RAM equivalence i9 MBP to 2024 M3 Max

[Azedquery]

Problem: Replacing faulty maxed-out MBP with M3 Max, trying to understand RAM requirement, no equivalence tables seem to exist.

• Spec (OLD) late 2019 16" MBP, 2.4GHz 8‑core Intel i9, AMD Radeon Pro 5500M w/ 8GB GDDR6, 64GB 2666MHz DDR4, 1TB SSD)
• Spec (NEW) 2024 16" MBP M3 Max, 16-core CPU, 40-core GPU, 16-core Neural, 48GB unified memory, 1TB SSD

Background: Intel Mac was adequate to all tasks until fault developed ± 20 months in and multiple repairs failed. RAM mostly in the green, handled multiple apps and insane no. of browser tabs (yeah I know, but that's how I work). Disk swapping only occurred with high-res billboard size PS files. Apple claims only half the RAM is required on M3M compared to Intel, but is yet to provide evidence for this beyond 'we say so' and (in response to my concern) 'swapping to hard disk (ie the very thing I try to avoid at all costs) is so fast it is 'unnoticeable' and 'seamless' because integrated build means data doesn't have to travel.

My concern is Apple sales and support knowledge seems geared towards casual users, and I've noticed they typically try to persuade you to buy the lowest possible stock spec - and I got burnt by that previously. I'm a pro photographer / retoucher and I'm struggling to find credible evidence to support Apple's claim with photo apps and workflow; most benchmark (and 'real life') tests seem geared towards casual users, video / content creators and gamers, and most photography-oriented reviews provide pretty words with little substance that mainly just quote Apple marketing. However, the few fellow photographers I've found with similar workflows say the amount of RAM on M3 needs to be the same as it was on Intel, if not more, given dedicated GPUs no longer possible.

Since my apps are RAM hogs, require 5GB each to operate, and not optimised to take full advantage of multi core processors, I'm struggling to understand Apple's logic that a fast processor combining CPU, GPU, RAM and SSD halves RAM requirement, especially since that RAM is shared by the O/S and graphics aren't offloaded to separate GPU. I'm aso unconvinced that disk swapping will be as unnoticeable as described above.

Applications / workflow: Adobe Lightroom Classic, Photoshop, Topaz usually all running together, sometimes with InDesign and/or large MS Powerpoint files open simultaneously, plus admin/research/comms tools: multiple browser tabs, Mail, Slack, VPN, password manager, Zotero, MS Word etc.). Each Adobe app required 5GB RAM to itself.

• LRC: import hundreds of large photos, (eg 700 x 50MB RAW files), generate 1:1 Previews, process, export and edit in PS and/or Topaz, edit, save back, export.
• PS files usually large, multi-layerd high res, e.g. 360ppi A1 files, 20-60 layers, 1-2GB. Often several open at once.
• Peripherals: 2 x 4k monitors, 2 TB SSD, 16TB RAID, 2 x 16TB backup drives, 2 x printers.

Can any techs familiar with RAM-hungry photography apps / multi-tasking creatives advise please? My life would be easier if my concerns are unfounded, but if I'm right, I need to know ASAP. Many thanks!

 

[aakshey]

You previously had 64 gigs plus 8 gigs of graphics memory, that’s a total of 72 gigs of memory (in contrast to 48 gigs of unified memory)

IMO for serious work RAM is RAM, 48 gb is 48 gb is 48 gb

You should buy a minimum of 72 unified

However, considering 5 years have passed since your previous purchase and considering apps for AI etc might be complete hogs, you might want to look at more depending on the use case

If however you were consistently using under 32 GB (excluding graphics memory), you might be fine with 48 gigs as well

 

[FreakinEurekan]

RAM is RAM, 48 gb is 48 gb is 48 gb

Exactly. OP was tl;dr but if memory pressure is constantly green on the old Mac, then 48GB may be fine on the new.

 

[Paul Deemer]

If your looking at the 16" Max and worried about the Ram then upgrade to 64gb for the extra $200
64gb sould be more than enough and M3 Max will be like night and day over your intel.

 

[Azedquery]

If your looking at the 16" Max and worried about the Ram then upgrade to 64gb for the extra $200
64gb sould be more than enough and M3 Max will be like night and day over your intel.

Agreed – simple logic – but unfortunately not the issue here. It's a warranty replacement for which they tried to give me a 36GB. I refused, and they agreed the 48GB - but charged me £500. The store is unable to upgrade it further even if I pay; I have to accept stock spec. I'm researching b/c I have to consider whether I continue fighting this 'compu-er says naaah' situation.

 

[theluggage]

Agreed – simple logic – but unfortunately not the issue here. It's a warranty replacement for which they tried to give me a 36GB. I refused, and they agreed the 48GB - but charged me £500. The store is unable to upgrade it further even if I pay; I have to accept stock spec. I'm researching b/c I have to consider whether I continue fighting this 'compu-er says naaah' situation.

