Will 16GB of Memory Finally Come Standard Alongside the M3 Chip?

[theorist9]

The size of your swapfile doesn't matter-- it's the rate at which you're accessing it that matters.

Like this, for instance :

There is zero impact on performance if you're pushing data you haven't used for a few minutes (let alone days) out to disk and then reading it back in a few minutes later. The size of your swapfile doesn't matter-- it's the rate at which you're accessing it that matters.

I have a feeling people look at Activity Monitor, see "Swap Used" and feel like that's a failure of some sort. Nothing you're describing sounds like swap intensive activity, its sounds like page caching...

Being a bit more serious—I haven't benchmarked this, and probably should but: Suppose that, for your work, you are repeatedly opening, closing, and reopening many different large documents. Further suppose you have lots of extra RAM (as I usually do). Are these documents cached in RAM such that, when you go to reopen them, they are opened from RAM instead of the SSD, thus enabling these documents to open faster? [Until, of course, you reboot.] And are there any other speed-ups you get from being able to take advantage of a large RAM cache? E.g., if you quit an application, and have lots of available RAM, will MacOS move some application info. to RAM cache so that it can be reopened more quickly?

For instance, between the top and bottom screenshots, I quit every application on my computer (along with all my open files). There was a big decrease in App Memory, but not much decrease in Cached Files, suggesting that the apps as a whole aren't moved to Cache when they are quit (though some smaller app state files might be), but that most of the document files that were previously open were left in cache:

 

[Analog Kid]

Like this, for instance :

[Doing my best to sound like a Boston mechanic]
"There's your problem. You've got a real bad case of what we call 'Wolfram deposits' all over your memory.":

You are a poster child for the difference between "I have too many tabs" and "I'm swapping because I do real work". Swap a tab and you're hitting that disk every few minutes, but you're probably hammering disk every few microseconds to analyze whatever dataset you're working with.

I'm curious though, while you're doing whatever it is you're doing, if you run 'vm_stat 10' in the terminal it will give you statistics about how much memory is getting paged every 10 seconds.

Being a bit more serious—I haven't benchmarked this, and probably should but: Suppose that, for your work, you are repeatedly opening, closing, and reopening many different large documents. Further suppose you have lots of extra RAM (as I usually do). Are these documents cached in RAM such that, when you go to reopen them, they are opened from RAM instead of the SSD, thus enabling these documents to open faster? [Until, of course, you reboot.] And are there any other speed-ups you get from being able to take advantage of a large RAM cache? E.g., if you quit an application, and have lots of available RAM, will MacOS move the application to RAM cache so that it can be reopened more quickly?

Nah. I mean, it depends how big "big" is, but what, say 100MB. Even with the so-called "slow" SSD at 1300MB/s, that's 77ms to read in. It takes you about 100ms to blink. I'll bet you an eye tracker would tell you it takes more than that for your eye to register where the new document window chose to open on screen.

I'm not sure exactly what gets cached, but the time I've really seen my cached files explode is when I was running a series of massive diffs across a directory.

Anything being manually triggered though would need to load pretty slow to be slower than your ability to do something with it.

 

[theorist9]

[Doing my best to sound like a Boston mechanic]
"There's your problem. You've got a real bad case of what we call 'Wolfram deposits' all over your memory.":

The "mechanic" part reminds me of a story from one of my colleagues--he was waiting in line at the bank, and a woman behind him asked if he worked on Volkswagon Quantums (I'm guessing she owned one and was looking for a mechanic). When he asked why she thought that, she replied that he was holding a book called "Quantum Mechanics".

I'm curious though, while you're doing whatever it is you're doing, if you run 'vm_stat 10' in the terminal it will give you statistics about how much memory is getting paged every 10 seconds.

I will do that when I get the chance and let you know.

Nah. I mean, it depends how big "big" is, but what, say 100MB. Even with the so-called "slow" SSD at 1300MB/s, that's 77ms to read in. It takes you about 100ms to blink. I'll bet you an eye tracker would tell you it takes more than that for your eye to register where the new document window chose to open on screen.

