How much RAM do you ACTUALLY need in your Macbook?
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- Опубликовано: 21 сен 2024
- How much RAM in a Macbook M1 do you really need? Is it worth it to overpay? Today we will tell you about how much RAM the MacBook M1 has, and how much you will actually use in 2022! Watch the video until the end to find out!
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In the video you make a statement that is false, RAM IS NOT EXPENSIVE... It is apple who sells it at a high price.
still pertinent his point though
The analogy I always give to people is. RAM is like a table you use for work or dinner, etc etc. You want to have a big enough table where you need to put all of your items on the table, preferrable all the papers you are looking and you can glance at. Having too small of a table means putting them back in your file cabinet or in the kitchen (if the dinner table analogy is used). If you get too much RAM, then it's like having a dinner table, or work space that is so big, you can't fill it up ; no matter how many guests you have or the number of guests/dishes you are serving.
understanding what you need and what you might potentially need is important in the same way people pick out a office table or dinner table.
Awesome analogy! Will borrow this next time
That is a great analogy. The only think that I will correct is that newer software takes up more RAM. 8gig is on the verge of being obsolete and 16 gig should be standard on most machines. If I want to fill up 8 gig of RAM it will only be too easy. You can have a smooth experience with 8gig, but you have to be very disciplined and not have too many tabs and programs opened at once, but honestly the majority of people that I see have 20 different tabs at once on google chrome and then wonder why their computer is chugging along.
I always use this analogy too, what a coincidence
learned this analogy when i started working at apple, its a great example
so basically less RAM teaches you how to organise stuff. cool!
Actually there is a very good reason to get the 16GB model or higher that everybody forgets to mention. Running a virtual machine with Windows. If you need to run windows programs, the extra RAM helps tremendously… if it wasn’t for that, I wouldn’t bother.
yeah but how many people are actually gonna do that
Can you run a windows vm on m1 though?
@@arnobchowdhury9641 yes you can run a virtual machine on m1 on Intel Macs you could run windows native and dual boot but on m1 you have to run emulation
@@The_MEMEphis Those that need Windows software. Almost every single accounting application I use as a CPA is Windows-only. I love my 8GB MBA but man I wish I would bought the 16GB for running Windows on Parallels. It runs okay but there are times where it struggles.
@@markholle3450 why didn't you just get a windows computer
The isolated performance tests are pointless when comparing different RAM options. It would be much better to somehow measure sustainable performance with typical creator/developer setup with many apps opened to understand how it could affect your workflow.
I’m usually have Teams, Mail, VSCode, Node, Edge (10 to 20 tabs), Figma, Photoshop, Docker with 1-3 DB images, couple of Terminals, Fork, Spotify, Postman and some local DB instance running, and it’s definitely feels slower and unresponsive on 16 GBs than on 32 GBs (the 8 GBs option will just die in swapping)
I totally agree. I would actually recommend most people to go with 16 gb. If you d just do one thing at the time you could use an iPad…
Honestly, for these types of tests, what one should do is go into the RE and disable the swap ( and if they're sadistic enough, disable RAM compression ) to see how soon the machines choke
I was going to make basically the same point. RAM performance isn't just about speed. In fact, that's the least of my concerns when considering RAM. It's about the computer's ability to multi-task and at what level. So if we just calculated it in internet browser terms, can I have 3 browsers open with no more than 10 open tabs on each, or 20? (Very rough example). So as soon as he started talking about speed differences, he lost my attention.
100% this
@@need100k This. I also can‘t find information on going beyond 16 GB. I have 8 and it’s a desaster. I don‘t use demanding software, but I like leaving tabs open for later and have keynote, mail, teams, evernote, power point and lots of pdfs open at the same time. Can I make good use of 24 GB instead of 16?
16 is great for people who work on it.
8 for just fun & work ever so often
32 if you need it you'll know, if you don't know if you'll need it you don't need it .
Student in year 10? What u think?
@@O06. if you have the budget and plan to keep it until college/uni age go for 16gb :) i think ryzen 5500u with 16 gb
How much ram for light gaming? Like League of legends or Team Fight Tactics?
16gb m2 chip macbook pro with 512ssd is it enough for Lightroom classic
Well said.
There’s another reason to get more RAM, M1 and M2 Mac’s write exponentially more data to disc as they swap virtual memory. While Apple has mitigated the shorter resulting drive lifetimes of 2 years (SSD’s last 1-2 decades in PC’s) to 5-8 years depending on use, one simple fact remains - More RAM means less swap which means better performance and longer disk life because of the less writes, which all means a longer life for your PC.
I'm not sure about MacOS but I know on Linux you can basically define any drive as a swap drive, so you could have a USB stick defined if you wanted to. Is it possible to do something similar on MacOS?
@@novantha1 - Not that I’m aware of, but I’ll check. Mac’s used to be Unix based.
@@novantha1 it might be possible but it would kill performance. The reason 8gb macs are usable at all is that they swap really quickly to that hardwired ssd. Swap to USB and you'd have a dog.
@@Erin-Thor macs still are unix based. Redefining the swap partition was a thing in the early days.
@@dwayne_dibley You have not witnessed MacOs X in the early days. (:
I use Photoshop and Final Cut Pro. Edit simple 4K videos and vlogs. Went with the 16GB Pro and its never ever slowed down. 32GB I know would have been a waste of money.
what would u recommend for the M2 14“ macbook pro? i also use it for photoshop, 4k video cutting and zbrush. is 16GB enough or should i upgrade?
Not everyone buys it for video editing
@@onanova4913get as much ram as you can.
It is because you are only cutting and pasting videos. When you add effects, then you will start feeling the slowness.
A key point to make is that the M1 and associated OS apparently caches to SSD more than Intel-based Macs did and, remember, the SSD is not replaceable and has a high but limited life in terms of write cycles. Unless your use case can live easily within a lower RAM spec, I would always be tempted to pay for the RAM upgrade on a machine I expect to keep for a good while.
