Having said that with 16GB RAM the base Pro is not a lot more than the M2 15” Air with 16GB RAM (and same 512SSD) and that’s all around a worse Mac with lower spec screen, speakers, no SD card reader etc and the weight difference is only 40 grams.
If you have a problem with RAM pricing, you also complains about the SSD, and still using HDD? Just because the Apple RAM method about in the same shoes (SSD also smaller/more expensive like the HDD, and also it'a "only" faster in transfer speed). The 200GB/s on Apple device is equal with t quad channel DDR5 what if far away from the laptops (they rarley can use more than 2 slots, what is capped at 100GB/s at max, and the GPU also sloted in a PCIe 4.0 x16 slot with 32GB/s limit, but the unified memory from Apple also use the same 200GB/s transfer speed between GPU and CPU. And the M2 Ultra with 800GB/s is equal with 16 slotted DDR5 RAM (each has about 50GB/s limit), and equal with a PCIe 9.0 x16 slot for the GPU, until you can get a motherboard with 16 RAM slots and PCIe 9.0 x16 slot, your transfer speed is lower (just like the HDD, has a bigger capacity, but it's slower, and what are you using recently the HDD or the SSD just because it's faster in transfer speed?)
My sister was recently looking at getting a Mac and asked me if I thought 8GBs would be enough for what she was going to use it for. Basically my answer came down to, if you are going to use Safari and the Apple productivity apps, 8GBs is probably fine. If you want to use Chrome and Microsoft Office apps, you should go with 16GBs. Then I ended up just giving her my M1 14" Pro and getting myself an M3 Max 16" because I waste money on things I don't need. :)
Windows has 91% of the market so I assume if premium base Windows ultrabooks started at 16GB/512GB then Apple would follow. It is up to Windows OEMs, but of course Apple haters will ignore the reality. When MS, Samsung, HP, Dell, et al, all start with 16GB/1TB then I will agree with you. Until then you really are just flexing on Apple rather than acknowledging that it is Window's flagship OEMs that set the industry standard.
@@andyH_EnglandAlso (correct me if Im wrong) Apple has superior customer service and much broader footprint as compared to other PC brands like Dell, HP, Lenovo, Samsung. Am I right here? - because if not, Id be pen to buying a $1000K+ 16GB Windows PC.
I have a Mac Studio M2 Max with 32GB of RAM, a MacBook 14 M1 Pro with 16GB of RAM, and an iMac M1 with 8GB of RAM. Beyond the differences in power given by the notable differences in CPU and GPU, I have always looked carefully at the use of RAM. I can say that it's absolutely true that 8GB on the Apple Silicon SOC is quite versatile, but it's equally true that 16GB is a different story. I can never take full advantage of the 32GB of the Mac Studio, but I absolutely can of the 16GB of the MacBook. The 8GB of the iMac, although excellently managed, brings it into the yellow pressure zone already with a few tabs in the browser and swapping on the SSD becomes inevitable. Additionally, when handling lots of high-resolution photos and exporting post-production, the 16GB of RAM makes a very big difference. I would say that the 8GB is now sufficient for general use and even for some more intense occasional use, but I fear that in 2-3 years they will begin to show their limits even in these use scenarios. Constant Geekery does not suggest the upgrade to make Apple richer, but to guarantee you a computer that will be able to "breathe" well for many more years. So, I totally agree: 8GB is not 16GB! Greetings from Italy.
an actual useful comment; 8GB vs 16GB won't mean the 8GB won't work at all or that performances will be abysmally low; it just mean the 16GB will be snappier in some case (for a computer which is already ridiculously snappy). I do pretty heavy task (audio) with 8GB and I actually never found ram to be an actual limitation to what I could do. It will swap (like I'll have maybe 1GB of swap) but it's absolutely never noticeable.