I'm not sure exactly what gets cached, but the time I've really seen my cached files explode is when I was running a series of massive diffs across a directory.

Anything being manually triggered though would need to load pretty slow to be slower than your ability to do something with it.

So I timed opening 14 Excel files averaging 150 kB each, and 8 PDF files averaging 10 MB each (with Adobe Acrobat). The Excel files took 20 s to open both the first and second times, and the PDFs took 3 s both the first and second times. So there doesn't appear to be any caching of the type I described. And I expect the Excel files took 1.4 s each because of Excel overhead that has nothing to do with SSD read times.

But that still leaves open the question of why MacOS is doing this multi-GB RAM caching. There must be some benefit, otherwise why bother?

 

[Analog Kid]

But that still leaves open the question of why MacOS is doing this multi-GB RAM caching. There must be some benefit, otherwise why bother?

There's probably a utility that would show which files are cached, but I'm not sure what it is.

Some thoughts that come to mind would be if you're writing out to a file it may leave some of that data cached in RAM on the expectation that you may be reading it back soon. I can imagine you might be writing out GBs of data-- maybe the OS caches all open files for faster read/write? Some applications create their own swapfile (Photoshop does this, I think) because the application thinks it can manage the space better than the OS. The other place I can imagine it helping would be for small files where the latency to disk is more important than the raw throughput-- but GBs is a lot of little files. Reading in inode tables or something for faster file access? Still, can't imagine that getting to GBs. TimeMachine scratch files? I could imagine that being more efficient.

Anyone know how to check?

Note: I looked at the help file for Activity Monitor and it says this:

Cached Files: The size of files cached by the system into unused memory to improve performance.​

Until this memory is overwritten, it remains cached, so it can help improve performance when you reopen the app.​

That sounds like your close-the-app scenario. I can't imagine it makes much difference, but on the other hand if you've got the extra RAM sitting there may as well put it to use?

Some of these decisions might be made to save power rather than time, I guess...

 

[JustAnExpat]

Computers exist for different purposes. Most people use a computer that needs:
1. Basic office software (Microsoft Office) to write letters or do light spreadsheet work.
2. Access to the internet using Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or other web browsers or e-mail clients.
3. Doing minimal editing of photographs and videos for personal use.
4. File management.

Is 8GB enough? Yes, and it'll be enough for a couple more years at least. The MacBook Air M1 is an entry level consumer Mac, and the MacBook Pro 13" is an entry level business Mac, and that's all what most people need.

Do some people need to use a Mac to make videos or photograph editing for a profit? Yes!
Do some people need to use a Mac to make programs? Yes!
Do some people just want the best machine possible? Yes!

For those people, more than 8GB is required. But, what "your" needs are isn't what most people needs are.

 

[Smartuser]

[...] Apple is all about price-ladders, and this one would make sense, pushing consumers towards the newest, greatest, and more-expensive model. [...]

The earnings for the Mac sector this previous quarter were a jarring decline, and Apple is counting on a big Fall release of M3 to flip the script for the Mac in the year ahead. Though the M3 will undoubtedly be faster and more efficient, this overdue upgrade to RAM will push it from good to great. Let's see if we'll finally have the doubling we've been waiting for.

On your point about "price-ladders", by that logic they could just sell a maxed out model for the base price.

The other point is the usual "Apple is doomed unless they...". The "jarring decline" has nothing to do with your conjecture, and the Mac is 6% of their business. That the M3 will come out this Fall is further conjecture (nobody knows whether it will happen), and what Apple is counting on at any given moment is also unknowable because they're not a person and it may change from moment to moment.

"We" haven't been waiting on 16GB in all base models. As long as 8GB are viable for light use and cost less than 16GB, I'm all for that option existing, though I would never go for 8GB nowadays.

