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

[AFK]

Max Tech is good fun though. It’s pure entertainment and you need to approach it with a critical mind and knowledge of what their numbers actually mean, but still, good fun. Neither Max n’or Vadim are *that* knowledgable about hardware or software, really. But Max is a super talented photographer and the photography content he made before he got big with tech and started Max Tech (originally only had the Max Yuryev channel) really demonstrated his talent.
But all three of the siblings just have good charisma and make videos that are fun to watch, albeit often a slight bit frustrating because you know the meaning of the values will be misinterpreted by a lot of people who take the information at face value

all good and fun mate! think i'm getting maxtech fatigue today cause i've seen this video posted so many times by many diff members here today. probably speaks more about me having to take a break from macrumors (im new) than anything

 

[casperes1996]

all good and fun mate! think i'm getting maxtech fatigue today cause i've seen this video posted so many times by many diff members here today. probably speaks more about me having to take a break from macrumors (im new) than anything

I know what you mean. You can see things repeated a fair bit. I visit MacRumors like 25 times throghout a day probably, haha. Sometimes just the front page, seeing if there’s anything new or any notifications from the forums, other times more.
But I think in this MaxTech case it’s more just that people are excited for the new laptops, share all the content they find on it, and a lot of people follow MaxTech so their content comes up a lot

 

[haruhiko]

You absolutely DON'T need to believe youtubers, especially the MaxTech.
One has to have critical thinking ability: this video makes no sense except one thing.
It is useful to know: that you are doing only one task at a time then you should buy 16GB and save your money.
But the reality is very different. You don't use Lightroom with Photoshop open at the same time.
You either us one of them, or if you opened both then the PRO doing that is switching back and forth between photoshop, lightroom and probably some video editing software. That is how you know how your RAM works.
Are you sitting still like MaxTech and staring at the percentage graph while your video is rendering in FCPX? C'mon, if i wanted to read a news, drink coffee, take a walk then i would stick with my MBP 2012 - i had to do, because while rendering it was frozen hard so no browsing.
Are you buying new MBP to watch how it renders? Most people will just go browsing on the same laptop, this is what he never shown us.
You saw that yellow memory pressure? I seee it everyday on my 8GB Air and I know for a fact that browsing at yellow zone causes lags and stutters all over there. While 32 GB is in low green zone.

Also stop telling about fast SSDs and swap on it. Don't lie to yourself. Any more or less in the know person knows that SSD have huge latency to read/write, then it has speed only for sequential read/write of large files at 7GB/s.
RAM has a speed of 40GB+/s and has lower latency and doesn't care about the size of your files.
What does it give it to you? Well just try it yourself, try to copy big bunch of small 100-200Kb files from ssd to ssd and then see what was the speed. Current SSDs have VERY low speed of writing for small files. What is SSD swap we all talking about? Go find your system swap files: they are small sizes but a lot of them.
View attachment 1899240
Here is the latest samsung 980 Pro. Good luck with 87/205 MB/s read/write speeds to be on par with your RAM when swapping.

==================
TLDR: Current 32GB is nowadays 16GB. 16GB is a bare minimum like the 8GB was before.

I absolutely should not trust Max Tech which I’ve been watching their videos since the Max Yuryev personal channel for many years, but I absolutely should trust a random commentator on MacRumors forums. It’s just the fact.

 

[ctjack]

Just look at the benchmarks dude. When swap is involved almost no performance penalty. There's more going on than simply 'using swap bad'.

One swap is not equal to another swap. When you work you can accrue critical swap: that is when offload to SSD happens and you make it upload back to RAM again really fast. That is let's say when you are rendering a video, you don't want to lose 10 minutes time and start editing in Lightroom, while switching to your "tutorial" video in Safari tab, while also having bunch of tabs.
Non-critical swap: when you like MaxTech just open bunch of tabs, open lightroom but hide it in tray and start rendering a video. Swap occurs here, but it is not time/speed sensitive - your ssd could be slow but you don't care because it is offloading RAM to SSD at its' own pace. So you never notice that.

Just look at the benchmarks dude. When swap is involved almost no performance penalty. There's more going on than simply 'using swap bad'.

Please see above. Benchmarks he is doing are all static.
Example: we have 2 men.
Men 1: handles 300 LB today.
Men 2: handles 300 LB today.
Are they are equally strong?
Men 1: bench pressed that 300 LB at once.
Men 2: moved 7 packs with water to his house.
That is the difference between static ram usage/swap and dynamic ram usage.

I absolutely should not trust Max Tech which I’ve been watching their videos since the Max Yuryev personal channel for many years, but I absolutely should trust a random commentator on MacRumors forums. It’s just the fact.