Did it fail, or was it accidental damage/wear/battery? If you can prove it was a manufacturing fault - since you're presumably in the UK - your statutory rights for repair/replacement last up to 6 years and might be better than the warranty. Main reason for an extended warranty in the UK is to get accidental damage cover.

Otherwise it probably comes down to the small print of the warranty rather than technical discussions over RAM, and they've probably made themselves the sole arbiter of what constitutes an "equivalent replacement". Trouble is, there are no direct equivalents between i9 and M3 Max... and in the new Apple Silicon regime getting more than 36GB entails also getting the 16/40 core M3 Max CPU upgrade (which is a massive upgrade from an 8 core i9!).

How much did you pay for the i9? It wasn't cheap, and didn't have upgradeable RAM so you must have shelled out about £800 extra to get 64GB... If they're trying to fob you off with a significantly cheaper product then you may have an argument - however, I suspect that the 16-core M3 Max makes the new model rather more expensive.

As others have said - Apple Silicon doesn't magically pack more data into the same RAM, but it can cope better with occasional swapping. if you need 64GB you need 64GB, so the real question is whether your workflow actually needs 64GB (as measured by consistently high memory pressure). If not, the M3 Max should be a significant upgrade.

Of course, the problem is caused by Apple charging silly amounts for RAM upgrades. 64GB is not a huge amount of RAM in 2024 and ought to be a no-brainer for anybody needing the CPU/GPU power of a M3 Max.

 

[Azedquery]

Did it fail, or was it accidental damage/wear/battery? If you can prove it was a manufacturing fault - since you're presumably in the UK - your statutory rights for repair/replacement last up to 6 years and might be better than the warranty. Main reason for an extended warranty in the UK is to get accidental damage cover.

Otherwise it probably comes down to the small print of the warranty rather than technical discussions over RAM, and they've probably made themselves the sole arbiter of what constitutes an "equivalent replacement". Trouble is, there are no direct equivalents between i9 and M3 Max... and in the new Apple Silicon regime getting more than 36GB entails also getting the 16/40 core M3 Max CPU upgrade (which is a massive upgrade from an 8 core i9!).

How much did you pay for the i9? It wasn't cheap, and didn't have upgradeable RAM so you must have shelled out about £800 extra to get 64GB... If they're trying to fob you off with a significantly cheaper product then you may have an argument - however, I suspect that the 16-core M3 Max makes the new model rather more expensive.

As others have said - Apple Silicon doesn't magically pack more data into the same RAM, but it can cope better with occasional swapping. if you need 64GB you need 64GB, so the real question is whether your workflow actually needs 64GB (as measured by consistently high memory pressure). If not, the M3 Max should be a significant upgrade.

Of course, the problem is caused by Apple charging silly amounts for RAM upgrades. 64GB is not a huge amount of RAM in 2024 and ought to be a no-brainer for anybody needing the CPU/GPU power of a M3 Max.

Thanks. You've confirmed the conclusions I've arrived at after days of research. In answer to queries:

It failed. (It's a warranty replacement, not accidental damage). Perfect for ±18 months, took a few more months before I realised random problems with different peripherals were caused by port failures on Mac. 1st repair successful for a few months, gradually failed again. 2nd repair more extensive, but different parts. Unsuccessful. 3rd 'repair' returned a useless BRICK, so unresponsive it took 2 weeks just to load / config standard MS / Adobe apps. (Display issues, kicking off external disks, crashing and so slow I could barely type or dictate. (With/without peripherals attached).

£value Can't recall, but a lot; I maxed out spec. I think you nailed it; Apple seems to be looking at £ value, not spec equivalence, and M3s v costly compared to Intel if more than base spec.

RAM: Yes, I needed the 64GB on Intel. RAM stress was mainly in green, but I kept it there consciously by closing apps where necessary. (Although my multi-app / multi-files / huge size workflow is little insane, I understand reasonable limits of h/w - at least with Intel; learning curve with M3). It struggled with Topaz AI-driven processes on large files and resorted to swapping with 16GB+ PS files (as expected), but was adequate to day-to-day workflows involving big LR Cats, multiple multi-layered PS files, plus various research and presentation apps.

One Apple Genius agreed same RAM required, but didn't want to push this with manager; a Senior Tech suggested the equivalent needed to be higher to match RAM + 8GB on intel Mac's dedicated GPU, but the next one disagreed. I guess there's a script they're required to stick to.

So, Apple is trying to persuade me that (a) faster processor compensates for half the RAM (which I can see could work for apps that leverage multicore processors, but Adobe PS and LR prefer to eat RAM). And (b) that I don't need RAM (quoting 'average user' requirements, or perhaps influenced by Disk Utility grabs (with RAM hogging apps not in use) supplied as evidence that Mac grinding to a halt wasn't due to under-specced h/w or huge files.

