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Will 16GB of Memory Finally Come Standard Alongside the M3 Chip?
- Thread starter Juanchi007
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I never said it was solely.
One reason why Apple and other PC makers have kept the 8GB base for so long is that RAM costs have not gone down since 2011. This is not true for NAND. Even more so in 2023, NAND prices continue to be driven to the ground while RAM prices have not. One can easily buy a high-quality 1TB for $50 on Amazon. It won't be long until it's full on ridiculous to have 256GB as standard on a premium laptop.
If you want to upgrade your mac from 256GB to 512GB you will have to play just $200 and if you want to get from 256GB to 1TB you have to play just $400.I never said it was solely.
One reason why Apple and other PC makers have kept the 8GB base for so long is that RAM costs have not gone down since 2011. This is not true for NAND. Even more so in 2023, NAND prices continue to be driven to the ground while RAM prices have not. One can easily buy a high-quality 1TB for $50 on Amazon. It won't be long until it's full on ridiculous to have 256GB as standard on a premium laptop.
Ok. Apple can set the base models to 8/512GB. And for Pro models, they can set it to 16/1TB.
DDR5 modules are now less than $4/GB. That's 2.5x to 3x cheaper than the ~$10/GB you had to pay for whatever was available in 2011.
Yes, and the 2011 Macbook Air came standard with 2GB of RAM. So the Air now has 4x the memory even though the $/GB is only 2.5x to 3x cheaper.
Do you see my point?
In addition, LPDDR RAM is a more expensive class of memory than normal DDR RAM that went inside the 2011 Air.
The price is irrelevant for Mac products (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_elasticity_of_demand). Yes, you'd have a better machine but Windows on it.
We Mac users place no price limit on running macOS. Simply because we're the happy few who can afford it...
I'd rather pay 10k for a Mac equivalent to a 3k PC machine, just to keep on running macOS and knowing my MBP will be usable for another 10 years without any issue.
I never said it was solely.
One reason why Apple and other PC makers have kept the 8GB base for so long is that RAM costs have not gone down since 2011. This is not true for NAND. Even more so in 2023, NAND prices continue to be driven to the ground while RAM prices have not. One can easily buy a high-quality 1TB for $50 on Amazon. It won't be long until it's full on ridiculous to have 256GB as standard on a premium laptop.
Ram in apple silicon is printed on the chip package, is not the same market.
The baseline 11" model had 2 GB, while the 13" model had 4 GB. In 2012, the only memory options were 4 GB and 8 GB. The 2011 Mac Mini also had a 2 GB option, while the iMac started from 4 GB. It would be more accurate to say that the baseline had already increased to 4 GB, except for some low-end models.
LPDDR is a bit more expensive but still much cheaper than any 2011 RAM.
In any case, DRAM prices have little to do with manufacturing costs or the market. There are only a few major manufacturers, and they often limit the supply artificially despite the occasional antitrust actions and fines.
Let's suppose 2011 Macbook Airs all came with 4GB. Fine.
So you're saying that $/GB has come down by 2.5x to 3x.
Ok. So 4GB to 8GB is 2x already. Given that LPDDR is more expensive than DRAM, that should make up the other 1x.
It's hard to find reliable sources on LPDDR cost vs DRAM. But here, the author suggests that LPDDR is 40% more expensive than normal RAM.
New DDR4 memory to boost tablet, server performance
Although the standard for DDR4 memory won't be finalized until summer, several companies are already preparing to ship modules that will boost performance in data centers and on consumer devices
www.computerworld.com
It doesn't work that way.
In the early 2010s, laptop manufacturers saved on RAM, because other components such as displays and SSDs were so expensive. As a consequence, the base models were often notoriously bad. When the prices for those components fell, laptop manufacturers could afford using a more reasonable fraction of the total price for RAM. For example, 8 GB became the standard in the 2018 MacBook Air, when DRAM prices were ~2x higher than in 2016 or 2019 (and more than 2x higher than today).
You'll have to support this somehow. Not the cost part, Apple's reasoning part.
Why don't you have a choice about whether to spend that $2899 on a Mac?
That's why in another thread I'm advocating toward more SSD, the other way around. There's never too much of any spec for future-proofing purposes.
I think one can at least try to justify Apples RAM prices (custom modules, expensive type, ultra-low energy etc), but it’s getting very hard for SSDs. Sure, Apples SSDs offer some enterprise-level features like protection against data loss on power loss and very high endurance, but still…
What people mean is when will Apple price memory and storage somewhat commensurate to cost and market prices and the answer is never. The moment Apple lets their profit margins slip a tiny bit wall street will pummel them. Apple will always leverage their platform monopoly to squeeze everyone.
