It is worth noting, that Adobe recommends 16gb ram for Lightroom on both windows and mac.
Apparently there are some issues with Adobe's memory management with apple silicon. If this is resolved, then I guess Apple might be correct!
Adobe. *sigh*. They go their own way on lots of things - they also got caught flatfooted on the switch to Intel. That part where Jobs reminded everyone that they'd been telling devs to use Xcode for years, so now you can flip a switch on the compiler? Yeah, Adobe was rolling their own and spent the better part of a year before they had PS native on Intel. For contrast, watch this ( skip to the portion from 11:00 - 16:00)
My M1 iMac typically uses 12-14 GB of its RAM with Finder/WindowServer using 3-6 depending on how recently I've restarted. I have 13 apps open currently; Quarkxpress, Preview, Affinity Photo, and Pages currently using the most RAM. (Currently on 11.7.10 due to be newspaper owner/publisher/editor/reporter/photographer/bookkeeper/IT guy.)
I try to close as much as possible before opening mess of ProRAW pics in Affinity Photo, which naturally causes massive memory pressure. After a couple of minutes, system seems to do well reallocating RAM and giving AfP as much as it wants, often 8 GB or so.
My next electronic abacus will be Studio. I would like to settle for 32GB, but fear that would be a grave error. Course, I also now see little reason to buy an M2 Max when new chips will surely be on way. (As if there's a time when new chips aren't on way ...)
So, after all the lovely thoughtful comments here …
I’ll add that my personal experience bears this out. My M1 Max MBP 32Gb absolutely kept up with the Alienware R12 i7 64Gb. The only difference between the two was the graphics card (NVIDIA) performance and the ability to ramp up the processor cycles (and sound like a hair dryer).
I pushed the limits of both machines in video encoding and streaming.
Your mileage may vary.
Same here. I went from 128GB on an 2019 iMac to 32GB on a Mac Studio. I've been skeptical about getting by with only 32GB, but last week I transcoded a 2 hour 4K video while streaming Apple Music and local photos to two sources, and using Pixelmator Pro and Safari... and the RAM barely scratched 24GB.
So so far RAM hasn't been an issue for me. But as Apple adds more features to MacOS I don't see anyway how 8GB would be enough to be productive as these computers age.
Now, can we talk about Apple's abusive SSD pricing?
Sure, 8GB of RAM is sufficient for SOME people TODAY, but what about tomorrow? I wouldn't want to buy a system today with 8GB of RAM except for the most basic of use cases because I know it won't last as long as a system with 16GB of RAM.
Interesting article, but the author writes "...However, there are several professional workflows that we highlighted in our Apple Silicon Mac Pro review" - I read the linked article and could not see any references to workflows the M1 Mac Pro could not handle - all the workflows that were benchmarked showed the Mac Pro working stupendously fast compared to the competition.
I'm not saying that 192GB is sufficient for every application, but the author certainly didn't didn't do a good job of pointing to any that need more. He referenced nebulous "large AI models" - but I doubt even those require 192GB of RAM - more disk storage than that....maybe.
Whats the point? The entry level 8MB model is not aimed at users with demanding workflows. Businesses will lap up the entry level machine because most of their users have pretty basic needs.
No idea why there is this sudden focus on Apple saying unified memory is approximately twice the performance of standard RAM. They said it when the M1 originally came out too. I haven't had any regrets using an M1 Max Mac Studio with significantly less RAM than my prior 5K iMac.
This is like saying to an employee that the $1000 salary is the same as $2000 elsewhere. A lie and a damn bad lie at that.
Errnnt! If comparing USD to CAD or AUD, that's exactly what it's like. For the reasons laid out (do read the article please), their memory architecture is much more efficient than a PC's. Thus...the two figures out not the same. The context and, yes, nuance, matter.
Nonsense! Any personal computer these days should come with at least 16GB of RAM.
Surface Pro machines base models start with 8GB and they have to run Windows. So strange that people want to eliminate choice, where if you are fine with 8GB that's not okay with some here, very strange. If you want more than 8GB, you're not blocked from buying a machine with more, but hey why not force your wasteful views on others, right? What a weird attitude getting so upset about what works for others, maybe stay in your own lane and worry about yourselves.
I have traditionally always ordered by Macs with 16GB of RAM, and found — even on my intel-based Macs — that nothing I do* goes much about 10GB of RAM, and also that Apple’s built-in SSDs are wicked fast for potential “virtual RAM” in a way that certainly were not back in the HDD and hybrid “small SSD combined with HD” ways.
