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SilviaGraphics

macrumors newbie
Nov 29, 2021
4
1
M1 Max + 32 GB will keep you happy and satisfied for anything you throw at it. 3D anatomy, video editing, anything. However, if you are using this machine professionally for 3D, consider getting 64 GB as well (going by your usage of 50+ tabs plus other apps). That will set you back by a lot, but the machine will give you total satisfaction for your purpose.

At any rate, M1 Max + 32 GB should be your go-to for the use case you have.
YAY, considering I just found this Cyber Monday deal, I think I might be going with M1 Max + 32 GB indeed!
1638205667832.png

On the Apple Store that's pretty much the price you would get for M1 Pro with 16 GB...
Thank you so much, I'm off to buy! I'll come back to review as soon as I receive it!
 

hmorneau

macrumors regular
Jan 4, 2016
201
133
Unified Memory Architecture (UMA) reworks how memory allocation is done and increases its utility. macOS on Apple Silicon works more like iOS & iPadOS so needs less memory than Android or winOS $ equivalent. This led me to the 16GB model when my 2012 iMac 27" Core i7 has 32GB.

I was able to buy the 5 week old $2,499 2021 MBP 16" M1 Pro base model at $2,199 from Adorama. A $300 discount.

Expect BH Photo to price match it today for Cyber Monday.

Be aware that the lowest price the $2,399 2019 MBP 16" Core i7 base model is $1,899 so if you want that low of a price on the M1 Pro then you will need to wait at least 11-23 months from today.

Now I see specific uses cases that 64GB memory is not enough... I guess that's why you're here... your use case is <20% of all users?
Great, so explain to me why it's lagging for him here with 16GB of ram:

How is Unify memory help when you run out of it?

Before you say it's the CPU that doesn't keep up, here the same file with 32GB of ram with 2 less cpu cores:
 
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Ethosik

Contributor
Oct 21, 2009
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Great, so explain to me why it's lagging for him here with 16GB of ram:

How is Unify memory help when you run out of it?

Before you say it's the CPU that doesn't keep up, here the same file with 32GB of ram with 2 less cpu cores:
Which version is being used here? The Apple Silicon native one or the one that needs rosetta?

And honestly, I don't think we can go by anything Adobe has. I have a 1080p video that After Effects uses all my 128GB of RAM on it. But it doesn't improve things vs my 8GB of RAM system.
 

hmorneau

macrumors regular
Jan 4, 2016
201
133
Sometimes, people believe more in the magic of Apple than in the magic of Christmas.
The problem is people don't understand the basic concept, they think unified memory is something special. While in reality, it's simply that the GPU and CPU share the same pool of memory (in the end you have even less for the CPU task). Then they point you to an article that they probably didn't even read.

"Over at TechCrunch, Matthew Panazarino went even further with an M1 MacBook Pro rocking 16GB of RAM. He opened 400 tabs in Safari (plus he had a few other programs open), and it ran just fine, without any issues. Interestingly, he tried the same experiment with Chrome, but Chrome flamed out. But, he said, the rest of the system kept performing well despite the issues with Google’s browser."

Ok, so Safari has better memory management, good job Apple. And I'm so sick of that Max guy who doesn't do anything with the computer except open a bunch of apps. Well, some people buy computers to do actual work on them.
 
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Ethosik

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Oct 21, 2009
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It would matter if they both performed poorly.
Uhhhh nope it definitely matters. He is comparing M1 to Intel. So if both systems are running the intel native app, it makes sense why the M1 is performing more poorly vs the 14" intel system.
 

hmorneau

macrumors regular
Jan 4, 2016
201
133
Uhhhh nope it definitely matters. He is comparing M1 to Intel. So if both systems are running the intel native app, it makes sense why the M1 is performing more poorly vs the 14" intel system.
Nope, he is comparing the M1 Pro 32gb (8 cores) with the M1 Pro (10 cores) 16gb.
 
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Ethosik

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Oct 21, 2009
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The problem is people don't understand the basic concept, they think unified memory is something special. While in reality, it's simply that the GPU and CPU share the same pool of memory (in the end you have even less for the CPU task). Then they point you to an article that they probably didn't even read.

"Over at TechCrunch, Matthew Panazarino went even further with an M1 MacBook Pro rocking 16GB of RAM. He opened 400 tabs in Safari (plus he had a few other programs open), and it ran just fine, without any issues. Interestingly, he tried the same experiment with Chrome, but Chrome flamed out. But, he said, the rest of the system kept performing well despite the issues with Google’s browser."

