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felixen

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Apr 13, 2009
884
113
Hi everyone,

I have come across a very good and limited (5 units) sale for an almost new MBP 2018 with 8GB of RAM. I'd aim for 16GB, but the deal I can get is only for the base Touchbar model (but with 512GB storage).

I know a lot of you guys know more about this stuff than I do, so I really hope you can help by sharing your opinions.

I currently have:
MB Air Mid 2012
2 GHz Intel Core i7
8 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
Intel HD Graphics 4000 1536 MB

What I do with it:
I often have 2 browsers open with a lot of tabs (like 40 tabs in a browser)
I do a lot of text based work that don't require much
I somewhat often use Photoshop to edit photos. These generally have maybe 15-30 layers
I rarely, but sometimes, use Final Cut Pro to edit some video but nothing too heavy.

My current experiences:
Overall, it's okay, but I definitely do experience that my MB Air will freeze up for a while while doing Photoshop / Final Cut stuff. It's not horrible though; it's frustrating and kinda kills the workflow sometimes, but it's definitely not so bad that I cannot get any work done.


My main question (which may be dumb)..:
So, about this new MBP 2018 model, do you guys think I will experience a much smoother performance in the work I've mentioned above considering it's a much newer and more powerful computer? Or will I experience the same issues simply because the RAM still remains at just 8GB? I'm hoping it's a stupid question and that it'll of course be much smoother, but my friend told me the RAM is like a make-or-break thing for these kinds of tasks.. What do you guys think??

Thanks SO much in advance!
 

RedTomato

macrumors 601
Mar 4, 2005
4,161
444
.. London ..
8gb is fine. The 2012 Air has a slow SSD and weak GPU compared to modern computers so that might be what is causing the freeze in Photoshop / Final Cut. The CPU / RAM in your model is great, just sometimes getting a bit starved of data.

One option is to replace the SSD with a modern m.2 ssd via an adaptor. I'm not sure if your MBA can take a nvme ssd though.
 
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keysofanxiety

macrumors G3
Nov 23, 2011
9,539
25,302
The CPU and storage of the MBP is much faster than yours, as is the GPU. The overall performance will be much better. MacOS’s memory management is also very good, plus the RAM is faster on the MBP too.

In conclusion: 8GB stretches a lot further on new machines than it does on older ones. You’ll be very happy with your new MBP. :)
 
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felixen

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Apr 13, 2009
884
113
Awesome, that’s what I was hoping to hear. Thanks a lot everyone, I appreciate the quick replies
[doublepost=1541550066][/doublepost]
Do you often reach the yellow threshold in Activity Monitor?
I’ve never looked in there to be honest. I should check that out
 
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