Nobody is forced to buy base models if they want more memory. I haven't in a very long time.

Would I like it if for the M3, all memory configs would be doubled at the same price? Sure, but in all likelihood, 8GB in an M3 MBA or 13" MBP would still make sense for many people and Apple would be crazy not to give people the option to save some money and get that config.

Your whole post would have been much better without all the conjecture and hyperbole.

 

[unrigestered]

Like this, for instance :

View attachment 2154677

wow, what exactly is Wolfram Kernel doing to require such amounts of RAM?

a quick googlijg only showed me that it's supposedly some "language thingie"? 😳

i am envious of your WindowServer amount though: even on my measly 8gig machine without anything running at all i'm getting a readout of around 300MB for it 🤓

 

[theorist9]

wow, what exactly is Wolfram Kernel doing to require such amounts of RAM?

a quick googlijg only showed me that it's supposedly some "language thingie"? 😳

i am envious of your WindowServer amount though: even on my measly 8gig machine without anything running at all i'm getting a readout of around 300MB for it 🤓

I was doing a calculation on a very large array in Wolfram Mathematica.

 

[unrigestered]

so basically "just" maths? 😱
not bad, i wonder how many tabs one could have open on Chrome with that amount of data 🤓

 

[maflynn]

. I can feel the slowdowns in opening stuff compared to devices like my desktop

Yep I agree, I see a difference in my laptop/desktop especially if I don't reboot my laptop in a while

 

[krspkbl]

Honestly i can see Apple sticking with 8GB for some models like the MacBook Air, iMac, Mac Mini because 8GB is enough if you're just browsing the internet, checking social media, watching YouTube, etc.

16GB is if you are doing a lot of photo/video editing or any kind of work on your device but probably still more than enough for you. 16GB is the most common capacity in gaming PCs at the moment so the vast majority of people simply don't need more than 16GB RAM.

So I could see Apple definitely keeping 8GB as the base with 16GB option if you need it for those models.

That said, the MacBook Pro, Mac Studio, any 27" iMac should come with 16GB as standard. Mac Pro should come with 32GB for starters.

The way I see it is if you have to try decide between say 8GB or 16GB then you probably don't need the 16GB. If you have a 16GB device and are wondering if you need 32GB then the answer is no. If you actually need 16GB, 32GB, or 64GB RAM then you will know for sure you need it and you will get it.

I have 32GB RAM in my desktop and I know it's more than enough for me. It's overkill for most of my uses. I often use 12-15GB and can sometimes use as much as 20-24GB.

 

[lambertjohn]

Not a chance this will happen. Apple makes their money by charging you for every little upgrade your heart desires. There's an old saying about Apple..."you want, you pay." No way Apple is going to do anything that cuts into their profits. That's un-American. That's un-Apple.

 

[Digitalguy]

It's funny how people give out statements on what is enough and what isn't based on general assumptions of what people do and should do....
My devices take over 8GB just when I boot them (sure if they had 8GB they would take less because they would start swapping and always leave some RAM free), without even opeining the browser, just because of the cloud services (Dropbox, Onedrive, Sugarsync), the remote desktop servers (Jump desktop, VNC, Teamviewer etc.), the second screen apps (Spacedesk, Superdisplay, Duet etc.), the email client, Word, Whatsapp desktop and a couple of other software. Opening Chrome with it's 30-40 tabs adds several more GBs.
And I do no photo/video editing or other creative stuff... (but I do work from my devices, but it's standard business/office stuff, nothing creative). So maybe it's time to stop assuming that if you do "simple" things you need little RAM, as some people do "a lot" of simple things in the background.
And if I leave my devices on for a couple of weeks even 16GB start being not enough and things slow down a bit.

But sure, if you don't do photo/video edting or other intensive tasks you are fine with 8GB... 😅

 

[AlixSPQR]

Not a chance this will happen. Apple makes their money by charging you for every little upgrade your heart desires. There's an old saying about Apple..."you want, you pay." No way Apple is going to do anything that cuts into their profits. That's un-American. That's un-Apple.