The issue with 8 is how long will they be "ok" not can you get away with it now. When will Mac OS become too heavy for 8gbs where the OS is taking so much resource that it's a detrimental experience, we've been on the same base since 2012. Apple makes a lot of 8gb SKUs and barely any 16+gb versions. It will get to the point where the CPU is fine but the machine will be bottlenecked by the ram and lots of these machines will be less than ideal. Im a graphic designer and photographer, I do a lot of large format work but multitask and between programmes all day, I would think there are many creatives in the same boat. It's all well and good Apple making the software and hardware but how many people can live in apple software entirely? Not many I would think and Adobes products are never going to be as efficient. Having indesign, photoshop illustrator, Lightroom and a few productivity tools like asana on safari, outlook, teams etc it eats through ram. I am not one to shut programmes as I go, being ram minded gets in the way of the creative process, once a machine gets in the way of your work its becomes a problem imo. I will run clean my MacX in the morning before I get going, unless im really struggling then il shut something down. I shut it down on a Friday unless im really struggling with it. One of the reasons I haven't moved to apple silicon is because of ram. My CPU usage isnt crazy but I run through ram like no tomorrow. I finished a day at work yesterday with 59gbs in use and photoshop was using 30gbs of that. I constantly get memory low warnings in istat and the memory pressure history is higher than id like to admit. I have a maxed cpu gpu 2020 27" iMac 10 core i9 with 5700xt and 64gbs of ram that was about 3.5k. I haven't bought another desktop Mac because to get 64gb in a studio over the base 32 is £400 if I wanted 128 it would be £2700 and I have to have the higher end max chip which I don't really need. Then to replace my 27" display.... the studio display is with exactly the same display in another package, so another £1500. So mad that the base iMac was £1799 and apple want £1500 just for the display. So to replace a 3.5k iMac I need to spend more like 6.5k. Apple have got people who need ram by the short and curlies. So im one of the hangers on trying to make it last as long as it can. I have an m1 MacBook Air with 16gbs and I have done a day working from home and man it wasn't a great experience. I suppose it's impressive it would handle it. Again CPU wise it was fine as the m1 is about on par with the i9 in my iMac. Obviously silly comparison as it's not designed with people like me in mind but for editing a few images it does work well. It just doesn't handle it all at once very well. If I do one photo project its fine but I can edit a few images while building a campaign at the same time and expect it to be a good experience. The obvious thing to do is to buy another 64gb to push me up to 128gb and continue until it no longer suits my needs but tbh it still works great, its not as snappy as my m1 but its not night and day. Im sure the m3 max is a different beast as its double the speed which is mad I just don't want to play the ladder game with apple. The M2 Max to M3 max is also a bit of a shocker, 8 months and to see those performance gains when your spending large volumes of money, I wouldn't be all that happy if I had bought an M2 Max. Will see what happens but it is insane that 128gb for the iMac is like £335 and apple wants £2700 because of the way they have laddered the architecture. The cost is really painful and ye it can be written off with tax and a couple of jobs but still pains me. Apple silicon is a great move forward but in other ways it really isnt. Makes me kind of want to re-explore the PC world as power consumption isnt really the no.1 priority with a desktop and all the software I use it Multiplatform. Bonkers that I feel like that especially with this epic transition. It was always the best bit about the iMac you could put your own ram in it. Ive been using Macs since 2006 and had the first core 2 17" MacBook pro for Uni and then used a 2010 Mac Pro up to 2017 where there was a super blip in adobe software and Lightroom was almost unusable and it ran a lot better on windows so I had a brief stint with a dell workstation then switched back to a 2017 maxed iMac then the 2020. I think if you want a low to mid range machine apple silicon can't really be beaten but as soon as you are one of those niche users the cost is exponential. I might be able to get away with 64gb but like you say ram is ram and if im struggling now I doubt that 64gb in a machine that can't be upgraded is a good idea.
As you said, add more Ram to the iMac you have and get a few more years out of it. Then just make a business purchase and buy the Mac you need. Don’t worry about the cost, it’s what £6,000? Just be glad you aren’t buying a delivery van or a new building. Get what you need and make money with it. You already know the value of running MacOS Vs fiddling around with a fussy windows machine. A PC is only cheaper upfront, but you pay for it in the end.
@@mendodsoregonbackroads6632 still doesn’t change the fact that in 3 years the same tier of machine has doubled in price. There’s a reason apples Mac sales dropped 40%.
@@tomscott88 Yes there is a reason why sales are down and that's almost entirely due to the fact that most people bought some kind of device during the pandemic and now most people are "good" for a while. That's across the board. PC, Chromebook, etc all have declining sales. I would expect sales of those devices to climb up again in the next two to three years as they become obsolete or start having problems. I also expect some of those customers to jump ship to Apple because right now they make the best devices and there ecosystem can't be beat. As far as purchasing goes I did buy an M2 Air recently, but it was an additional device to have at another location. My 2018" iPad Pro is still "good" and so is my 2021 24" iMac. I expect that the iMac will last another 6 or 7 years for me before I hand it down to someone. It's long since paid for itself. All it's costing me now is the minimal amount of electricity it takes to keep it running. I even have another two years of amortizing it on my taxes so it's even saving me some money at this point. I'll claim the same thing on the MBA this year. They end of being free while bringing in income all the while.
@@tomscott88 Everything has recently increased in price, and Windows premium laptops have gone up far more in cost than Macs, so that is misinformation. The reason the sales numbers have dropped is that Apple has only 9% market share and those looking to upgrade to M-chips have already done it, so their user base for potential upgrades is diminishing as the M1 from three years ago will probably last the average user 10+ years!
MacOS on the Apple Silicon Developer Transition Kit ran an A12Z Bionic. Current iPad 10th Gen runs A14 Bionic, which is two-generations newer with only 4GB OF RAM. Average consumers only need 8GB. They aren't running Adobe, XCode, Final Cut or Logic.
I was happy with my base model air, with 8gb... Until I needed more. There are certain tasks that are impossible with only 8. Like focus stacking many photos.