This is true but even with higher amounts of ram the mac still writes to the SSD before utilising the additional ram.
I doubt that's going to be an issue for most people. Good drives can write close to a petabyte of data before they start having real problems. I've had a base spec MBP for well over a year and my SSD health is at 99%. Most people will get a new laptop long before their SSDs fail.
Buy an external HDD to use as cache
@dany ay lol that is not the case in other countries with pathetic consumer rights protections. If something is broke, there's no way for us to have it repaired or replaced especially if it's way beyond warranty. Or, if right-to-repair laws are nonexistent.
@dany ay lol What if it fails 6, 7 or 8 years down the line?
For what it's worth, I'm a web developer that recently made the jump from Linux to Mac because of the new M1 chips. I'm just running a MacBook Air with 16GB and it works well but I'd definitely recommend that 16GB for developers. My normal workflow often involves a couple of VS Code instances, a DB tool, multiple browser tabs, and some other misc stuff. Let's not forget things like Spotify, Slack, Zoom, etc all on an external 3440x1440 monitor.
Now first off, the fact that a fanless laptop can handle that at all is amazing. But it does routinely take me to 11GB in use. 8GB wouldn't be enough.
That being said, the M1 Air with 16GB RAM, 1TB of storage, and 8GPU cores costs $1600, which is less than the base model 14" MBP.
I am a web developer and bought MacBook 14 base model with 32gb of ram I think I made a right decision because I run multiple projects same time and mostly use Jetbrain tools
@@hashamjaved TBH if I were to make the purchase again I would have bought the MBP 14. It was my first MacBook though, so I kept my investment amount down. I might upgrade when the M2 MBPs come out.
@@stillmattwest Hope so they will remove the notch in m2 from 14 inches
I´m a student. Here in Norway the MacBook Air M1 base model costs 1258 usd. With 16GB RAM and 250SSD it's 1470 usd. The 14 inch pro with 16ram and 500ssd is 2300 usd. What is more worth? Besides better performance (that I most probably won't need as a student), I really like the added benefits of better/bigger screen, speakers etc.
@@NorthernSpartan the Air should do everything you need for school. It does everything I need for work TBH, but I'd probably still get the MBP 14" if I were to do it again, partially for the reasons you said.
In 2021 I purchased a 16” M1 Pro MacBook Pro. I went with 16GB because I’m wasn’t doing crazy complex tasks, but I did have to run a VM in Parallels for the first time because Bootcamp wasn’t an option. I also used a docker container to install Azure Data Studio. This resulted in my RAM being overloaded and now I’m upgrading to an M2 Max MacBook Pro less than 2 years later. I really wish people would have considered things like VMs when making RAM recommendations.
i have to do stuff like that too, i’m thinking 64 gb ram
You are going to find that most people do not run VM nor do they require 16 gb of RAM. The vast majority of people could use 4GB and 50gb storage.
@@Art-is-craft 4gb is nothing nowadays, 8 is terrible. 16 is and should be the minimum
@@dalatesthits3849
There are very few reason 99% of people require more than 8gb. If a person is asking the question it is extremely unlikely that they require more than 8gb in a MacBook.
Dude same except with an m1 air with 8gb of ram I def need some more ram 😹😹😹
You forgot to mention external displays, since the GPU doesn’t have it’s own RAM, it steals memory from the unified memory, you will need larger RAM for connecting to multiple external displays.
Solid insight
Is there any RUclipsrs out there testing Mac for like Data Scientist, Educators, Doctors, Engineers, Accountants and not about constantly making and editing videos to self-triggering dopamine and inflating one's imagery on social media for likes, hearts, thumbs-up, etc. I m sure Macs are designed for function and not to make sleezy videos to project one's insecurity on social media right?
Having owned a 16GB MBA and an 8GB M1 mini - absolutely get the 16GB every time.
Running lots of tabs on Safari eats through that 8GB really quickly - so even with lightweight tasks such as browsing you can see beachballs quickly on the low end model.
That's not true, at least in my experience. I'm a developer using an 8GB MBA. At this moment I have 33 tabs open in Chrome and 20 in Safari, with Figma and a couple of other low-intensity apps open. No struggle. If you said Chrome, I could believe it, but definitely not Safari. I've had 40+ tabs in the past and it breezed through. Still, if you really want the 16gigs it definitely offers an improvement with heavier workloads but for most people, 8GB is perfectly fine.
@@mysteryman3054 It is because of the disk swapping, your internal SSD will die soon and because it is a SoC the entire computer will be paperweight...
@@eprpop The SSD is NOT part of the SoC.
8 Gb will strangle in Lightroom
@@EnterSpacebar The SSD controller is part of the SoC.
If you plan on keeping this product for 5+ years or you are using this machine for more serious tasks (video editing, audio recording, software development, etc) I wouldn’t recommend less than 16gb.
If the machine is for home or office use, wherein it is mainly an email machine, runs office apps, acrobat, a loaded web browser, and maybe a few other apps, then 8 will work and may be the right choice for the lower price
i bought the 8gb ram model of my M2 macbook air, i use it pretty much for studying(microsoft teams and office mainly), watching videos like on youtube, twitch, netflix, do you think i made the right choice?
@@davidepicci1555 yes
It really depends on the software you use, Adobe CC gets bigger at each release so I’m sticking with 16gb.
There's a few Adobe products that I like to use but my god is Adobe a real piece of garbage company.
They already made me lose high interest after changing to a subscription model, and I wouldn't really mind it too much if only their software wasn't a buggy mess that is horrible at resource management.
I dropped Premiere Pro about a year ago in favour of Davinci resolve and FUCK is it a lot better. Premiere is not smooth, it's not optimized, it lags like a motherfucker and it just does not perform well regardless of how high-end your computer is (mac or PC).
It's the same with the after effects. Not as much as premiere but fuck is it not optimized for anything.
Same. My M1 8Gb will die after a while with some app combos. Will be aiming for 32Gb on the next machine.
