead of more? Nope. Because normally addtional ram is pretty cheap and the upgrade is easy. Nobody would start a fundamental discussion about ram usage .

 

[BB8]

If my memory pressure is still showing in the green, does that mean it's ok to just stick with 16gb?

Not really doing anything intensive, but I frequently have 30~ chrome tabs, outlook, word, teams, acrobat and maybe spotify or excel/powerpoint running. It gets to around 13GB of usage out of 16GB and 3GB swap.

I would spring for 32gb if it weren't $340 by itself. That's the price of a brand new OLED Switch... Feel like it should be like $200.