It has already happened. Six years ago the base MBA suddenly got 8 GB RAM instead of 4 GB.

 

[Analog Kid]

It's funny how people give out statements on what is enough and what isn't based on general assumptions of what people do and should do....
My devices take over 8GB just when I boot them (sure if they had 8GB they would take less because they would start swapping and always leave some RAM free), without even opeining the browser, just because of the cloud services (Dropbox, Onedrive, Sugarsync), the remote desktop servers (Jump desktop, VNC, Teamviewer etc.), the second screen apps (Spacedesk, Superdisplay, Duet etc.), the email client, Word, Whatsapp desktop and a couple of other software. Opening Chrome with it's 30-40 tabs adds several more GBs.
And I do no photo/video editing or other creative stuff... (but I do work from my devices, but it's standard business/office stuff, nothing creative). So maybe it's time to stop assuming that if you do "simple" things you need little RAM, as some people do "a lot" of simple things in the background.
And if I leave my devices on for a couple of weeks even 16GB start being not enough and things slow down a bit.

But sure, if you don't do photo/video edting or other intensive tasks you are fine with 8GB... 😅

It's also funny when people think they need a lot of horsepower because they drive long distances...

That aside, it's worth noting that you're making your assessment based on a Microsoft Surfacebook 3 running Windows. I don't know how one system compares to another, but they aren't the same-- we really can't draw any conclusions at all from your comments.

 

[thenewperson]

It has already happened. Six years ago the base MBA suddenly got 8 GB RAM instead of 4 GB.

5 you mean? Or did they update the 2015 Air's starting RAM to 8GB before the 2018 update?

 

[Juanchi007]

5 you mean? Or did they update the 2015 Air's starting RAM to 8GB before the 2018 update?

They doubled the 2015 Air’s starting RAM to 8 GB via press release in April 2016 (with the price held constant). From that point on, the only 4 GB Mac remaining was the base 2014 Mac Mini until it was refreshed in late 2018.

So it has been nearly seven years since all MacBooks transitioned to 8 GB of base memory, and nearly five years since all desktop Macs made the jump. Prior to this, Apple doubling their machine’s base memory was pretty common (with the MacBook Pro jumping from 512 MB of base RAM to 1 GB to 2 GB to 4 GB to 8 GB, all between 2006 and 2015).

 

[thenewperson]

They doubled the 2015 Air’s starting RAM to 8 GB via press release in April 2016 (with the price held constant)

Ok, thanks. I couldn't remember that and searching for it was unhelpful.

 

[Toonartist]

Just in case anyone is agonising over 16gb of ram rather than 32 etc (or 8gb vs 16gb for that matter).

I'm running the M1 Pro 16gb ram, 10core CPU, 16 core GPU, 16 core Neural Engine with 1TB SSD. I use Lightroom, Capture 1 Pro and Photoshop every day with files of 1-3gb in size and general processing from a 60mp Leica M11 camera. The laptop never slows down, is silent and never gets in the way. I also run FCP X and Motion 5.

Below is screen shot of my last 7 days swap usage which is not really at its highest but probably a good average. Below that is the current SSD health report after one years use and only shows the SSD health dropping by 1%.

Before I bought it I was really worried it wouldn't cope with the large files with 8 or more apps running at a time. Would I buy 32gb next time... I probably will do but only because I will probably go for the Max version. But, if you want to save a few £/$ and worried about swap... I wouldn't lose too much sleep over it. It seems to be designed to run this way and doesn't bat an eye no matter what I throw at it. I love that it is totally silent and never hear the fans!

 

[kevcube]

Question: Are the SSDs on the base M2 MBA and MBP faster or slower then the M1 versions?
Answer: Slower
Conclusion: Macs now have slower SSD storage, i,e, Apple reduced the speed.