I have a 16GB M1 Air for Unity game development (Rider as IDE) and music production in Logic Pro and I know that an 8GB M1 falls apart with my workloads while the 16GB has zero issues in my more than half a year of usage.
can you say about Lightroom classic?
@@truebro77 not really, haven't used it, but Photoshop seems to run just fine
Generally, you only need more RAM if you're doing things that use lots of RAM. The top types of apps that use up RAM are:
- Software development
- Audio and Video production
- Scientific simulations
- Financial simulations
- Games
- Running VMs and services (think Docker)
Im use studio one pro 5 many plugins and not even close use 8gb ram. but if use a lot of midi instruments that can be bad.
can I play games like Rocket league easily on Mac?
@@TP-ot7lp I have no idea. Wikipedia has more info.
What about streaming? If I plan on using my Mac for streaming music production shouldn’t I invest more into the RAM so it can handle the heavy workload?
@@itsChrisPerkins I did put "Audio and Video Production" on the list of "top types of apps that use up RAM".
Seems to be 10C/16G with 16 RAM and 512GB is the perfect equilibrium for most tasks on the spectrum, unless you are a really heavy user or a really light one (which 8RAM will work fine)
Depends what you do with your Macbook - simple as that.
If you are a light user - browser, social media apps, some simple graphics work, video, music - 8gb is enough.
Even if you are an amateur content creator - photographer, musician etc. - 8gb is enough.
When you start to get into the area of video production, 3D art, more pro photography, you'll want as much as you can feasibly get.
For me, I fall between the first and second. I've got a mac mini M1 and a macBook Air M1 - both base models.
I have yet to notice any significant annoying slowdown.
I do a fair amount of photoshop work, create music in Logic Pro, which includes using guitar, bass, keyboards etc. - I also do code. (Software engineer by trade).
Anyone who says that you need more than 8gb for this level of usage on an M1 mac, really doesn't know what they are talking about - the architecture is VERY different to Intel Macs.
Yes - once you have made that choice, you are stuck with it - so if you do start to go to a more pro-level and require more oomph, that'll likely happen quite slowly over time - by which point, Apple will have released newer models (which they already have) - and at that point, you can trade up.
Next question, because this one has been done to death and put to bed a LONG time back.
I think the biggest irony in all of this, is that these questions are often posed by those who create video content ... for RUclips ... and as such, they will naturally be biased toward wanting more RAM.
what do you think for the m2 mac?
Thank you for this explanation! Really helped with my decision in sticking with 8gb for now.
I’m a light casual user myself, I’m sticking to 8gb ram thanks for the explanation, it helped with my decision 😊
is a 7core, 8gb RAM and 256gb storage alright? I'm a video editor
@@eleonacaliao You don't need more than 16 GB ram unless you are editing movies as professional or need to run 100 plus tracks as pro move composer. 8 gb ram can handle tons of stuff.
I don't suggest getting 8gb of ram because you can't upgrade it later. You'll never buy too much ram but you can buy too little. If it was upgradeable the I'd say ok cheap out on 8gb however 16gb has been the norm on PCs for a long time and most phones have 8gb so it doesn't make sense to buy a premium product and only have 8gb. If you wanted to cheap out then macs were never a good choice regardless.
yeah but it's not the same as 8 gigs on PCs or even Intel Macs the new Macs are way more ram efficient so having 8 gigs is like having 16
@@The_MEMEphis yea but how long will that last you?
@@g00gle1sw4tchingme well considering 95% of users just use web browsing and basic work tasks probably a long time
@@The_MEMEphis My 8gb M1 MacBook was at full ram usage while doing basic stuff like downloading games from steam, watching youtube videos, and having a few tabs open for school work.
@@DrSwoose well the fact you're trying to play games from steam is interesting given 99% of the games aren't compatible and also I personally own a 8gb MacBook air and I edit with Adobe premiere and watch RUclips on a second screen and never run into ram issues
I think the SSD capacity also plays a role on how fast the project can be delivered.
The higher capacity the better, because M chips also use the SSD to store temp memory.
A co-worker use to always say "Crap with expand to the space available when it come to memory, and storage". Thing is the 8GB will swap to storage much more than the 16GB models. Since I hate swap I purchased the 16GB model.
Ok I’m going to give you the straight to the point answer right here. Buying an M1 pro/max MacBook Pro with only 8GB is straight up dumb. The 8GB should not even be an option. If you are buying an M1 pro processor then obviously it’s because you need the power for demanding tasks such as music or video production/editing (otherwise just get a regular MacBook/MacBook Air with 8GB). In fact if you can afford an M1 pro then you can easily afford the extra couple hundred for the 16 GB of ram. The only question you should be asking yourself is: “do I need 16 or 32?” And the answer to that is: if you do high end 4K video editing or 3D rendering then you get 32. For anything else 16 will do you just fine!
I am extremely happy with my 8GB Air, even sometimes using it as desktop pc (connecting it to the monitor, while py PC is on repairs or used by someone else)
Memory is not meant to improve performance , that's CPU .. memory is meant to have more programs opened and helps the CPU to kept the performance .
Hello, interesting post. I started out with a 13" MBP with 8gb ram and 1TB storage. While the laptop performed quite well, I frequently found myself staring at the infamous beach ball, quite regularly. Activity Monitor always showed available ram nearly all used up and frequently using as much as 7gb swap memory. I upgraded to the 16gb ram version of the 13" MBP, 1TB storage and noticed an immediate improvement in performance. The swap memory was not used nearly as much and the beach balls were far less present, although still appearing once in a while. Recently I upgraded to the base model 16" MBP with 1TB storage and again noticed an immediate increase in performance, again with only 16gb ram. The swap memory is almost never used. In all 3 cases my usage is the same. I basically do no video editing, usually have no more than 4-5 browser tabs open and use the laptop primarily for office work and watching RUclips video and movies. On average, Activity Monitor shows about 12-13gb ram being used. Google Chrome is still the biggest memory hog, although Safari is not much better. I would have gone with 32gb Ram, had it been available. As we say in the motorsports industry "there is no replacement for displacement". Thanks again for such an informative post.