You shouldn't trust me either: go test it for yourself and stick with the option that works for you. Watch for yellow, red pressure as a sign.
I am personally going with 16GB because i would rather spend that $400 for MBP 16 2022 let's say. And i agree to be limited at times (when RAM will be in yellow zone) because i have no spare $400 to throw at it.

 

[Mr. Dee]

My M1 has 8 GBs of RAM and its enough for my needs. On my 2015 MBP which also has 8 GBs of RAM I occasionally will run a few Windows VMs, which also includes Windows 11. macOS does a pretty good job as the host even when I have a Windows 11, legacy NT 4 and 2000 VMs running at the same time and sometimes XP. But since Microsoft has not plans to support Windows on ARM Macs; and virtualization products like VMWare and VirtualBox have pushed aside efforts or ideas about support ARM Macs; having more than 8 doesn't make sense for my usage.

 

[adamk77]

You absolutely DON'T need to believe youtubers, especially the MaxTech.
One has to have critical thinking ability: this video makes no sense except one thing.

I read about this channel on Reddit. Someone claimed that this is the channel that tried to benchmark the SSD by renaming files and also preached that unified memory equates to more memory. And because of this magic memory, they also said that Apple wouldn't be releasing 64GB machines.

I agree that I would take it with a large grain of salt. These manufactured tests are not indicative of how real people use computers. If I were to spend an extended duration exporting videos, I would be using my computer for many other things during the process. Things like video calls or screen sharing are normal activities, so I'd derive much more value from tests like this.

 

[ctjack]

I read about this channel on Reddit. Someone claimed that this is the channel that tried to benchmark the SSD by renaming files and also preached that unified memory equates to more memory. And because of this magic memory, they also said that Apple wouldn't be releasing 64GB machines.

Yeah, this is the type of people like famous Verge video on applying thermal paste to CPU, instead of a pea size they just smashed it like in toothpaste ads.
MaxTech famous for telling that RAM speed calculates as follows: DDR3 speed - 2133Mhz * 3 = 6,399 mhz. DDR4 Ram in new Macs: 3200*4=12800 mhz 2 times faster RAM with new Macbooks.

Things like video calls or screen sharing are normal activities, so I'd derive much more value from tests like this.

That is all what we need. There is still no real world difference video of 8GB vs 16GB for M1 Air. I was bought on videos telling that 8GB is enough and now it feels struggling at times (M1 Air 8Gb) and i would've absolutely sprung on 16GB.
I only know that 8Gb is not enough for me because i am way out of return window - that is how it works in real life, you need some time to test/stretch the system while doing everyday workflow.

 

[AFK]

Yeah, this is the type of people like famous Verge video on applying thermal paste to CPU, instead of a pea size they just smashed it like in toothpaste ads.
MaxTech famous for telling that RAM speed calculates as follows: DDR3 speed - 2133Mhz * 3 = 6,399 mhz. DDR4 Ram in new Macs: 3200*4=12800 mhz 2 times faster RAM with new Macbooks.

That is all what we need. There is still no real world difference video of 8GB vs 16GB for M1 Air. I was bought on videos telling that 8GB is enough and now it feels struggling at times (M1 Air 8Gb) and i would've absolutely sprung on 16GB.
I only know that 8Gb is not enough for me because i am way out of return window - that is how it works in real life, you need some time to test/stretch the system while doing everyday workflow.

oh brother. u fell for the trap? i've been told by many to buy the 8gb m1 and glad i didn't. i didn't spend all that time and money earning comp sci b.s. and m.s. degrees taking annoyingly difficult courses on operating systems, circuit design, algorithms etc and then work my ass off at faang maang whatever company to drink the koolaid that these click baity yt experts are selling.

soc doesn't magically increase your memory. productivity in software can happen because tools get easier to use. these higher level languages and tools and increased abstractions don't happen for free. they take extra computing and memory. software continues to become bloatware with web based apps built on electron while ignoring native technologies because it's easier and faster to build.

apple managed to pull a rabbit out of its hat with the m1. yeah it performs better with less. but that doesn't negate comp sci / eng fundamentals.

 

[smirking]

16gb is not the new 8gb. 16gb is still plenty, and 32gb is excessive unless you have a special need for it, in which you know what that is.

And an 8GB machine is actually quite capable! If you're just doing routine everyday tasks, even 16GB is overkill. I know of several front end developers who opted for 8GB M1 Airs and it's doing everything they need it to do. I had an 8GB M1 for a couple of weeks this summer and it performed with hardly a hiccup despite being utterly overloaded the whole time.