*light video processing, more audio processing, some Photoshop/InDesign, and the rest is mostly consumer-user type stuff.
For the VAST majority of Mac buyers who choose a base model, I believe these comments regarding 8GB of RAM are roughly correct — on an M-class chip, at least on those I’ve played with, it behaves and works as I expect 16GB of traditional RAM would.
This entire article, and all of what the Apple rep said, VERY VERY OBVIOUSLY is discussing consumer-level typical use cases, and VERY VERY OBVIOUSLY doesn’t apply to a scientist doing complex data modeling or a movie animator doing 3D rendering, and the people who are crying foul and using their high-end needs as examples:
A. Are willfully misreading the context, or not smart enough to understand the context, or
This doesn't explain why an additional 8GB costs $200.
I’d be happy to explain that to you.
Because the RAM is integrated directly onto the processor, ordering a machine with more RAM means you are ordering a different variation of the M3 (or whatever M-class) chip. Apple likely pays a bit more for these less-used chips, and they pass that cost + normal markup onto the **dramatically smaller market of people** who genuinely need additional RAM.
After years of working with clients, I have come to the same conclusions as Apple: the vast, vast, VAST majority of buyers do not do ANYTHING AT ALL that taxes the performance level and capacity of 8GB of RAM. Some do, of course, and that’s why 16GB and higher options exist for those users. But it’s not swapping out a RAM chip — it’s replacing the standard processor with a variation of that processor, the core of the entire machine.
Typical users surf the web, play casual games, use Facebook, edit their photos (maybe), use an office suite of some sort check their bank accounts, pay bills, maybe once in a blue moon use iMovie to edit some video. That’s pretty much it, and I’m sure you’ll agree knowing that that 8GB is still very sufficient for that level of use, particularly if as Borchers says it performs akin to 16GB of RAM in typical use cases.
So none of the more negative posts can disprove that the basic Apple premise that 8GB is as effective as double that in practice. You can be sure that Apple has data to back up that claim, although it would probably have been wise to put out a slide or two showing that instead of just talking about it. As far as the price, of course it's expensive, since the computers are SoC, a technology that holds the HD/SSD data as well as the RAM data on a chip, which becomes instantaneously available compared to separate RAM from the old days. But apparently the market doesn't get this yet.
As far as the constant refrain about iMacs filling landfills, I tend not to believe it as our business has several 2012 models working exactly as they always did. Until they can no longer access the web, the server, the printers, or get replacement hard drives, they are valued members and not hitting a landfill any time soon. Besides, when the end times come for them, my state recycles electronic waste, as I'm sure others do as well.
Comments
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcHQXMAd0c0
I try to close as much as possible before opening mess of ProRAW pics in Affinity Photo, which naturally causes massive memory pressure. After a couple of minutes, system seems to do well reallocating RAM and giving AfP as much as it wants, often 8 GB or so.
My next electronic abacus will be Studio. I would like to settle for 32GB, but fear that would be a grave error. Course, I also now see little reason to buy an M2 Max when new chips will surely be on way. (As if there's a time when new chips aren't on way ...)
So so far RAM hasn't been an issue for me. But as Apple adds more features to MacOS I don't see anyway how 8GB would be enough to be productive as these computers age.
I'm not saying that 192GB is sufficient for every application, but the author certainly didn't didn't do a good job of pointing to any that need more. He referenced nebulous "large AI models" - but I doubt even those require 192GB of RAM - more disk storage than that....maybe.
But a lot of you dudes suck at nuance.
*light video processing, more audio processing, some Photoshop/InDesign, and the rest is mostly consumer-user type stuff.
For the VAST majority of Mac buyers who choose a base model, I believe these comments regarding 8GB of RAM are roughly correct — on an M-class chip, at least on those I’ve played with, it behaves and works as I expect 16GB of traditional RAM would.
This still doesn't excuse the fact that Apple charges complete ripoff prices for RAM and SSD upgrades when you buy a computer.
As far as the constant refrain about iMacs filling landfills, I tend not to believe it as our business has several 2012 models working exactly as they always did. Until they can no longer access the web, the server, the printers, or get replacement hard drives, they are valued members and not hitting a landfill any time soon. Besides, when the end times come for them, my state recycles electronic waste, as I'm sure others do as well.