Ok, so Safari has better memory management, good job Apple. And I'm so sick of that Max guy who doesn't do anything with the computer except open a bunch of apps. Well, some people buy computers to do actual work on them.
Can we PLEASE stop using X number of tabs as a benchmark? I have seen websites take up to 2GB of RAM and have heard others say a single website took 4GB of RAM once. This is NOT the 1990s. Lets stop treating websites as basic VERY SMALL text only entities.

From my testing, a single website was ranging from 150MB to 2GB of RAM. SAME WEBSITE.....Different times/days when I tested. Using the same system. It depends on what ads are showing, and what kind of media is showing at the time.
 

hmorneau

macrumors regular
Jan 4, 2016
201
133
Can we PLEASE stop using X number of tabs as a benchmark? I have seen websites take up to 2GB of RAM and have heard others say a single website took 4GB of RAM once. This is NOT the 1990s. Lets stop treating websites as basic VERY SMALL text only entities.

From my testing, a single website was ranging from 150MB to 2GB of RAM. SAME WEBSITE.....Different times/days when I tested. Using the same system. It depends on what ads are showing, and what kind of media is showing at the time.
I'm not using that, I was just quoting some nonsense, that's what those articles people are arguing in favor of 16GB are referring to. You can see Ardana's post, which was his reference for "unified memory is better".

What about "Uhhhh nope it definitely matters. He is comparing M1 to Intel."?
 
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Ethosik

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Oct 21, 2009
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I'm not using that, I was just quoting some nonsense, that's what those articles people are arguing in favor of 16GB are referring to. You can see Ardana's post, which was his reference for "unified memory is better".

What about "Uhhhh nope it definitely matters. He is comparing M1 to Intel."?
Because if its not a native version, it isn't optimized well, which leads to requiring more memory than necessary to edit a single picture? It should be obvious. Unoptimized software needs more hardware to work. So if its running under Rosetta, there is a performance penalty leading to 16GB of RAM not be enough for Lightroom depending on the version that is used.
 

jabbr

macrumors 6502
Apr 15, 2012
372
287
It's probably native because Lightroom and Photoshop ARM have been available for a while now.

It is kind of a fringe case to be dealing with such insanely high megapixel files. That video is so far the only demonstration where I've seen a tangible benefit from 32GB of RAM lol.
 

hmorneau

macrumors regular
Jan 4, 2016
201
133
It's probably native because Lightroom and Photoshop ARM have been available for a while now.

It is kind of a fringe case to be dealing with such insanely high megapixel files. That video is so far the only demonstration where I've seen a tangible benefit from 32GB of RAM lol.
yeah, lol. Like if any pro would do pro work on a pro machine. 🤪

And here another case where 64GB is better than 32GB:
It just shows that if the file you are working on is larger than your ram you're in trouble. There is no Unify memory magic or M1 prowess going on.

Apple is aware of that, hence why they made the 32gb and 64gb available on their pro machine as an option for those who need it.
 
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Adarna

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Jan 1, 2015
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Great, so explain to me why it's lagging for him here with 16GB of ram:

How is Unify memory help when you run out of it?

Before you say it's the CPU that doesn't keep up, here the same file with 32GB of ram with 2 less cpu cores:
Apple actually addresses that concern.

Many may not have noticed that these SKUs have pre-set memory sizes
  • M1 is 8GB & 16GB only
  • M1 Pro is 16GB & 32GB only
  • M1 Max is 32GB & 64GB only
So when user requires more # of GPU cores and bought the M1 Max then Apple never offered a SKU that will starve it of memory like 8GB or 16GB as it is only available with 32GB & 64GB. So the UMA magically creates memory out of nothing would rarely apply.

Outside of forums where we argue about technical specs people in the real world often times are limited by $ budget.

People like me who bought the 5 week old $2,499 2021 MBP 16" M1 Pro base model at $2,199 from Adorama. A $300 discount. Would we want the M1 Pro 32GB, hell yeah. We will only buy it if it is discounted by ≥$300.

This somewhat discriminates against those needing ≥64GB as they have a lot of VMs as it imposes more GPUs than they actually need.

From a supply chain point of view it improves inventory cost as they may make up <20% of all users that need ≥64GB memory?

My ideal SKU taking over the price points of the actual SKUs
  • M1 ideally 16GB & 32GB only
  • M1 Pro ideally 32GB & 64GB only
  • M1 Max ideally 64GB & 128GB only
Reason being 8GB shouldn't be base memory in 2020-onwards but Apple does not want their customers keeping their Macs for ~3,650 days like I do. ;-)
 
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macintoshmac

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May 13, 2010
6,089
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Apple actually addresses that concern.

Many may not have noticed that these SKUs have pre-set memory sizes
  • M1 is 8GB & 16GB only
  • M1 Pro is 16GB & 32GB only
  • M1 Max is 32GB & 64GB only
So when user requires more # of GPU cores and bought the M1 Max then Apple never offered a SKU that will starve it of memory like 8GB or 16GB as it is only available with 32GB & 64GB. So the UMA magically creates memory out of nothing would rarely apply.

