8gb unified memory reddit This is where 8GB is a limitation. He’s done some nice comparison videos over the last few days. 8GB is plenty for now though. Looking to hear peoples opinions on actual memory usage for both models. Really 8GB in 2024 is pretty anemic for most things though and Apple should really make 16GB base line. 6666 increase for $1000, is it worth it? or am I ever even gonna need that much memory? Just an example of the top of my head: whatsapp consumes 2 GB of RAM due to being bad app, whereas telegram consumes around 200 MB, while both effectively do the same things. Current workflow to get to the picture above: Apps opened: Chrome w/ 10 tabs (low for me) vs code slack Yellow memory pressure is normal on M1. I went through CS at a large university with a 2015 MBP, intel chip ofc and 8gb ram. Apple wants $800, more than 4x retail, for this same upgrade in the MBA. Unified Memory Architecture of M1 is significantly more efficient compared to Intel i7/i9 Macs. If the gap is huge (like on iPhone/iPad), 8GB additional RAM allow you to smooth switch 20 applications, then why not. I can push up to a 100 tracks in Logic with 8. If you're sure you are not going to do stuff that eats lots of ram you will prob be fine with the 8gb, you should think about it beforehand though, it is a one time choice. Modern macs have incredibly fast storage that can be used as extra swap memory in a pinch. I'd be more concerned about multimedia editing workflows where you're actively scrolling through multiple layers of GBs of video than having a bunch of tabs open. - Garageband. For perspective, $150 can get you this kit of Corsair Vengeance DDR5 RAM. e. Works with iPhone/iPad; Midnight -FOR $1050 AFTER 15% OFF PLUS $50 COUPON! 馃洅$1000-$1200馃洅 I don’t do very extensive editing, just photo editing in lightroom and Photoshop. So I would say 32gb is good for not just orchestral music but music production in general. Or if you are going Pro, then go for the base Pro options (just not the 8 gb nonsense garbage because that's a glorified Air). Hmm, the only thing id like to know is how much the swap memory management is impacted by the slower speeds of the ssd tho. I really punish the thing and I never had any memory/performance issues. And while you may not need it day one, more memory will give you more life. You can custom order an Air with more memory from Apple. But I would want 16GB just to be safe. Your current intel laptop has its 64GB of ram fully dedicated to the CPU and the OS. Your jobs never need a fan. I'll be using it for work videoconferencing and watching videos. Unless you’re like a film composer with massive multi-sampled libraries, but you’d already know when you need a lot of ram. You will be fine with only 8gb of ram. This is obscene price gouging at its finest, and there are people in a I was told that being a casual user 8 GB was all I would ever need. Hella slow but prevents crashes. Here's a test, and the difference really isn't that big between 8GB and 16GB. Then address which you want more. With LLMs the main bottleneck is memory band so i guess they have the same speed. When it maxes out or gets closer to 8gb it borrows memory from an SSD and uses it as RAM. Will 8GB of unified memory be enough, or should I spring for 16GB? And would there be any benefit to waiting to see whether Apple releases a new M2 (or M3?) with more ports — soon? Thanks! Based on the use case you are describing I would go for the 8Gb. 0 NAND-based SSDs, especially for low queue depth random read/writes, large sustained workloads (where QLC SSDs fall off a cliff when their cache is exhausted), and write endurance (when the SSD in Apple's devices But I'm seeing online that 8GB memory is not enough for heavy multitasking and running multiple programs at once. However, 8 GB should be enough if you are only doing casual video editing once in a while. In the rare case that you are directed to work on large / distributed systems, another 8GB of ram won't magically help, and your university will provide lab infrastructure for you to connect into remotely. I use my my Macbook at the moment mainly for office stuff, some movie streaming and internet browsing. Thanks in advance! If all your applications are native to Apple Silicon, 8GB is a lot of memory This is demonstrably false. My Mac Mini from 2018 runs Arc well, and it's Intel. Is 8GB Unified Memory enough? Should I upgrade to the 16GB Unified Memory? Is 256GB SSD Storage enough? Should I upgrade to the 512GB SSD Storage? Unified Memory: This technology tries to blur the lines between VRAM and system memory, making them work together more seamlessly. 