 

[ctjack]

web based apps built on electron

MS Teams kills my Air all day and makes huge difference with or without it. But i can't turn it off because of my work.

oh brother. u fell for the trap?

Yeah, i jumped from my 16Gb Win machine to this 8Gb Air. Well i have to give credits: it is good until you stretch it. But the performance is coming from CPU but not RAM. MacOS efficiency help a lot but that can't defy physics.
My 8Gb Air feels less snappier than my returned 16Gb Win machine. It is just MacOS is more productive for my productivity workflow: take screenshots, switch desktops, use swipes and etc.

I am and was always $1000 laptop guy. I buy $1000 laptop used for $800 or splurge for $1200 one, but never considered $500-$800 Win cheapos and never felt overpaying for $2000+ Win or Macs.
What i am trying to say here that any respectable manufacturer in Windows world offers you 16Gb of Ram right now for $1000 range. 16Gb is a base standard when you enter the midgrade laptops range. 32Gb is for more involved people, but 16Gb is absolute base. Apple is getting away with 8Gb because of greed and MacOS efficiency. They also had to cut corners to equip Air with metal build quality, speakers, screen, battery life(15 hrs) and arm CPU. That is why 8Gb offering exists - to cover up other associated costs.

 

[Sanpete]

What was said is just wrong. OSX cannot magically create ram from nothing, and you do not want to rely on swap for your deficiencies, and even so, OSX will stall if you overload it and hit a ram issue.

Please quote what he said that was wrong.

Most people will just go browsing on the same laptop, this is what he never shown us.
You saw that yellow memory pressure? I seee it everyday on my 8GB Air and I know for a fact that browsing at yellow zone causes lags and stutters all over there. While 32 GB is in low green zone.

He thought he showed you can do the browsing too, with numerous tabs and videos running. He didn't spend much time with them to verify they weren't misbehaving, though. No doubt a more rigorous test could be done, but I suspect based on what he did show that 16GB would be plenty to do the rendering while browsing, no problem.

Also stop telling about fast SSDs and swap on it. Don't lie to yourself. Any more or less in the know person knows that SSD have huge latency to read/write, then it has speed only for sequential read/write of large files at 7GB/s.

And yet what he was doing was working fine, apparently.

 

[selamet]

You don’t need to buy 32 or 64Gb RAM because you intend to keep your computer for 6-7 years, because your GPU or CPU or other parts of the computer will be way more of a bottleneck than RAM after that time (assuming anything is a bottleneck for your workflow in that time). Your 16Gb RAM MBP will be just fine in 6 years, and nice and fast and if it won’t - it probably won’t be because of RAM.

This is totally misleading. My 2015 macbook air, has only bottleneck in ram which is 4gb.Cpu and Gpu is enough for daily daily usage.

For avarage usage upgrading Ram or Storage has much more impact than upgrading Cpu or Gpu. The thing is when you upgrade cpu you get and avarage performance boost about %5-%30. But when you upgrade ram 16gb to 32gb you double the amount of ram space. This means you can multi-task more, you dont need to close apps etc.

 

[ctjack]

And yet what he was doing was working fine, apparently.

And yet he will buy himself 32Gb or 64Gb for use because "I will never load it this far and 16Gb would work for me easily".

They are real fraudsters. I remember watching 12 Pro Max videos, and one of them said: "This thing is bulky and my hands are tired, so i am switching to the regular Pro and getting rid of Max". Yet he still was making videos of laptops, ipads and he was running stopwatch on his 12 Pro Max which he claimed to get rid of.

 

[Sanpete]

This is totally misleading. My 2015 macbook air, has only bottleneck in ram which is 4gb.Cpu and Gpu is enough for daily daily usage.

For avarage usage upgrading Ram or Storage has much more impact than upgrading Cpu or Gpu. The thing is when you upgrade cpu you get and avarage performance boost about %5-%30. But when you upgrade ram 16gb to 32gb you double the amount of ram space. This means you can multi-task more, you dont need to close apps etc.

What's true of your Air with 4GB may not be true of the M1 Pro/Max with 16.

And yet he will buy himself 32Gb or 64Gb for use because "I will never load it this far and 16Gb would work for me easily".

As far as I can tell, he buys them for review. Fact remains, in any case, that what he did appears to work fine, despite your theoretical objections.

 

[selamet]

What's true of your Air with 4GB may not be true of the M1 Pro/Max with 16.

Not sure about that.

7 years ago 4gb was the base spec.
Today 16gb is the base spec.
7 years later, 16gb will be like 4gb in present days.