Outside of forums where we argue about technical specs people in the real world often times are limited by $ budget.

People like me who bought the 5 week old $2,499 2021 MBP 16" M1 Pro base model at $2,199 from Adorama. A $300 discount. Would we want the M1 Pro 32GB, hell yeah. We will only buy it if it is discounted by ≥$300.

This somewhat discriminates against those needing ≥64GB as they have a lot of VMs as it imposes more GPUs than they actually need.

From a supply chain point of view it improves inventory cost as they may make up <20% of all users that need ≥64GB memory?

My ideal SKU taking over the price points of the actual SKUs
  • M1 ideally 16GB & 32GB only
  • M1 Pro ideally 32GB & 64GB only
  • M1 Max ideally 64GB & 128GB only
Reason being 8GB shouldn't be base memory in 2020-onwards but Apple does not want their customers keeping their Macs for ~3,650 days like I do. ;-)

Nice way to insert a backlink.
 

hmorneau

macrumors regular
Jan 4, 2016
201
133
My ideal SKU taking over the price points of the actual SKUs
  • M1 ideally 16GB & 32GB only
  • M1 Pro ideally 32GB & 64GB only
  • M1 Max ideally 64GB & 128GB only
Pretty sure that's what we will see for the M2 or M3. "Pro" laptop with only 16GB of ram it remembers me a bit the iPhone 6 with its 1GB of ram.

No one can convince me that it's a good thing to buy a 16GB ram machine in 2022. 5 years ago, maybe.

I think if someone is on a budget the best bet is the 14 inches 8 cores SOC with the 32GB option. If I was getting the 14 inch that's the machine I would get.
 

AVBeatMan

macrumors 603
Nov 10, 2010
5,965
3,847
With the new MBPs, this question is super-popular on these forums, and I see multiple posts spreading misinformation and FUD about 16Gb models, causing a bunch of people to most likely overspend of panic about their purchases.

There is a lot of misunderstanding how RAM and swap files work and, honestly, it is confusing. You’re not stupid if you take a look at your RAM usage in the Activity Monitor and think you need more because your 32Gb computer is using 25Gb RAM. Because it is complex and confusing and depends on so many factors - and it’s (probably) not your job to know these things.

We also live in the age of bloggers and YouTubers that buy insanely maxed out specs and talk about them. So you see people that even call themselves as “your average consumer” running maxed out $5000 laptops. We live in a max-out culture. And sure, if you have money to spend - why not? I mean, people buy sports cars - so why not computers? I don’t judge. But I don’t think anyone bought a Lamborghini “because they want to get to work faster” (at least I hope not).

Also, remember that with “pro” devices, a lot of people actually use them for some expensive productions where a $1000 or $2000 or $5000 difference is nothing. So if you can cut off 30 seconds of your render - why not?

There’s an old saying that “You can’t have too much RAM”. It’s not really wrong - but it’s also not really true because it implies there is no limit to how much you need. Because while having more than you need is not bad, it doesn’t mean you can’t have enough RAM.



There is a really good reason to get more RAM on your computer and there are some very real and valid scenarios where even 64Gb is not enough. It’s not a conspiracy to get you to spend more - RAM is important. But times have changed from 15 years ago. From super-fast SSDs to the fact that RAM usage isn’t raising so fast like it used to (I swear I use practically the same amount today as I did 7 years ago).

In the ancient days, when you ran out of RAM, you just couldn’t launch apps. Then came a time where you could launch them, but your system became very slow and unresponsive. These days - mostly - your system will work just as fast even when your swap is tens of gigabytes, with bunch of tabs open in your browser and files open in your app, etc.

Of course, people will be: but, but, futreproofing. Because apps require more and more RAM! My Snow Leopard Mac used 4Gb RAM and now this is not enough!

The reality is, things have changed and RAM requirements are not rising as they used to and files are not growing like they used to. The reason is that we’ve reached the limits of our own perception and the hardware is matching our needs much better than it used to - file sizes and memory requirements are growing, but not as nearly as they used to. 8 years ago you needed 8Gb RAM for all but the most demanding Photoshop work, these days you need 8Gb RAM for all but the most demanding Photoshop work. 8 years ago you needed 64 or 128Gb RAM to run a bunch of VMs or render a complex scene with thousands of multimillion 3D objects, today you also need 64 or 128Gb RAM for that.

As disk speeds become insane, the reason for having a bunch of RAM is changing. It’s not to have a responsive computer, it’s to allow workflows that require insane files to be loaded into memory at once.