8gb will limit you severely if you want to play anything somewhat graphic intensive. But going to 16 GB is a noticeable improvement in terms of how quickly I can multi-task, and just the overall smoothness of the computing experience. Is 8GB enough? Or is spending the extra $200 for the 16GB worth it in the long run? Any advice is appreciated!! From a practicality standpoint, 8gb unified memory is just fine for what you've described. I need these apps to run smoothly: - Adobe Photoshop, Lightroom, Bridge, and PremierePro. External storage can be a pain. Weird - I expected a more consistent uplift with the the 16gb vs the 8GB - I think in real life the extra ram will make a big difference as will the bigger SSD. So, the average 8GB Apple Silicon Mac will remain responsive under memory usage that results in degraded performance on intel macs. Both handle similar Live tracks flawlessly compared to my previous maxed-out Intel i7 Macbook Pro. but I will occasionally edit video from my drone. Hope this helps. Hard disagree. On the other hand, Apple has really fast storage for swap memory, and good memory management in general, and you can over-provision memory very reasonably in most cases. Some people said with 8gb of unified memory web browsing is even hard and it' not future proof? My first MacBook Pro 13inch Retina( from 2016!) lasted a good 7 years before the keys started to stop working for some letters. Apples new Unified Memory is a huge improvement that unless you edit very high end stuff, the 8GB model is perfectly fine. The jump from 8gb to 16gb should be fairly cheap, its very easy to find 16gb of DDR5 for around $50, and apple charges $200. Only caution here is the MacBook uses swap memory heavily, when the ram fills up memory is swapped to your ssd and back as needed. Same here looking at the new Mac with the 32gb option and honestly, it is really good! One thing point out is its Unified Memory so it will be a better option than 32 gigs in the old intel ones (if they even had it). My question is what is unified memory It's just regular RAM, the difference is that the M1 package (the "chip") contains both the CPU and 1 or 2 RAM modules directly connected to the CPU. I have a 14” m1 pro with 16 gb and m1 air with 8 gb. I. Especially as web browsers are the most memory hungry apps I can think of. M1max 10/32/16 core with 64gb memory. It is important to keep in mind that GPU uses unified memory so if you want the benefit of updated GPU in M3 model you will need 16GB. They have 6-8 GB of RAM. Unified memory doesn't magically make you need less RAM. I’m looking to upgrade to an M3 model soon. " Comparing our memory to other system's memory actually isn't equivalent, because of the fact that we have such an efficient use of memory, and we use memory compression, and we have a unified memory architecture. [Amazon] Apple 2023 MacBook Air Laptop with M2 chip: 15. Nov 23, 2013 路 8GB Memory is still good enough for students and grandma to use it to browse the web and use Microsoft Word. 8GB is doable if there is something that can be swapped out to (unified) memory. Hey all, I wanna get the new Macbook Pro 14' M3 and wondering what best ram capacity to get? I'm a first time mac buyer, been with windows gaming PCs all my life but now working as a marketer and traveling is my new thing Hey there! I'm planning on buying a MacBook Air for quite some time now but coming from Windows all my life I have many doubts. On most Macs, Apple charges an absurd $200 for 16GB of unified memory, so you should carefully assess how much you need today and in the future. Or check it out in the app stores Stress Test: 8GB of Unified Memory on M1 MacBook Air vs. So, if you have always done well with 16 on your old machine, it is a great indication that 8 on a M1 will suit you just fine. Especially with the M1 unified memory architecture. . I also use a 8GB/512GB m1 Mac mini. 8GB can be on slower RAM I'm aware of the 'unified memory' which is not possible for future upgrade, but if the $200 premium provides access to 5 more browser tabs or 100 points in benchmark, then it won't worth it. I use an M1 Air with 8Gb every day. Buying Question Hello Redditors, I have a hard choise right now. Obviously, you need to look at your budget, requirements, and how long you want to keep your setup before you buy again. Yes, 8GB is enough for school. It will be used for office stuff and photoshop, no video editing or anything like Oct 30, 2024 路 Does anyone have insights or benchmarks on the impact of different unified memory configurations on gaming and general multitasking performance? Would 24GB suffice, or is the extra investment into 48GB or 64GB worth