It doesn't matter how they got there, the fact remains the M2 base models have a slower storage then the M1 version.

the SSDs are the same speed, there's just fewer of them.

 

[maflynn]

the SSDs are the same speed, there's just fewer of them.

OK, but the end result remains the same - its a slower SSD ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[Toonartist]

Just out of curiosity, how much slower?

When I dump about 500gb at the moment (m1) it only takes about 10-15 seconds... about 2-3 seconds per 100gb. How much longer would it take? I'd imagine for it to be anything close to noticeable you'd need to be transferring double figures TB's otherwise the time saved wouldn't even allow an extra slurp of coffee.

 

[Analog Kid]

Just in case anyone is agonising over 16gb of ram rather than 32 etc (or 8gb vs 16gb for that matter).

I'm running the M1 Pro 16gb ram, 10core CPU, 16 core GPU, 16 core Neural Engine with 1TB SSD. I use Lightroom, Capture 1 Pro and Photoshop every day with files of 1-3gb in size and general processing from a 60mp Leica M11 camera. The laptop never slows down, is silent and never gets in the way. I also run FCP X and Motion 5.

Below is screen shot of my last 7 days swap usage which is not really at its highest but probably a good average. Below that is the current SSD health report after one years use and only shows the SSD health dropping by 1%.

Before I bought it I was really worried it wouldn't cope with the large files with 8 or more apps running at a time. Would I buy 32gb next time... I probably will do but only because I will probably go for the Max version. But, if you want to save a few £/$ and worried about swap... I wouldn't lose too much sleep over it. It seems to be designed to run this way and doesn't bat an eye no matter what I throw at it. I love that it is totally silent and never hear the fans!

View attachment 2155007

View attachment 2155008

It might be interesting to show the page outs graph over that time-- that'll tell you the rate at which you're swapping RAM to disk.

Just out of curiosity, how much slower?

When I dump about 500gb at the moment (m1) it only takes about 10-15 seconds... about 2-3 seconds per 100gb. How much longer would it take? I'd imagine for it to be anything close to noticeable you'd need to be transferring double figures TB's otherwise the time saved wouldn't even allow an extra slurp of coffee.

Worst case would be half as fast, assuming you're not CPU bound on generating the data and cut the RAID array in half, but benchmarking shows a it's not quite that severe. Your numbers seem rather high though-- is that gigabytes or gigabits? Even the Studio only pushes about 6GB/sec and assuming you're measuring in bytes that's coming out to more than 30GB/sec.

 

[Toonartist]

It might be interesting to show the page outs graph over that time-- that'll tell you the rate at which you're swapping RAM to disk.



Worst case would be half as fast, assuming you're not CPU bound on generating the data and cut the RAID array in half, but benchmarking shows a it's not quite that severe. Your numbers seem rather high though-- is that gigabytes or gigabits? Even the Studio only pushes about 6GB/sec and assuming you're measuring in bytes that's coming out to more than 30GB/sec.

I wouldn't look too deep on timings, they weren't under stop watch. Basically, just observations of time it takes to paste 100gb of image files from one location to the other on the internal SSD.

Below is a graph showing Wired (Blue), Active (Red) and Compressed (Purple)

 

[bobcomer]

I don't get Microsoft, they bill the Surface products as premium but almost always unveil new models with CPUs that are at least 2 generations old.

When they unveiled the surface studio some years back, they marketed it as a high end professional desktop for creatives, yet plopped a 5400rpm spinning drive.

I've owned Surface laptops and tablets and they're well made, but I'll largely never buy another one simply because there is no value imo

I don't understand their Surface line either -- I'd LOVE a Windows tablet like the latest Surface Pro, plus the keyboard, but the specs are just plain bad. Older processors, not enough RAM, and *expensive*. Give me 32G RAM minimum, a big fast SSD, and a modern processor!

I owned a Surface Book a few years ago and it worked well for me, if a bit heavy, but I just can't think of paying their prices with those specs.