Again I can see Apple keeping a 8/256 base. However the stock "step up" configuration should have moved to 16/512 for the MBA, iMac and base Mac mini long ago (at least the Mac mini Pro did). Frankly it is ridiculous that you have to BTO to get 16GB on those machines.
This is the ongoing battle between I want the lowest possible price with the highest possible configuration. In today’s economy it’s not going to happen. If you want 16 GB of RAM, you have to pay for 16 GB. I don’t see a reason to make everyone pay for 16 GB of RAM when they don’t need it.
Since people seem to keep insisting that the price of something should essentially be the sum of the costs to create it, let's say Apple priced their memory upgrades at their cost. So adding going from 8GB to 32GB RAM would wind up meaning, say $50. Going from 256GB to 1TB would cost another $50 or so. Give or take, no exact numbers, but the point everyone wants to make here is that it would be much, much less than Apple currently charges.
Do you think Apple would release a series of products with only $100 between them? Would that be cost effective for the company or of any use to the consumer? Or if you see this as evidence that the low end products aren't worth producing at all, would they decide to only sell one model? What price would they likely sell it at?
Hence why I think 8/512 and 16/1TB could make sense as the bases for M3 generation.
SSD prices continue to scale and drop. RAM has not.
Apple could still use 8/256 for a MacBook SE if they ever decide to make one.
no one is wanting Apple to be the charity and just break even. "we" just want somewhat reasonable prices that won't make "us" feel that we're being taken the piss of.
it's not too different from some esoteric company that wants to sell you a tiny stone that you're supposed put on your Hifi speakers that magically will improve your rooms audio quality "just" for 1000 bucks, or some other esoteric company that wants to charge 60€ or more for a simple 5€ cable, 740€ for some workstation wheels without brakes, or 1200€ for a not completely adjustable monitor stand.
Apple is charging 1.250 € here in Europe to go from 1TB to 4TB, so effectively 1250€ for 3TB.
Dell is charging 580 for the same step in their most expensive premium line and i bet they're not becoming poor by that move either
Amazon wants 502 € (520 MSRP) going from 0 to 4TB for one of the fastest hard drives available with a heatsink so large that it won't fit into any laptop
one of the fastest laptop compatible 4TB drives on Amazon is currently 498 € (540€ MSRP)
and these are consumer prices for low numbers, i bet Apple could still get "1 or 2" € off of that. Amazon and Corsair (in this case) surely will still make some nice profit aswell, as they're also not the charity after all.
In my opinion, pricing is based on the perceived value to the customer, not the manufacturing price. It doesn't matter whether Apple pays $1, $50, or $100 for the RAM, as long as the customer is willing to pay their upgrade prices, it's just basic business. And you know, if it works, it works. People were grumbling a bit about Apple's high prices, but they were still happy to pay them.
However, the recent discussions suggest that the attitude is shifting a bit and customers find it more and more difficult to justify the prices. This likely means that Apple will have to adapt. Historically, they like their $200 upgrade points, which makes sense, but maybe the hardware can be distributed a bit differently across them. Maybe we'll see 12GB RAM jumps for 200$ instead of the current 8GB. Maybe there will be some other pricing structure. The only think I'm fairly sure about is that Apple will have to change things a bit, because their laptops having half the RAM and SSD of the closest competitors just doesn't look good.
A random thought:
If running AI on end-user devices becomes a thing, we are going to see a rapid increase in memory requirements, because bigger models are more useful. In that hypothetical future, we would soon be arguing whether 128 GB RAM should be the standard in the next-generation models.
This is also something where unified memory has a clear advantage. Apple has a clear path towards shipping consumer devices with very large amounts of RAM accessible to the GPU, if that becomes desirable. Achieving the same with traditional discrete GPUs is going to be more difficult.
If running AI on end-user devices becomes a thing, we are going to see a rapid increase in memory requirements, because bigger models are more useful. In that hypothetical future, we would soon be arguing whether 128 GB RAM should be the standard in the next-generation models.
This is also something where unified memory has a clear advantage. Apple has a clear path towards shipping consumer devices with very large amounts of RAM accessible to the GPU, if that becomes desirable. Achieving the same with traditional discrete GPUs is going to be more difficult.