These days the hogging is not longer from the browser, but from the websites and their crazy amt of tracking cookies and etc that can be heavy despite just regular web browsing.
I would’ve bought the 32 gb RAM but I don’t want to have a 16 inch laptop. I prefer the 13 inch.
I have a 2013 Macbook Pro with 8GB and dont even use all of it when having open multiple tabs with videos playing, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook all open at the same time. And I cant remember the last time I saw the beach ball. So what on earth have you done to your poor PC that you need so much RAM.
Do you even use an Adblock software? I do have more stuff running on an iPhone and it works just fine. For what would you use 32gb of ram? For a browser with 4 tabs and a couple of office apps? 😊
Seriously, such tasks don’t require a high end pc. People have been using 2015 machines for the same tasks and lived with it fine. You probably have something wrong with the system- maybe too much clutter.
I hardly doubt 8G on M1 is not enough for office work.
I routinely use over 50GB of RAM on my M1 Max MacBook Pro. Sometimes more.
Using after effects and premiere pro etc.
I’m really glad I didnt spend all that money on a computer and then skimp on the RAM that it needs.
I got the 13,3' m1 16gb ram laptop and I use it for coding, Illustrator and photoshop and runs pretty smoothly ... currently I'm running windows 10 on parallels and I can say That it works better than I expected
For office work surely 8 GB is more than enough, while for creative jobs or some gaming higher RAM would be needed
Real world experience. I have a mini with 8gb of ram. I work in IT. The browsers drag you down during a long work day. I think 16gb is the minimum. The problem comes from email, calendars, video calls, and web sites. It all takes a little bit.
you have so much to learn about what ram is all about and how things really work with ram
Not every mac heavy user is multimedia creator. I use mbp 13 m1 with 8gb ram for academic research. Often used more than 3 profiles in chrome with >10 tabs opened. Handled many pdfs for research, excel, word, several note taking apps, statistical software such as spss, smartpls opened and feel barely lag.
Thanks for the video btw. I will stick with my stuff for a while.
if you read some people here you'd need 32 GB just to open a browser.
@@valdir7426 🤣
For what you’re doing it’s absolutely fine. But imagine combining all that stuff while simultaneously doing Software Development. I have a 32Gig M1 Pro 16 inch and with all those thi gs open I’m left with around 12-14Gigs. More importantly my swap never gets used increasing the Lifespan of my SSD.
@@ameyajoshi742 don't worry with your stuff, push it to it's limit. because, just like us, it'll die eventually 😁
I did video editing on 8GB of RAM on Premiere Pro with the 13” MacBook Pro. I wonder what’s the deal here. I even did them with 4K60. If you want the best video editing performance, go get the M1 Max MacBook Pro on the 14 or 16” model depending on what size you choose if you can actually afford it. That will come with 32GB of RAM standard. You can put up to 64GB of RAM if you really want to.
If you're a producer using Logic Pro, 32gb Ram is a minimal amount. All those plugins and audio tracks and midi tracks and sampled sounds are very demanding.
Most producers go for 64gb, or even 128 if they can get it. You want more than you think you need, because you may end up needing more than you thought you would use.
Made the mistake of getting an 8GB M1 MBP and I'm totally struggling with it mainly in my 3D workflow. Music production its doing ok. I'll be upgrading to something else this year!
Thanks for taking the time to make this video. Very informative, saved me money that covered cost of apple care on the MacBook Air I just ordered
I have a 14 inch max with 32 GB ram, usual docker, Webstorm multiple browsers workflow. And I end up[ swapping about 300-400 MB after 2-3 days of usage, not a whole lot but I think I would have liked 64 GB RAM.
currently got a M1 macbook air, I run out of memory with 8gb quite regularly. Macbook starts to lag and mouse cursor runs slow when i have 2 different browser and 15 tabs open, unless i deliberately go quit every other program that is running. so I would say always go for 16 if you have the extra budget
One thing about MacBook Air is, there's no cooling fan so the speed would get throttled to avoid overheating. The Pro with 8gb would work fine
I'm a software engineer and I've been using a MacBook Air 8GB for about a year. I work with a complex stack, so I've typically got like 6 docker containers, IntelliJ Idea, MySQL workbench and a dozen Chrome tabs. The 8GB air handles this fine most of the time, but it's teetering on the edge. I added two more containers to the stack and things started toppling over, so I'm upgrading to a 16GB MacBook Air.
I would say for most software engineers 8GB is plenty. I doubt it's common to run so many VMs. If you're the exception you probably know it.
excellent video / editing / advice this is EXACTLY what i was looking for. You have really great content here. I'm surprised you only have 43.2k subs
I got the 24” IMac 8CPU and 8GPU and 16GB RAM. Yes the machine is a beast for normal tasks and even simple video and photo editing. Once I started getting a little complicated with edits though all the RAM got stuffed and I ended up with over 5GB of swap used. I consider myself a little more than above average user and I would definitely invest more in RAM not CPU or GPU.
never buy a 21 or 24inch imac. always get the 27, but now its not on sale...
@@a.s.l711 Never buy an imac , always use a desktop and external monitor.
@@zaldum386 what about the retina display
In 2014, I bought a MacBook Air with 8GB (upgraded from 4GB, the base option at the time). Great decision, because the machine still works well today. (I use Xcode on it - but not the latest version). If I had got it with 4GB, I wouldn’t be saying that.
I’ve just ordered the M2 Mac Mini with 16GB unified memory, and I’m hoping it will still be useable in another 10 years time…
bro bro bro . hold up. Dude 10 years? Logically think about this. In 10 years laptops will probably 10x the current speeds easily if not much more. Why would you waste your time on old technology?