it for this setup? I'm so confused! So in most computers, there is RAM (memory) for the CPU. For my usecase (secondary machine to a tower pc) I think I'll go for the 8 GB (especially since I can get a steep discount on that model which ends up costing $400 less than the 16 GB version) - but from what you're writing, I think you'll regret not going for the 16 GB. 5TB Optane drive that outperforms even PCIe 5. More like “get what you think you might need because 8GB goes fast when it’s shared between the system and GPU and you can’t upgrade it later” His Intel MacBooks probably has the same thing, just slower but without the fancy “unified” word, just called it “shared” and upgradable. I'll definitely be multitasking a lot -- I have many tabs open at the same time and I, of course, am using a few different programs for my lab work. com takes it to 7. Yes I know its not exactly a fair comparison, the unified memory is different than a normal stick of ram, but I still feel like the comparison in price is fair. I believe that there are MOBOs with that feature too but not every MOBO has it. Apr 12, 2001 路 Expect RAM use to grow over the life of your Mac. I just picked up a 14-inch M3 Pro in the 12 CPU/18 GPU/18 GB unified memory/1 TB SSD configuration. Think of it like moving the market right next door to your restaurant. This should answer a lot of questions people have about getting which device. doing research with a web browser, while creating something else in a different app. Looks like best buy only has the 32gb memory. 8gb M3 Macbook Pro vs 16gb M2 Macbook Air for data science student, which option to go with? I prefer the power of the M3 MBP but slightly worried whether 8gb would be enough or not, since I can't afford to bump up the ram on mbp, tbh at this point 8gb ram is legit looting, but what to do now? help So they’ve killed off the longevity of the iMacs to increase profits it sounds like, great. - Spotify With unified I meant it is used as both system and graphics memory (no separate graphics memory), but as someone commented below the gpu uses vram and the cpu the gddr 5 for system ram. Both the CPU and GPU rely on the same 8GB of GDDR5, that's why it's "unified". tbh the M1/M2 processors in newer macbooks are so good at memory handling and audio processing that you could almost certainly get away with away with an 8GB base Macbook Air and never have to freeze a track, especially if you are willing to close your browser and other apps while producing. Running 13b models quantized to 5_K_S/M in GGUF on LM Studio or oobabooga is no problem with 4-5 in the best case 6 Tokens per second. 54 Second tab YouTube video brings it to 8. If you have a 32 or 36GiB machine, doing normal stuff (Chrome, Spotify, iMessage, calendar, mail, etc. Activity Monitor's memory pressure is a good visual tool for actually assessing how much RAM is working memory versus cache. The benefit of the unified memory is that it’s enough to load given parts of data into one memory only instead of two memories (the one the cpu uses and the one the video card uses). For $300, one could buy a 1. currently on 8gb memory and 256gb storage. The closeness and directness of the connection should reduce memory latency (time to access memory) though I have no idea if there is a difference in memory Well unified memory is just a fancy term for integrated ram apple has for their SoC, it has its ups and downs. Hey. 4ghz, 16gb RAM), and I have plans to change my mac to M3 Pro mbp 14” (11core, 18gb of unified memory) because of the sluggish performance this little intel mac boy provides… I use my mac for simple video editing (for YT) with Premiere Pro and Photoshop (mainly 4k) I plan on buying a Pioneer DDJ-FLX4 controller/mixer. Get the Reddit app Scan this QR code to download the app now. - Microsoft Teams, Outlook, Word and Powerpoint. (Swap and memory compression both exist) Otherwise, you will degrade your SSD too quickly, (from using too much swap) and it will die faster, which bricks the Mac because M1/M2 SSDs cannot be replaced. 