Of course there is mba and mbp difference. and also new unified memory thing.

 

[ctjack]

7 years ago 4gb was the base spec.
Today 16gb is the base spec.

Very true. My Dell xps had 4gb of RAM in 2011. It felt fine up until i got 8gb MBP 13 retina. That thing was a beast and was usable for 8 years up until 2020 Nov. Mostly just because of "upgraded" 8Gb of Ram while 4gb was standard for that model year. In the meantime of 8 years, i have seen Air user upgrading twice because they were hold back only with 4gb of Ram limitations.

 

[Sanpete]

Of course there is mba and mbp difference. and also new unified memory thing.

Exactly.

 

[Santabean2000]

I was with you but then I kinda expected a deeper technical discussion since you said there is lots of FUD and misunderstanding, but you didn’t deliver anything more than an opinion without much evidence. I fail to see how this is any different than the now numerous threads on this issue. I’d like a more specific technical discussion of how macOS leverages RAM and how these new CPUs share memory for graphics.

Agreed. More facts and less opinions are what I'm after.

I know for me, I hate having to micromanage my usage and just want to have enough RAM that I don't have to even think about it any more.

Sometimes X amount is enough, but you can spend time/energy thinking about it after purchase, when simply getting X+ means you can get on with your work/play.

For me, I have a 16GB Air; pleased I didn't skimp for the 8GB.

 

[patrick.a]

Maybe I can ask a question here for my specific scenario: I've got a MP with 96GB and a MBP 2018 with 32GB as my work-machines. Wondering if I can "downgrade" to 16GB with the new MBP. So I opened up two CAD-files and one InDesign-file - each around 8GB of Ram - on a M1 Mac Mini with 16GB. The Mini compressed and swapped the Ram, going from one file to the other felt slow and at one point InDesign crashed. My MP doesn't have any problems with that neither does my MBP - even though it might melt and throttle while doing that and then crash for that reason.

Videos / opinions like the one from Max Tech really confuse me. What I wonder is: Does the Mac Mini struggle in this use case because the M1 is not powerful enough, or because there is not enough Ram and the SSD is not fast enough for swapping in this machine? And how comes Max Tech doesn't seem to have those problems when he's clearly pushing the MBPs over their RAM-limits?

 

[businessnumbersmoneypeopl]

For web surfing and Office apps with lots of tabs / windows open, 8 gb is painfully little. 16 gb is enough today and might be enough also in the future. 32 gb is future proofing that may or may not be needed. As simple as that.

 

[Kylo83]

You need more ram as it’s hated with vram for gpu normally u don’t but as it’s shared you need more

 

[salvatore.p]

Most of the people who buys these new machines are doing not because they actually need more power (hence ram requirement) but because they like the new design or the awesome screen or just need/like a 16" over a 13". And from my point of view is totally fine.

The average consumer probably can "work" just fine with an M1 Air (where only the 256gb SSD feels restrictive for future usage).

Then there are youtubers who are buying maxed out configs just because people want to see how an insanely spec machine performs.
I watched MaxTech's video and I found not very esplicative of my use case. He runs his benchmark suite watching only for the result. That video claims to analyze also software developers use case, but he didn't even open Xcode!!
Sure, his Xcode benchmark can show up compile time differences between the two config, but real developer are dealing with Xcode's source code editor and autocompletion plugins for 8-10 hours a day and they concern more of that experience instead a 2-4 seconds less/more compile times.
I would take his though for everything but video editing with a grain of salt.


For pros who really need more power or more ram than an M1 Air getting the right spec'd machine is all a matter of how much they want to spent.
I'm very undecided between 16gb and 32gb. I know (as a software developer) I need that extra ram for a pleasing experience but I have a really hard time justifying me the extra 400€. If it was 200€ like 512Gb->1Tb I would have took without hesitation.
This upgrade alone is worth a 20% of the entire price of the machine, and of course if money aren't a thing why not get 64gb of ram?

 

[NewUsername]

Tech advice has become really easy nowadays. Two simple rules:

1. Get the base model MacBook Air.
2. If you would need more than the base model MacBook Air, you would already know what you need by now.

 

[soulreaver99]

1. Max Tech ?
2. Don't tell me how to live my life.

If I could get 2TB of RAM to browse through forums, Twitter and reddit, I would. ?

 

[Romain_H]

I remember there was this one guy who once said we'd never need more than 640KB of RAM. People laugh about that now.

Yeah, well, apparently this guy never actually said that. He denies having said that categorically and noone ever came forth who witnessed him saying that.
Its an urban myth (similar to the myth that the very same guy once saved Apple).

Just saying ?