When you pretend you know alot of computer knowledge
... and if you are doing multiple things at the same time, or you need to use external displays (uses RAM in this architecture), then you need more RAM. So, short version: Get as much RAM as you can afford. I just saved you time from the video.
16GB period. I've heard countless people say they regret getting only 8GB, and I'm in that group of people.
I was quite surprised when you mentioned 3dsMax in the video since it is Windows-exclusive... That comparison didn't make a whole lot of sense at that point. Would be more interesting to see how 8 and 16GB compare for things such as VMs (e.g. Parallels), Steam, or maybe programming tasks since these would be tasks a lot of mac users would want to do I guess.
I don't think you're considering the life cycle of a mac. I myself have a 2013 Macbook Air, still running smoothly, so in my opinion it's definitely worth getting memory 1 level above what you need today, because you could be owning this machine for over 10 years, and Apple doesn't exactly make it easy for users to upgrade their machines.
Just got the M1 Pro MBP with 16gb a few days ago. All I do is my engineering class work (so mainly coding), medium format digital photography, some video, and audio editing. So far 16gb has been more than enough, but I am worried about how it will handle google chrome. I use a lot of tabs and those seem to eat up ram more than anything I can do in DXOlab, Final Cut Pro, or Matlab.
I typically have dozens of tabs open and never see any issue.
Go with Microsoft edge :) Simple as that
Amount of gb's is not only about performance. Its also about amount of running processes at the same time
Performance is just a consequence, nobody thinks like in this video.
My first 2007 iMac came with a ridiculous 1Gb of ram, which I instantly upgraded to 4Gb. Every Mac I've had since has been ram-maxed. With the latest models, however, Apple makes the ram upgrades so expensive, so I see the reason for this video. I also see the reason to wait and wait and wait to buy a new Macbook because the ram I want (32Gb) is so expensive.
And while waiting use less ram...
More and more I think these RUclips reviewers aren’t actually engineers qualified to tell us how individual apps really use ram and GPUs. And none use the ML processors? They all just run benchmarks and compare them just the same.
I got the 64GB RAM option 💻
I've got no complaints; it runs like a dream with Firefox, Spotify, Telegram, Photoshop, and Illustrator all running
No hesitation whatsoever
Good boy 💪
8 GB is largely enough if your usage is only limited to these softwares
@@babaislivestreaming5629 Phones have more then 8GB these days
@@babaislivestreaming5629 I heard that memory swapping can lead to premature SSD failure, and the SSD was the failure point on my last MacBook Pro (which was a maxed-out 2014 retina)
I want my new one to be my workhorse for the next decade at least, so I went all-out. 64GB M1 Max with a 2TB SSD
If you buy a 16 GB model, you won't get the full 16 GB. Some space will be taken by already running apps in the background by startup. And if you work in creative software, you'll also be listening to music or using Chrome for research on the project. So imagine how much space is left for your creative software to run and use its full power.
Thanks for this insightful video with a clear summary what to buy when. I made a big mistake getting only 8GB and virtualizing windows on my MacBook Air. Things screech to a halt, eventually. 8GB have to really be avoided for any type of serious multitasking. Your clip makes that obvious. More power to you!
Great to hear!
Did you plan to use a virtual machine when you specced it?
Why? I am student, isnt it pretty enough for me? P.S. I am not using any programs
@@ourcollectivewisdom8769 I did, but wasn't aware that 8GB already is the required amount to run MacOS nicely. I didn't want to wait for a BTO version with 16GB, which I am regretting now. Well, next time I learned my lesson.
@@matrhein fair enough. I use a combination of an M1 Mac Mini in my home office, M1 MacBook Air for travel, and M1 iPad Pro for general use. If I could, I would sell the works and just get a 16” MacBook Pro, since it has a far more capable version of what is essentially the same processor. Alas, this is the plight of the early adopter.
What would be advised for wedding video editing? 16gb or 32gb?
Ridiculous how expensive the upgrade from 8 to 16 or even to 32 gb is compared to normal PCs.
Even considering the memory is embedded on the M1, it should be even cheaper.
This is so inaccurate. I had a 16 and now a 64gb m1 pro/max. I consistently hit swap on my 16g mode when running Lightroom and chrome. I use close to 40gbs now when using Lightroom and chrome on my 64g model. You can’t just compare render times…
well I do audio work with ableton and I cheaped out on the 8GB (what I used to have); and it's really all right. I've yet to see the pressure goes into red (I've seen it yellow a few times); and the swap has never gone beyond around 300 MB. Could it be a little faster? probably. Would I really care? probably not. I use mostly synths; a few drum samples; one or two sampled instruments once in a while. I do know that RAM is the bottleneck on my system (like I would see RAM issue before maxing out the CPU probably); but for my usage it's not a problem. When I make a render it's usually below 5 minutes, which is just perfect to make a toilet or coffee break.
Only problem is "wired memory" seem to fill up with time so I reboot every few weeks to keep it under 2GB.
Thanks for sharing. My use case is same as yours and I’m looking at 16GB/2TB. 32GB/4TB sounds appealing but the surcharge is quite high. And I’m not sure it would affect the use case.
8:13 so you can get that done with a $200 chromebook too... I still don't understand why people say $1000 machine for 'office' task.
Basically 32 GB stands for all the tasks and it will be feature proof
absolutely not necessary for most people; and for the price of the upgrade you can buy a second hand mac down the line with more ram.
I'm upgrading my laptop. A MBP 14" M1 pro for the next 5-7 years. Should I get it with 16gb or 32gb? I mostly use office softwares, some mild video editing, but use a lot for web for research. Thanks!!
I think when it comes to the comment on “8GB is enough for photo editing” it should really depend on the kind of editing you are doing. If you are just doing some minor white balance, changing minor settings on Lightroom, MAAYBE. For myself, my raw photos are taking 100mb alone, and each adjustment layer surely adds more bandwidth. On my pc I have 32gb ram and I’m able to blue screen, so I think going 8gb won’t futureproof u for long, and as you learn more on photo editing you will surely need more ram. 16g seems min, and as you hone ur skills more it wouldn’t hurt to go up to 32
Meh, Lightroom doesn’t use that much RAM for me.