8GB unified memory is sort of equivalent of a 16GB traditional RAM Not at all. It is set to be delivered Nov 3 - 5 Im leaving for a trip on the 30th and was really hoping to have this for my trip. Or more if it becomes an option. Nov 3, 2023 路 Key Takeaways on M1 Unified Memory. But for $1,000 I can upgrade to 128GB, that's a 2. But too little memory can't be fixed. M2 8gb Unified Memory here. ) you might be sitting around 24GiB of memory utilization--BUT your memory pressure will be nonexistent, thus there's Second this comment. ) Currently using 2019 13” MacBook Pro baseline model (i5 1. Heck, even 8 gb is more than enough. For the laptop, I wanted the MacBook Air M2 Chip with the original base: 8-Core CPU, 8-Core GPU, 8GB Unified Memory, and 256GB SSD Storage (What do these even mean, lol). Unified means that video memory is piled right on top of that, or both being one, rather. I'm not too familiar with the M1 chip and not sure how it will affect the mbp now compared to my 2015 one. Apple M3 Max chip with 16鈥慶ore CPU, 40鈥慶ore GPU, 16鈥慶ore Neural Engine 48GB unified memory 1TB SSD storage. Plenty of people still game on 8 GB PCs; consumers ran far less intensive applications & macOS. The Air runs rings around my 2019 Intel MBP 16 with 16 GB RAM, and the M1 Pro is faster for video editing than my 5800x PC with 32 GB RAM and 2070 super. Games perform around the same wether on 16 or 8 with the unified memory. I daily an i7-12700K + 32GB system and an M1 + 8GB MacBook Air. I wanted to go for the 16 GB / 512 GB since I normally think I don't have enough space on my PC, but 1600 USD is not something I can afford. 14-inch MacBook Pro - Silver With the following configuration: Apple M3 chip with 8-core CPU, 10-core GPU, 16-core Neural Engine 8GB unified memory 512GB SSD storage 14-inch Liquid Retina DR display? When you buy 8 GB RAM—macOS needs about 2 GB of that RAM—leaving you only 6 GB of RAM for apps. Was wanting to get the all in one M3 IMac with either 16 or 24 gigs of unified memory and 1 Terra byte of internal memory. I’m stuck with only the 8gb model as I will be buying from Costco and they don’t have the 16gb model available. Would the memory difference be noticeable? [Prebuilt] Apple 2023 Mac Mini M2 chip with 8鈥慶ore CPU and 10鈥慶ore GPU, 8GB Unified Memory, 256GB SSD Storage ($500 - Amazon 17% off) amazon comments sorted by Best Top New Controversial Q&A Add a Comment Same amount of VRAM, same memory bandwidth. You may only need 8GB for the work you Mar 4, 2005 路 Looking at the new MacBook air, but not sure if I need to, or if it is worth upgrading the memory to 16gb. Thoughts on: M2 Macbook Air (8-core CPU, 8-core GPU, 8GB unified memory, 512 SSD) Buying Question -Im hesitating whether i should get the 13 inch M1 Pro or the M2 air (with the specifics specs in title). This will be used primary for work; zoom, office, etc. They are literally bog standard, regular LPDDR4X DRAM packages. Today Apple announced its new M1 chip, which is freaking AWESOME, but when I looked at the specs I noticed it had 8GB of unified memory. It can seem more useful when dealing with a GPU because because often when doing anything GPU related a copy of whatever goes into vram still exist in main ram. My code was shit though and probably had a memory leak but moral of the story is that 8gb is fine and usuable. I'm looking to buy MacBook pro M3 Pro 11-core CPU, 14-core GPU; 18GB unified memory and 512GB SSD for ~£1,880 on Amazon's Apple Store. I expect that very complex Fusion compositions would stress the memory in the 8Gb 1 mini. But I have not managed to do so so far. Large files 4k video editing/encoding, batch Lightroom processing, heavy Photoshop use - you will need 16GB. The M2 is a little more efficient with ram but also uses it for unified video memory. Still, as software comes out with better use of the cores, the difference should help. I play games through Whiskey and GPT while also emulating a lot of consoles like Ps2, PSP, and the switch. I am looking to buy the latest M3 MacBook Pro but I am undecided whether to buy the 18 Gb (14 inch, 12 core CPU, 18 core GPU, 1TB SSD storage) or the 36 Gb (14 inch, 14 core CPU, 30 core GPU, 1 TB SSD storage) unified memory. And "unified" is not a magic thing that's magically so fast, that swap becomes zero penalty or anything like that. Apr 22, 2009 路 If 8 GB unified is 2x better than regular RAM in performance, which should i get for occasional Final Cut and Logic work, 16 GB unified? Aug 5, 2020 路 With the M1 is 16GB needed or can I get away with 8GB? 16GB. I have dropped it a few times, spilled water all over the keyboard, used it as a coaster by putting hot drinks and on soup on it and it just won't die! The M1 Mac-Mini I had with just 8GB memory, does "okay" with regular tasks, and can handle some HEAVY tasks, if that is the only app running, or few others, without a performance hit. So both the GPU and CPU share the memory of your system. So people who find 8 GB to be too less are either using such apps or have specific use cases requiring large memory (content creation, programming with large matrices, etc. Lastly, the kernel engineers on macOS have some bleed over with the iOS engineers, especially now that it’s all ARM. Hit buy, select the base you are interested