 

[Andrey84]

Agreed – simple logic – but unfortunately not the issue here. It's a warranty replacement for which they tried to give me a 36GB. I refused, and they agreed the 48GB - but charged me £500. The store is unable to upgrade it further even if I pay; I have to accept stock spec. I'm researching b/c I have to consider whether I continue fighting this 'compu-er says naaah' situation.

Then you don't have a choice to get 64GB anyway, do you? Of course you should have 48GB, not 36GB.

£500 is an absolute rip-off for this. What did your initial M3 machine have?

For professional use, I don't think the £500 saving is worth risking having performance issues down the line due to running out of memory.

 

[Azedquery]

Then you don't have a choice to get 64GB anyway, do you? Of course you should have 48GB, not 36GB.

£500 is an absolute rip-off for this. What did your initial M3 machine have?

For professional use, I don't think the £500 saving is worth risking having performance issues down the line due to running out of memory.

Old MBP was Intel i9, 64GB + 8GB AMD Radeon, 1TB SSD. I think upgrade cost was over £1k, but great device (until it started frying peripherals).

UPDATE: Typo on previous post: many files I work on are 12GB (not 1-2 GB). With no choice, I tested M3M 48GB with LrC, PS & Topaz and a few old files, replicating typical workflows. Fab fast on web surfing and installing apps, but pffft, not my interest.

Fast in much of LrC, but painfully slow on several processes in PS, swapping 20-30GB ++ and RAM pressure high (yellow /red). With big files, PS Efficiency rating dropped to 49% (and even 9%... painful); Adobe advises less than 90% efficiency = inadequate RAM. Despite powerful processor, I couldn't create large files the way I did on old Intel. It sat for 10 mins then crashed PS and Topaz repeatedly...

So, now I have firsthand evidence that you're all absolutely right about RAM: unified memory isn't magic, it's just RAM. (Also claims that disc swapping is 'seamless' and 'undetectable' are inaccurate: it's really slow when it starts swapping).

Apple has now agreed to a 64GB after all - but given my test results I'm concerned that won't do the job either for real-life work... It's still less than the total 72GB i had before, and I wasn't even using all the apps I normally would.

Apple has indeed set itself as the sole arbiter of Intel / Silicon RAM equivalence, and keep pushing the idea that processor so much faster it compensates for RAM. Maybe correct for some applications (?) but I have to disagree. I don't think they take account of how photography apps / demanding photographers work. The claims seem geared towards 'creators' and videographers.

My (none-tech) conclusion is that faster processor can only do its job if there's enough RAM to support the applications and file sizes involved.

Thoughts?

 

[Andrey84]

Old MBP was Intel i9, 64GB + 8GB AMD Radeon, 1TB SSD. I think upgrade cost was over £1k, but great device (until it started frying peripherals).

UPDATE: Typo on previous post: many files I work on are 12GB (not 1-2 GB). With no choice, I tested M3M 48GB with LrC, PS & Topaz and a few old files, replicating typical workflows. Fab fast on web surfing and installing apps, but pffft, not my interest.

Fast in much of LrC, but painfully slow on several processes in PS, swapping 20-30GB ++ and RAM pressure high (yellow /red). With big files, PS Efficiency rating dropped to 49% (and even 9%... painful); Adobe advises less than 90% efficiency = inadequate RAM. Despite powerful processor, I couldn't create large files the way I did on old Intel. It sat for 10 mins then crashed PS and Topaz repeatedly...

So, now I have firsthand evidence that you're all absolutely right about RAM: unified memory isn't magic, it's just RAM. (Also claims that disc swapping is 'seamless' and 'undetectable' are inaccurate: it's really slow when it starts swapping).

Apple has now agreed to a 64GB after all - but given my test results I'm concerned that won't do the job either for real-life work... It's still less than the total 72GB i had before, and I wasn't even using all the apps I normally would.

Apple has indeed set itself as the sole arbiter of Intel / Silicon RAM equivalence, and keep pushing the idea that processor so much faster it compensates for RAM. Maybe correct for some applications (?) but I have to disagree. I don't think they take account of how photography apps / demanding photographers work. The claims seem geared towards 'creators' and videographers.

My (none-tech) conclusion is that faster processor can only do its job if there's enough RAM to support the applications and file sizes involved.

Thoughts?

Congratulations on Apple agreeing to 64GB! This is a massive win.

I was told multiple times in these forums that you do not need to buy extra unified memory to compensate for video memory on Intel platforms. The GPU and CPU need access to the same data, so apparently before it was just stored in two different places, and now it's all in one place (hence 'unified').

64GB should be enough for you, considering your RAM pressure was green on 64GB on Intel. People here said there is no performance degradation even on yellow.