@@alfredkc Lightroom alone probably will never, but once you couple it with “edit on photoshop” and doing different dodging and burning and depending on your editing style your adjustment layers can rack up ram rather quickly
I have 64GB RAM on my iMac which is overkill for the type of programs I tend to run. However, the great benefit I get is that it enables me to have several tens of browser tabs open in two or more browsers. It holds the information in RAM rather than having to reload from the internet or hard drive and I won’t ever have to open the computer to add more RAM in future.
I tend to have 50 to 100 tabs open among several browsers with Firefox and that uses barely 4-5GBs of RAM. 64GBs are meant for memory-intensive programs, it is a real waste of money to pay the upgrade price for keeping the memory idle. As someone mentioned in a different comment, it's like having a dinner table for 12 people when you live alone and never have visitors.
@@itisabird
Since iMac’s are a pain to upgrade [RAM] and I may upgrade my video editing apps in future and 6 and 8K are on the horizon and I don’t change computers more often than eight years minimum, there is no waste of money. If I changed computers every couple of years or underused my machine, now that would be a waste of money. However my machine is part of my business and used at least five hours a day every day, there’s nothing about it that is a waste of money. My cameras and cars on the other hand… but they are a hobby so don’t count.
I frequently work with lots of 45MP Canon R5 images. I use LrC, Photoshop, and Topaz for noise reduction. I edit on a MBP with M1 Pro, 16GB ram, and 1TB SSD storage. I don’t have any browser open when editing. I would recommend 32 GB Ram and 2 TB Storage to anyone who cares about performance. 16 GB works, but it is on the edge as you get plenty of beach balls and other flaky behavior. 32 GB is the sweet spot for RAM. It is far better to have too much than to live on the edge of enough. You, the paying human, should never have to wait on a damn computer. It should be the other way around.
Thanks for sharing your experience. I’ve bought but waiting on the same configuration but with 4tb storage. I also use the R5.
When do you get the beach balls?
I’ve watched lots of vids showing 16gb is enough, even though it uses swap.
@@EverythingCameFromNothing It uses swap, which is part of the problem. When you feed it a bunch of 45MP files, over and over, using LrC, Photoshop, and Topaz, the memory pressure keeping increasing until the beach balls start showing up more and more. Eventually, you just need to reboot to clear things up, or just close down everything. This is real work I’m talking about, not just testing for making videos. So, yes, 16GB works, but 32 GB is much smoother. I don’t run anything else on my MBP while editing. I can deal with the 16GB M1 MBP for travel, but not at home everyday. A 32GB M1Max MBP would have been a better choice for me. A 64 GB M1 Ultra MS is a system to grow with, for me.
@@RogerZoul cheers for that. I don’t normally use photoshop in my workflow and very rarely Topaz denoise AI. So hopefully i won’t have the beach balls 🤞 😬 🤞
If you are only using your MacBook for casual web browsing, streaming movies, basic home office tasks (eg word processing, email, spreadsheets etc), then 8gb is enough.
For things such as music production, video editing/production, gaming, you will probably want at least 16gb. Probably is a key word as some people tasks won't be as intense as others.
I'd think though if you are spending $2000 on a PC, it should have 16gb of Ram minimum. As $2000 should give you an above average high performance computer beyond general casual use.
oh wow, 2000, a 500 asus vivobook14x oled is already high peforming, above any latest macbook
I'm presuming this would be the same for a Mac mini (which is what I use). I'm an artist and run a lot of programs like Photoshop, Clip Studio Paint, a couple of vector based programs, etc... and I use an XP-Pen drawing display hooked up to it. About a year and a half ago, I almost went with the 8 Gig model, which I'm sure would've been fine, but... I figured, just to be on the safe side I should flip the extra $250 (Canadian) and go with a 16 gig. It runs smooth as glass... but would it have run just as smooth with 8 gig? Maybe, but I feel better with that 16 gig "safety net" .
If you did any form of multi-tasking with that workload, 8gb most certainly wouldn't have been adequate. The swap space may have been fast enough that you didn't usually notice, but relying on swap space to make up for low memory will only serve to kill your SSD faster and still not meet the same performance as more RAM. You made the right call
I agree with one huge caveat - longevity. 8GB may be fine now, but if you want the laptop to last 5+ years the 16gb will be worth every penny.
Disagree, with SSDs and RAM swap, you need AT LEAST 32GB of RAM or more... unless you don't care if your SSD dies years before it should.
@@rsr789 you do realize the cheapest way to get 32GB is by spending $3,000 right? No modern SSD will fail before 10 years of use. Plus, Mac is more efficient with ram so 8gb on Mac is like 16gb on Windows.
@@theoneonly5368 In what world is 32GB of RAM $3,000? '"No modern SSD will fail before 10 years of use", demonstrably prove that. Also, Apple Silicon utilizes the Unified Memory (not really 'RAM') for the all of the CPU and GPU cores, yes?
as far as im concerned theres never a situation you should have less than 16 gigs with the ram swap issue that people have been having with it using up their SSD's. just having a browser, your email, and discord open uses just under 8gb. that leaves you no space for some workflow or something. never get the 8gb skew unless all you do is like use the internet only or something, and if thats all you are doing why are you spending over 1000 dollars on a laptop in the first place.
One thing that doesn’t seem to get tested much is building previews and running a few Lightroom tasks simultaneously. For example, I’ve found that on the M1 MacBook Air 8GB, if I build 1:1 previews and try to edit or use brushes at the same time (or do much of anything else), it locks up. I find I do this a lot on my old MacBook Pro with 16GB of RAM which didn’t seem to have as much of an issue.
Chrome with a dozen tabs or so, Slack, Zoom, IntelliJ project or two open, couple Docker containers running, Outlook and you realize 16GB is a strict minimum to have.