in and add ram on the second page. While the RAM in modern Macs is located directly on the chip, this does not change the reality of physical RAM capacities whatsoever. You can go 16 gb just because an IDE like IntelliJ is a memory hog but really, Pros are not for your needs. Like pro would be faster readable ram, con would be it cant be upgraded because its basically part of the SoC (the controller at least) gpu utilization is no different than if you got a regular windows laptop with an igpu, it would use the ram like the gpu in the apple soc. Lots of people say 8gb might not be enough, but I ran Ableton Live with 4gb in the past, and my last laptop had 8gb with no problems. So i ordered a near top of the line macbook after the event. Roughly speaking, on average, tabs take about 120 MB of memory So 20 tabs would take 2. Now: $1,049 After 19% Off 馃洅$1000-$1200馃洅 There is nothing particularly heavy about your workload, other than you just have a lot of things running at the same time. For the average user, 8 gb is more than enough. Much better than an equivalent windows system does, in fact. But the fact that the unified memory can't be upgraded gives me pause. The operating systems prioritize tasks and memory differently. Unified Memory means those 8gb will be used for the GPU (like VRAM) and normal RAM. The issue is not 8GB, but rather the poor state of MacOS Monterey which I guess you are running. I currently have a 2015 MacBook Pro with 8GB of memory and it works fine enough, but with it being old I'm looking for an upgrade. I have two questions: 1)If I wanna do some machine learning, game development, will a macmini m2 with 8gb ram be enough? Will game engines like unity etc be able to run alright with light multi-tasking? I know I’m getting the best M1 Pro chip, but I don’t know if I need 16gb or 32gb of unified memory. It matters for this subreddit because I've really gotten into video games in the past year or so and I'm tired of getting burned by my MacBook going ham overheating because I run something as simple as Mini Motorways or Stardew Valley -- let alone something like May 6, 2024 路 The biggest disadvantage of Apple's architecture is that since the memory is baked into the SoC, you cannot upgrade your Mac's RAM down the line. I also am considering if I should go for 256gb or 512gb. Reactions: _Mitchan1999 , geekiemac , uther and 28 others Hey y'all - Just wanted to add info for those still deciding on their new macbook pros. I let Handbrake finish and I was good! 8GB really can get a lot done! As the title suggests I want to buy the new Macbook Air 15 inch but they aren't cheap, so am seeking some advice if I should go for the 8gb or 16gb of unified memory. Then to 16GB of memory. 44 memory swap a second I’m getting a 2020 M1 MacBook and don’t know if I should get it with 8GB or 16GB of unified memory. Much like you, I keep my machines for a while. But I've often found that computers you keep for a long time tend to age ungracefully, even macs. I am going to try to get one in store on Tuesday and cancel my online order. I know that CPU wise it wouldn't be an issue but what concerns me is the ram. M1 uses "unified architecture" so that 8 gigs of ram gets shared with the graphics processor, too. M1 iMac 8GB 10 core - I was once running: Topaz Labs AI Video Upscale for a 4k video Compressing a 4k video in Handbrake Running Photoshop & Illustrator It wasn’t until I was using PS that I got a memory warning - and that’s because PS reserves more ram than other apps. imagine an app that has thousands of graphics and programatic routines consuming 2GB of RAM but only 200MB of that is actually needed all the time, with that in mind 1. I train neural networks on an M2 with 16gb and the system is smooth. Was reading that these 100% Apple IMacs have no upgradable parts unlike how you mentioned with your Intel based IMac. The is new "unified" memory. M1 memory model is like that of iPads, and iPhones, with disused processes (such as open but hidden Safari tabs, being cached in ram, this cached will be compressed or dumped if active memory needs grow. 44 Amazon tab uses 1 gun ram So looking at apple and Amazon while listening to video and background is 9. \my suspicion is that the unified memory will page out to disk stuff that doesn't need reading much and leaves in ram all the frequently accessed stuff. They say this unified memory works even more efficiently than traditional RAM and it will feel more like 16gb than 8gb. It's now my home server running loads of Docker containers and handles it like a champ. If you can afford 16 Take this with a pinch of salt, running one app at one time might be