You don’t need 32Gb RAM for lots of browser tabs. Swap is very efficient and you can open tons of tabs with 8Gb too.

You don’t need to keep your swap file at 0.

You don’t need 32Gb RAM because ”it’s shared memory” - shared memory doesn’t work that way.

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.

There are valid, realistic reasons to need 32 or 64Gb RAM. If you have them - you know it. And you most likely already have it in your previous computer because you can’t do your work without it. And you know the reason you need it is not futureproofing or browsing or documents.

Or you have money to throw around and just like big numbers. Perfectly good reason. It’s fine to get 32Gb or 64Gb if you can. Guess what - 64 is better than 32 and 32 is better than 16.


So, if you know you need more than 16Gb RAM…. You know and most likely - you already have it. But, to be honest, you probably don’t. You probably don‘t need an M1 MAX either - but that’s another topic. Now, do you want it? That’s a different thing. Go ahead and get it if you want it. But don’t justify it with any other reason - because some people might panic and seriously overspend on already expensive computers (and just for the record, not that it’s important but before someone assumes I’m trying to comfort myself: I could afford more and if I needed it, I wouldn’t think twice about getting it).

Anyway, here’s a nice video, if you doubt me:


EDIT: Another great video, from Dave2D saying, basically, the same thing.

A brilliant post and many thanks for this. I was/am in the same boat of thinking should I get the 32GB RAM or not. Last year it was should I get the 8GB or 16GB. I did get the 16 and have been perfectly happy with it. Going to stick with the 16GB. Thanks again.
 
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Adarna

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Pretty sure that's what we will see for the M2 or M3. "Pro" laptop with only 16GB of ram it remembers me a bit the iPhone 6 with its 1GB of ram.

No one can convince me that it's a good thing to buy a 16GB ram machine in 2022. 5 years ago, maybe.

I think if someone is on a budget the best bet is the 14 inches 8 cores SOC with the 32GB option. If I was getting the 14 inch that's the machine I would get.
Your use case me be of <20% of all Mac users.
 

richinaus

macrumors 68020
Oct 26, 2014
2,426
2,185
yeah, lol. Like if any pro would do pro work on a pro machine. 🤪

And here another case where 64GB is better than 32GB:
It just shows that if the file you are working on is larger than your ram you're in trouble. There is no Unify memory magic or M1 prowess going on.

Apple is aware of that, hence why they made the 32gb and 64gb available on their pro machine as an option for those who need it.
of course this is the case.
I have 64gb on my pro machine as I know I go over 32gb on occasion [and this can happen in client presentations]. A pro does not skimp on things like that.

this argument is only for those who don't run a business on their laptop or think 64gb is too expensive. If you need it, you buy it.
 

hmorneau

macrumors regular
Jan 4, 2016
201
133
Your use case me be of <20% of all Mac users.
Probably. But not all Mac users will buy a Macbook Pro. A Macbook air is a perfectly fine machine.

My point is they should not sell (or at least people should not buy) a Macbook Pro with 16GB of ram. I'm not saying that everyone needs>16GB. I'm talking about the target audience of a Macbook Pro.

But people can (and will) do whatever, it's their money and their choice.
 

wilberforce

macrumors 68030
Aug 15, 2020
2,929
3,204
SF Bay Area
My point is they should not sell (or at least people should not buy) a Macbook Pro with 16GB of ram. I'm not saying that everyone needs>16GB. I'm talking about the target audience of a Macbook Pro.
So what is the target audience?

I know what I think is the target audience. Anyone who is prepared to buy one. Which basically means an unlimited range of reasons, with the only limitation being the ability and willingness to pay a premium.
 
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hmorneau

macrumors regular
Jan 4, 2016
201
133
So what is the target audience?

I know what I think is the target audience. Anyone who is prepared to buy one. Which basically means an unlimited range of reasons, with the only limitation being the ability and willingness to pay a premium.

"Supercharged for pros."​


If you dig deeper in their presentation:

"M1 Pro takes the exceptional performance of the M1 architecture to a whole new level for pro users."
 
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wilberforce

macrumors 68030
Aug 15, 2020
2,929
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SF Bay Area

"Supercharged for pros."​


If you dig deeper in their presentation:

"M1 Pro takes the exceptional performance of the M1 architecture to a whole new level for pro users."
That's not the real target audience. That's what the marketing department says.

Just like the ads for things like track-performance sports cars. The actual target audience is older guys with lots of money who like to feel sporty. Not actual race car drivers.

My point is I think Apple is targeting this as a premium and higher performance product to whoever will buy it, and have a slick presentation partly to hype it up and make the buyers feel sporty about their purchases. Yes, some actual power users are in there too.

The "pro" moniker is now only a marketing term. It variously implies professional, power, performance, premium, or elite.
 
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