Very informative as always. Really exited for the upcoming M2 laptops.
Thanks man!
1:07
Teabag : ill be leaving now 🫡
Greatest video on this channel so far! Just what I needed to know with the best analogies and practical demos, this video really goes to show the meaning of RAMs in modern day Macs (and PCs by extension). Keep up the simplified yet detailed good work.
While I know I don't need 16GB today, I am looking to upgrade from a Mid-2012 MacBook Pro. A 10 year old machine.
While I don't expect to get 10!! years out of my next MAcBook, I do want to future proof my new MacBook.
If u r going to use MBA for 5yrs or more, 16GB is definitely more future proof. Remember that even u no need so much ram but future computing devices are going to be required more resources and apps are going to be bigger size too.
All of it! I need all of the RAM!
Seriously though, 16gb is the sweet spot for me; recording music and editing photos can be pretty intensive.
The thing with RAM is that if you have enough for a task, having more doesn’t increase speed too much but if you have less then the system uses the HDD or SSD as memory and you will notice that.
There are two reasons for increasing the ram. Not only that you will use more demanding software now, but if you want your laptop work “fine” more time. The basic works that today need only 4Gb in some years will need more (for doing the same work hahaha).
People with MacBooks from 2012 have them working perfectly but with an increase of RAM from the original 4Gb to 12 or 16.
I lived the same with a Pc with 4Gb… in some years (and some Windows versions later) with those same 4Gb I need lot of time only to have the laptop on and ready to work and even to the more simple actions like watch a RUclips video I need to be patient… a friend with the same laptop but 8Gb doesn’t notice difference the firsts years but now he works far better than me.
It always bugs me in these videos how they compare execution speed of arbitrary workloads without actually looking at memory usage. In most cases, there is no performance difference unless you run out of memory and need to swap to disk.
14" 16-32 gig. My big problem about purchasing more for the future is. Will the labtop last that long. Will Apple support the sytem for that long or force you to upgrade. I purchased a big brand PC six years ago running Win 1o. Already not upgradable to Win 11 & Microsoft says they are not supporting Win 10 anymore. Just received my supposed last update & I get a small window pop up asking me to enter my pin when I log on to the internet using Microsoft Edge browser & can't even get a response from Microsoft about it (is it Microsoft asking for my pin or???) because I run Win 10. So I hit the cancel button & run as is. I'm not entering my sign on pin again unless someone from Microsoft talks to me. Heck, I'll go off grid & just go to the library if need be.
depends. for example if we are in music production many apps store samples in ram. in such cases even 256 gb ram might not be enough to handle the needs of producing a 100 piece orchestra
You would use the less detailed sample pack, write it, then you would render it with the better quality samples. You might have to split it into groups e.g strings, horns, etc and render multiple stems.
I have superior drummer for example, I can write the track with smaller sample sized kit and swap it out for mixing when the time comes.
Bro I am confused between 16gb or 32gb Ram for music production in Ableton
@@notsure1135 Bro I am confused between 16gb or 32gb Ram for music production in Ableton
@@bunnysingh4832 depends on 2 things 1. Your workflow , Do you want to run multiple instances of kontakt, Omnisphere etc. Then you need 32 gb ram. Are you comfortable bouncing midi tracks to audio when ram seems to run out. Then you can use 16 gb ram. Do you want to use these for live performance. Some plugins still run on rosetta and won’t use the benefits of unified memory. For live performance and also considering rosetta 32 gb would be the best idea. 32 gb could be future proof
@@jubinroy4987 I mostly produce Hip hop music and I use samples a lot
This is the most incomprehensible description ever of why you need ram.
I got the 8GB. Once you get passed the 5th application opened, Siri can't even function properly. But the funny thing is, it forced me to not multi-task so much, like trying to listen to music/videos while I work. It's more productive being ultra focused but still I'm not having the full M1 experience. Next Mac will be 16GB for sure!
What apps are those? I hardly believe what you're saying.
@@cristibaluta I'm not here to convince anyone. Just stating my experience:
1. Numbers with 5MB spreadsheet open
2. Chrome playing 1 youtube video,
3. Visual Studio Code interpreting one 3000 line python code
4. Safari web page displaying webapp output from VS code
5. MySQL workbench
6. IBKR trading app
The above bust the 8GB RAM limit and goes into swap. So once I try to evoke Siri to perform queries or execute a shortcut, it just doesn't respond. It only starts to work again after closing down apps and freeing up RAM at around 6GB.
Whats macbook do you use?
I do photography and Video Production for a living. I typically buy a new computer every 6-8yrs and I typically max it out when I buy it. I find it helps them last a long time and in fact up until this past year when I bought my Canon R5 that shoots higher megapixel stills and really chunky 4k video(and 8k capable), my late 2015 27" iMac has been great but starting to show its age. These new M1 machines are so good I thought I'd replace it with a MBP. I decided to go with the 16" M1 Max and the place I bought it from was the same price for the 24GB GPU model as the 32 so I went with the 32. It came stardard with 32GB of RAM and I opted for $300 more to get the 64GB version. I suppose I may have wasted my money but unlike my old machine, I can't add more later on this. I never know what I may be doing in the years to come and how software will change and better utilize the power of the M1 platform. I also made really good money this year and needed to spend some to offset my tax liability so I figured why not!
Future proof......waste of money....overkill. Who knows. All I know is it's a beast and if I'm every running into performance trouble down the road I know I bought the best machine possible.
Got the 8GB of RAM M1 Air since October and never did it lag on me, even while editing using Davinci Resolve it stays fast and snappy. Im a light user on laptop so for me it’s fine, my next macbook tho will be 16gb or 32gb at least for more futurproofing.
How much TBW your SSD made?