great on a 8GB machine, but most people leave apps open and switch between them. * Actually, 8GB on an M3 MacBook Pro is probably analogous to 16GB on other systems. I haven’t managed to watch the video yet but I’m assuming the 8GB was swapping and the 16GB was ok, or the 16GB had much more cached than the 8GB. That's right, Apple sells you 8GB RAM for a 33% higher price than what you can get 64GB RAM for. 8GB or RAM is not a smart investment in the future, despite how efficiently M1 macs use the swap drive. Apparently it’s the best for beginners who want to learn how to DJ. again more expensive. However going to 16GB you will seldom see a memory cap hit. 30% of gamers on Steam have 8 GB or less RAM, which shows even memory heavier tasks are still doing OK with 8 GB. If you have the budget go with 24GB of memory on the Air. When buying a Mac, always get the most RAM you can afford to avoid being bogged down by 'feature-creep' which means software features continue to need more and more RAM as time goes by. I see from task manager that game is only using about 3gb of system memory but total memory ammount is running low becouse it use it as vram. Have you looked at what the memory footprint of your current system is like with your daily use? Every few years you plan to keep it add 10% for slop in the software updates. I’m trying to decide if I need the M3 with 24gb RAM or get the M3 Pro with only 18gb (they’re about the same price). You ready for another day of “The magic of unified memory”? I like this guy though. Your son is pretty young, but all it takes is for him to get a GoPro or a good camera on his phone for him to decide he's a video editor. Plenty people use Chromebooks as their main computer. I learned about Parallels but worry it won't work very well with 8 GB. Plan accordingly Looking to future Mac memory purchase needs: My Advice: If you have an Apple Silicon (M1, M2, or M3) Mac now with only 8GB of RAM, you may want to consider selling it on eBay or Facebook Marketplace right way, or give it away to a family member, and get a minimum 16GB RAM M4 based chip Mac, before everyone else with an 8GB It's gone from RAM to unified memory and I really don't know the difference. Then you have separate memory for the GPU. going to upgrade my current macbook air 2020. I am currently on a 8GB VRAM 3070 and a Ryzen 5600X with 32GB of RAM. According to NVDA, unified memory means that the CPU and GPU share the same memory. Same with 4gb of vram i run games which require more vram than 4gb but in that case it start using the unified memory again and total memory usage increase. Yes 8GB is 8GB but macOS’s ability to anticipate the swap and have it cached is just better. I would recommend 16 however, your machine can last you 8+ years and 16GB will future I just don't see those people being return customers after feeling like they got screwed by Apple, and I honestly have a very hard time imagining that this loss of future business is offset by the additional profit from making the base memory 8 GB instead of 16 GB, especially with how fucking cheap 8 GB of RAM is these days. To recap, here are my top recommendations on choosing an M1 unified memory capacity: For light use, 8GB RAM is generally sufficient; Professional users will see big benefits from 16GB+ memory; In benchmarks, 16GB configs outperformed 8GB by 10-85%; Real-world use reveals 8GB can cause slowdowns from memory Need help deciding on 16gb vs 24gb Unified Memory on M2 Mac Mini Question I want to future proof this machine as much as possible so I don’t buy one again for a long time. Having trouble understanding the practical differences between 8 and 16 gig unified memory for the new m2 MacBook Air. First of all, unified memory is not magic and the RAM size still matters and LPDDR5 chip is extremely cheap while LPDDR5x is already exist. 32GB would likely provide more than enough ram overhead for most editors. For the MacBook Air M3, is 8GB enough if I want to fool around mixing on the side? Whe In fact, unified memory can be worse than having dedicated vram in some common situations. Useful if you go the content creator route. 