 

[Azedquery]

Congratulations on Apple agreeing to 64GB! This is a massive win.

I was told multiple times in these forums that you do not need to buy extra unified memory to compensate for video memory on Intel platforms. The GPU and CPU need access to the same data, so apparently before it was just stored in two different places, and now it's all in one place (hence 'unified').

64GB should be enough for you, considering your RAM pressure was green on 64GB on Intel. People here said there is no performance degradation even on yellow.

Thanks for your thoughts. That's what Apple is telling me too - but then they also claim M3M 11 times faster, hence half original RAM requirement, which is not the case. Clearly it very much depends on application and workflow.

Perhaps performance also depends on how much yellow, whether yellow / red, and whether or not PS Efficiency > 90% (where it should be) or 9%-49%? I dundo, but with 48GB performance was terrible with RAM pressure in yellow. Some tools (e.g. Gradient mask) were unusable and PS/Topaz kept crashing when I tried to enlarge files.

The first Apple Senior Tech advised nearest equivalent (96GB) of total RAM I had on Intel (72GB), but apparently didn't write this in the notes. From sequential activity monitors below, do you still think 64GB will be enough to compensate for 72GB? (NB only a few apps open during test, usually there'd be more, eg InDesign, browsers, Zotero).

I don't want to waste $$, but nor do I want to find myself struggling with everyday tasks and ultimately having to buy a new machine anyway.

Process:
1) in PS, invoke Topaz plug-in to enlarge file > Memory pressure shoots up > every pan across image takes 13 seconds to refresh. (Testing old file, enlarging to standard size I use often).

2) After waiting 8 minutes for file to enlarge, PS has crashed:

3) 5 mins later (hoping Topaz might still produce the enlarged file) nothing is happening. I can't spend 15 minutes enlarging one file, a job not timed previously b/c didn't take long (2-4 mins i guess?)

 

[Andrey84]

Thanks for your thoughts. That's what Apple is telling me too - but then they also claim M3M 11 times faster, hence half original RAM requirement, which is not the case. Clearly it very much depends on application and workflow.

Perhaps performance also depends on how much yellow, whether yellow / red, and whether or not PS Efficiency > 90% (where it should be) or 9%-49%? I dundo, but with 48GB performance was terrible with RAM pressure in yellow. Some tools (e.g. Gradient mask) were unusable and PS/Topaz kept crashing when I tried to enlarge files.

The first Apple Senior Tech advised nearest equivalent (96GB) of total RAM I had on Intel (72GB), but apparently didn't write this in the notes. From sequential activity monitors below, do you still think 64GB will be enough to compensate for 72GB? (NB only a few apps open during test, usually there'd be more, eg InDesign, browsers, Zotero).

I don't want to waste $$, but nor do I want to find myself struggling with everyday tasks and ultimately having to buy a new machine anyway.

Process:
1) in PS, invoke Topaz plug-in to enlarge file > Memory pressure shoots up > every pan across image takes 13 seconds to refresh. (Testing old file, enlarging to standard size I use often).

View attachment 2370166

2) After waiting 8 minutes for file to enlarge, PS has crashed:
View attachment 2370167

3) 5 mins later (hoping Topaz might still produce the enlarged file) nothing is happening. I can't spend 15 minutes enlarging one file, a job not timed previously b/c didn't take long (2-4 mins i guess?)

View attachment 2370168

Apologies if it's too late and you've already decided, but after looking at this, of course you should go for 96GB. What is confusing is that you had green memory pressure on 64GB on Intel, and now with 48GB you are pretty much unable to work. The memory size difference is just 33%, or 16GB, and I don't see how this can put memory pressure from Red to Green. Maybe one needs to compensate for video memory after all, even though on these forums several people don't think so.

 

[Azedquery]

Apologies if it's too late and you've already decided, but after looking at this, of course you should go for 96GB. What is confusing is that you had green memory pressure on 64GB on Intel, and now with 48GB you are pretty much unable to work. The memory size difference is just 33%, or 16GB, and I don't see how this can put memory pressure from Red to Green. Maybe one needs to compensate for video memory after all, even though on these forums several people don't think so.

I suspect there is more than one truth and that it's application / workflow / file-size dependent. A mate suggested the claims of extraordinarily efficient RAM utilisation meaning less required may be true on native Apple video apps apps that reky mote on COU than RAM and have been optimised to run on Apple Silicon. It just doesn't apply to Adobe, Topaz and CapOne photo apps, which rely heavily on RAM.

On Intel I effectively had 72GB. The difference may only be 33%, but with apps that need 15GB each just to run (plus the open files, OS, Mail, browser etc), I guess it's pretty easy to use up the RAM. I just wish Apple would fess up about it.

Thx for your attention on all this. I'll try and get them to let me pay to upgrade.