@@lucasmatteus1386 last time i checked it was still at 100% disk health
Used to be a time when you would scale up as your needs increased. Now you should take into account the same scale for future use. My philosophy: if you’re going to have this machine for up to 5 years. Try to max it out. If your the kind of person who sells a machine on eBay 2 years or every year as a new Apple product launches. 16 is a good start.
I did freelance videography and photography for a year on the M1 Pro 16GB MacBook Pro. It was handling 4K 4:2:2 10bit log video editing like butter
Facts 💯
This is what I was looking for
so it will handle lightroom classic veryeasy then
@@truebro77 yes no question, although I don’t feel it is snappy anymore in 2024. Battery is still great, maybe I should do a factory reset cleanse
The simple explanation is: If the computer runs out of RAM, it will use SSD, which is I think about 500 times slower, I'm not sure on the exact numbers because Apple's SSDs are much faster than the competition. That 500x penalty is just for the memory access task, the CPU/GPU time will be exactly the same either way. If your workload can already fit entirely in RAM, then adding more won't make any difference at all.
If you edit with prores raw files or files from Sony A7S iii / gh6 do you need 64gb ram?
@@gurugamer8632 Photos - no. Videos, depends what you are doing.
@@katbryce how much ram do you have and what spec system do you use
@@gurugamer8632 16" MacBook Pro with Intel Core i9 9980HK, 64GB RAM, 4TB SSD.
@@katbryce wow 🤩
I use Docker for app development and it uses 11GB minimum. Very glad I overpaid for the 32GB model.
The short answer is 8, unless you are trying to process 100mb image files. Mac users with decades of experience know that you don't have unnecessary apps running in the background. It's all you have to do and Activity Monitor tells you.
Just to confirm, are you using the 13 inch MacBook Pro for the 16GB ram and the 14 inch MacBook Pro for the 32GB model as the 8GB MacBook Pro should be the 13 inch one, which has a slower CPU. It seems impossible to keep the control variables the same from 8-32GB? Thanks
Buy the RAM now or replace your MacBook sooner because the SSD is soldered on to the board. Apple wins either way.
I have the M1 Pro 16 with 16GB and it’s not enough. When I have 30-50 tabs open on chrome (yes, because of crypto) + using Lightroom, I feel like the 16 GB is on its limit. Sometimes the Mac slows down and just closing the processes manually helps.. But for simple things even 8 GB would be enough.
My next Mac will have at least 32 GB or better 64GB. Google chrome is really RAM intensive! If I wouldn’t use chrome, 16 GB would be enough!
If you're an academic student, I recommend at least 16gb. 8gb will work if you're using a word document and 5 webpages. However, if you're running a word processor, multiple PDFs, many webpage tabs, Onenote/notepad and a citation manager, all on a 4k/multi monitor, you will be pushing the limits. 16 should be minimum for graduate students who are doing research.
come on I do music production with 8GB and it's completely fine; and I have a browser and a few smapll apps running at the same time. You absolutely can browse the web and edit text document with 8GB. people are nuts here. plus students would probably rather buy food than useless ram for their computer.
@Platon Emil I totally believe that’s your experience. I would hope you could appreciate the wealth of variability in peoples experiences. You also just actively discredited my experiences by comparing them to yours and alluding to yours as being more valid. Shame shame lol Those are my honest experiences friend. Sorry they don’t align with yours. I’d do some reflecting if I were you.
@@valdir7426 it’s not uncommon to have 50 tabs open and 20 PDFs (some which are digital books). I suppose I could suggest that you’re not really doing music production because your projects aren’t complex enough to use more than 8gb. Not everyone does things the same and what I experience is real. I think 8gb is probably fine for undergraduate work. I maintain that if you’re a graduate student you probably need more.
Ram is not about a specific task or benchmark, it's about a workflow, like using the whole Adobe suite at the same time for a project
So, i got things clear, mba 8gb is enouh for my workload as a student, using it for document, browsing and light editing tqq
Exactly
Not always. If you use lots of stuff (like 4 words, 20+ tab, power point) at one time, as a student you will want more
Main thing is,, os and some important background apps take a out 4-5 gb ram whether what everever you you work or standby.... So 8 gb realistically gives you 3-4 gb for all your programs...
While 16 gb takes almost same ram for os and gives you 11-12 gb for your software..
There should be a 12 gb model. Sweet spot.
Plus small ram with lot of running apps use ssd for swap and this cause ssd degradation.
I have M1 macbook air 16 gb ram. My workflow is after effects, illustrator, safari with multiple opened pages including couple of streams, messengers. Twice mac os crashed, periodically pages froze. 16 gb is ok, but 32 gb is definitely better for my case use.
8gb is the same as with oc, what's difference is access to it is faster, when it runs out it just goes to the SSD making it seem like it is not because the storage that substitutes for ram temporarily.
Again 8gb on a Mac or PC is the same your app uses it the same, what's different is how the is can use the SSD which is close by in the chip to be used for temporary memory.
You still ran out just like on the ov, but the performance did not suffer as much because the storage is further away on most pcs, meaning the SSD takes longer to act like memory, the osx system also handles this better than windows.
i’d recommend 16GB for most people, mostly for future proofing reasons if you want it to last as long as possible and run well for longer.
usually the base ram is okay for today but will sooner than later not be enough for anything but the most basic tasks
dont worry about future proofing - your ssd will possibly fail before you need more RAM :)
@@Gailon1000 my 2014 macbook pro lasted well enough until I sold it in january of this year,
@@arc001 when I said for “today” I mean the next few processor/software updates. the M1 is still apple’s latest
@@daniebello yeah but if something fails you cant swap it and you have to buy a completely new computer
@@Gailon1000 ok? that's the sacrifice you make for efficiency, portability, and good design. No phone today has a replaceable SSD because if they did the performance would drop, the design would be clunkier, and less portable
Apple have very cleverly priced all of their hardware to extract the maximum 'Apple tax' for RAM and storage upgrades. 16GB is still the sweet spot - PC gamers will want more but you have a lot more choices with a PC you build yourself.
For my use 16 GB is the very minimum.