44gb ram use meaning on my old 8gb ram Mac I’d be using 1. I usually have 15-20 Safari tabs open along with a couple of day trading apps, a retro game emulator, calendar, reminders, and two largish Excel files. In the PS4, there is no such thing as dedicated VRAM and system RAM. It just doesn't require you to transfer memory between the GPU memory and the RAM because now it's just a shared pool of memory between the CPU and the GPU. 8gb of unified memory is probably more than enough. We used Java where we was supposed to make a graph out of an 8gb file. Even right now it's $170, retail. These new macs use unified ram, articles like what-is-unified-memory explain the difference and why less is needed for the same tasks. You may run in bottlenecks when heavy multitasking, but again, it is enough for school. Going to apple. The M1 handles unified memory much differently. I’m trying to decide if I can get away with 8gb of RAM for that, so I can get the new Mac Mini with 8gb of RAM. I have started learning to code, but I am unsure if the 8gb is enough for coding as in a lot of videos that discuss such things, they recommend using a computer or laptop of upwards 16gb of ram, will this be enough? Go easy on me—I’ve been using a MBP with 8gb RAM for the last 6 years lol…. So what do you use it for, and do you wish you had gotten the 8 or 16? *edit to add info: this will be a secondary computer for work. Programs and websites that used to be very light suddenly start to become more demanding. Unified Memory means that it's your normal RAM and also the VRAM, as far as I know. 04 EOL) at a reasonable speed. - Google Chrome. I know unified memory is a little more expensive than standard DDR5, but 16GB of DDR5 is $50-$80. For gaming or CUDA (without memory band bottlenecks) is 2x faster than 3090. Not $400. It is unified memory. I've read somewhere (see the link) that the 8GB unified memory is sort of equivalent of a 16GB traditional RAM. In terms of value per money the 3090 is the only way. However, Macs with unified memory also have fairly fast SSDs. No reason someone who browses the web and checks their email couldn't get by with 8 GB of RAM on a Mac. I have two 16GB M1s (a Mini and am Air). I don't think I've ever seen a home / consumer PC with 12 GB or 16 GB RAM as a base, though. Unified memory has nothing to do with the actual, physical memory chips apple uses. If you had a computer with dedicated graphics with its own memory, then your main memory kind of acted the same as now. I currently have an 8 GB Chromebook that uses Chrome Remote Desktop to access windows for a more full Excel experience since I don't like Sheets and Microsoft 365's Excel is pretty doodoo. I am what you might call a heavy user by ordinary Mac standards. My Mac handled it fine, though memory pressure went up to 70-80%. 16 and 24gigs are possible. The Radeon GPU has its own separate memory setup thats ONLY for the GPU (called VRAM) Unified memory means, every system component that could need memory just takes it from the same pool. So, if you want to run Windows in a VM session (eg. Yet, there are still a lot of fan boys defending Apple's decision that 8GB is totally enough, it's a unified memory which works differently, or dont get it. For context I would be mainly using it with Logic Pro X and a bit of YouTube but not much else (at least not on the regular) if anyone knows which one would be better for me help would be much appreciated The only part of the configuration I’m struggling with is whether or not to spend the additional $400 for 38gb of memory. That's probably not going to change any time soon. I plan on using rhino, revit with parallels, twinmotion for rendering, and the Adobe creative suite. Did a course in computer science with my 8gb MacBook m1 air and it was fine. The games I play that are fully supported natively and with Rosetta 2 work a treat. Reply reply People worry about 8gb of Ram because for previous macs which used external ram, 8gb was needed a long time ago. 8 GB on ARM is easier to deal with, but still not a configuration anyone should be purchasing in 2023. Your memory is shared between normal operations and graphics. The real issue isn't really whether unified is good or bad but rather how obscene Apple's RAM upgrade pricing is and that they sell computers with 8gb of memory shared between cpu and gpu for £1000+ in 2023. Hello my friends, I have had my macbook pro with 8gb ram for 9 years and loved it. I think the M1 Macbook is adequate for my needs and I don't want to be spending any more money than I need to. 3-inch Liquid Retina Display, 8GB Unified Memory, 256GB SSD Storage, 1080p FaceTime HD Camera, Touch ID. 15" or more storage. keep in mind it’s unified memory making faster than your regular DDR Imma have to plagiarise your comment real quick: Clearly you’re ignorant lmao do research. So if you plan on doing basic tasks like browsing, editing documents, Netflix, some coding, I think 8 gb ram will be more than enough for you, even for 4+ years. It was an average machine with 8 GB - the RAM it shipped with. 4 GB RAM That leaves you 3. Apple charges buyers $200 to upgrade from 8GB RAM to 16GB RAM. Works with iPhone/iPad; Midnight. I'd be happy to be proven wrong about this. There is one thing that makes 8gb RAM on Macs better than 8gb on other machines and that is Memory Swap. I would like to try out Parallels for some other titles that seem to perform better there than via Crossover. Yeah, 8GB PCs are much cheaper than any Mac, and 12/16 GB systems are cheaper than this. My main computer is a 2017 mbp 8Gb/256Gb - I use it mainly for development, I run it as a laptop with an external monitor attached, which works so well for me. Get the Macbook Air. 64GB of I think the unified memory and the ARM structure, as well as the closed system optimizations Apple can do to the OS, result in far greater performance than you'd see on a traditional Windows machine. Unified memory doesn't magically make you need less RAM. With the M1 approach to unified memory, the performance of 8Gb is considered to equate to what 16Gb was under Intel processors. Photo and video editing are memory hogs, wouldn't risk it. I'm a software developer and I bought the 16GB unified memory with the intent to test it and if it didn't work out i'd return it and get 32GB. But additional ram (64GB) may be an asset for you editing audio. (AMAZON) Apple 2023 MacBook Air Laptop with M2 chip: 15. 10 tabs Web browsing with MS Office - you’ll be fine with 8GB. It made sense that on the 8gb model the m1 used a good chunk of swap memory because it was fairly fast. For those of you who successfully run ArcGIS Pro in Parallels on the M1 Macbooks, how much unified memory does your computer have? Is 16GB enough? I used ArcGIS Pro on VMWare in my current , old MacBook this year (which only has 8GB RAM) and it was a disaster lol. Hell, this machine is even able to do heavy video editing if you want, it's not the 8gb more that will make it possible, the base model is able to do it. Partly for work but also for personal use. I didnt see any test that could analyze that. Ideally I want the memory upgrade but that'll cost +£600 from the main Apple store site. It's also good for gaming. I plan on keeping my late 2013 MacBook Pro with 8gb of ram so I can do Adobe stuff on it while I reserve my new laptop for designing/rendering. $200. Fast storage lessens the performance impact from swapping. Should I play it safe and just get 16GB on unified memory? The short of it is about 10% performance difference overall, primarily in video editing applications. So I recently bought the M2 15" Macbook Air with 8gb ram for work purposes. Also, $200 for 8 to 16 and another $200 for 16 to 24 is just absolutely bonkers. The M1, unified memory, macOS combination is significantly better optimized at using ram than X86, traditional ram, and Windows combination. I'm about to buy a new MacBook Air M2 with 512gb. It seems like all the pundits say the same thing - for casual users just get the 8 GB! Posted by u/mjmj2345 - No votes and 2 comments Hi all, I recently bought the new 13" Macbook Air M2 chip at 8-core CPU/8-core GPU (256gb storage), the intent was for photo & video editing as well as Sims 4 gaming (I have all the expansion packs). Gonna go for 1TB storage and 16-24GB memory. Exactly. Hi. If you use Xcode on a memory-constrained machine, like the base MacBook Air, you'll see that while some processes may allocate a lot of memory, like lldb, most of that memory isn't needed at any given time and it just gets compressed away. So I wonder if getting the 8GB unified memory would be enough for the tasks I do with 16GB of RAM. But it has 32 GB RAM, not 8. They have optimized the hell out of that kernel for 8GB on iPhones. And unified is not 5x the price of DDR5. That's $200 for an extra 8GB RAM. It too runs Resolve very well. 6 GB of RAM left Apple Notes takes up roughly 600 MB if you have an absurdly large library of notes like myself As someone who got a 512gb and 1tb at the same time to compare after reading all the hype (example: apps only use 6gb of ram on either memory, it doesnt make a difference, watch max tech video theres no difference blah blah) and specifically heavily uses for resolve rough edits and photo editing I can say there is a clear difference in usability and I ended up returning both and went all in Macbook Air M2 with 10 gpu cores and 8 gb ram OR 8 gpu cores and 16 gb ram (both are 512 SSD) Please, help me decide what to choose, for a longest future-proof. A few months ago I got a 5b param LLM (one of the defaults from FastChat, iirc it had an M in the title) running on a Jetson Xavier (there's some breaking change Nvidia made between Orin and everything preceding it, I think it's related to the Ubuntu 18. xropqc fwvagc myv goid kjoqayi ojvwp toe huqlb fzo dayqr