I will say, about a year ago, I purchased a base model 2014 Mac Mini with 4 GB of ram for 70 bucks on eBay. Threw in a 512 gb SSD and I use it to sync my iPod, browse the web with Edge (good memory management) and do my school projects. It has its occasional stutters and slow downs but I have had up to 6 tabs open at once without any issue. Not bad for a 10 year old rig. hopefully the M1 air I bought with 8GB will hold up just as well. Anything serious, I’m using my Linux desktop with 32GB, which I rarely actually do.
@@dnegel9546 The thing is, someone who does that might actually have all of them open at the same time, consuming RAM constantly. The problem with the 8gb model is that it will heavily depend on ssd swap when multiple programs are open. Swap, while useful, will affect the longevity of the ssd (which is not replaceable). Channels like this one had already covered the constant need of swap for even simple tasks on the lower end models
@@dnegel9546 using the ssd as temporary RAM when there’s not enough of the main RAM for the programs opened. Not only will this slow the performance of the program, but it will reduce the life of the ssd.
@@dnegel9546 a laptop (mac or not) from 10 years ago is enough to do those things. A macbook with 8GB can go pretty far with audio work or editing. If you actually "only browse the internet" pick a 300 used mac from 2014 or something.
Great explanation as always 👍🏻 16GB is definitely the minimum I get for PC… although saying that I recently upgraded mine to 32GB which really helped with gaming and video editing.
I have a base M1 MBA with 8GB and a base M1 Max Studio with 32 Gb RAM. For all that I do they are largely indistinguishable. I face I reckon a MacBook with a simplified M3 chip with just the 4 efficiency cores, 8GB unified memory but none of the special 'engines' would work just as well, if not better, and the battery would probably last longer. But then I don't do video or similar 'creative' stuff (apart from photo editing). I just do business financial jobs. A few years worth of business docs (Excel, Word, Powerpoint, PDF etc) takes up less than 10 GB SSD space so even the smallest Mac SSD is fine! But there's no way I'd go back to the Intel Macs that are now gathering dust.
as someone with m1 pro 16gb ram, I have to use swap all the time. I appreciated Apple new chip, but it is just at that time. I noticed not much different with RAM consumption between my 1200$pc and my 1500$ MBP. one use about 20gb of 32 and one use 14gb+4swap. To me as developer and I believe to many developers out there, MAC is not an option for price to performance product. I want to upgrade my laptop and will go with dell xps this year, their 32gb,1TB with 4k screen model is reasonable price, at 2,1k. Can never have that price with Apple
@@Satoabiokay so? Compromises have to made in everything. It might not have a good battery and need to be plugged but it can beat the Mac at a better price. The person saves money gains upgradability, more raw power and loses on battery life and portability to a certain degree. I’d take that sacrifice.
bruh stop tripping. I got my m1 pro for 850€. Now show me a device with the same power, build quality and performance - Guess not all people need to make sacrifices
The 14-inch base M3 Machine should start at £1,699 (UK) with 18GB of RAM and 512GB, go up to 1TB at £1,899, and then get the M3 Pro chip with 18GB and 512GB for the £2,099. Apple aren't a charity, I know, but their £200 price bumps for ram are obscene, and a Pro should have Pro specs out of the gate, and 8GB just isn't. One might argue that even 16GB isn't really Pro at this point.
Apple makes its greatest marginal rate of profits from people upgrading specs. It is a business model they have used since forever, yet every year the same people whine about it. It's a business model, and works for Apple to survive a market which they are a small player (9% marker share). It is survival; why risk a new business model that may wipe out their margins?
As with the older 13 inch "pro" model, the new base pro model exists as a SKU for large corporate buyers. That's one reason the older 13 inch model lasted so long in the range-- because corporate IT purchasers are loath to buy and support a ton of different models and prefer to keep buying the exact same old spec year over year. A travelling bank executive of couse MUST carry a pro model but has no more need for >8GB RAM than your wife.
I'm so tired of all these damn safe answers. "Is 8gb RAM enough" -> Yes, but it depends. "8gb is probably analogous to 16gb on other devices" -> Yes..but also no. These channels are so afraid of losing their partnerships with Apple that they're all willing to bend the truth to let Apple get away with the RAM SCAM, among other things (like how all big tech youtubers never complain about the Apple Pro Motion display almost never hitting 120hz during regular use)
@@ConstantGeekery yeah because if you said the truth (AKA genuine criticism towards apple) they would no longer send you early review units, thus compromising the channel’s ability to be part of the loop of creators who get to release the first review videos or whatever
@@hoshikuzuvenus I don't get sent anything from Apple. 🤣 They would never send stuff to a channel as small as mine, plus I have been very critical of lots of their choices, so I doubt they ever will. Every Apple product I review is bought with my own money, or bought for my digital agency.
I want people who makes video on the subject to open task manage; show the memory pressure; and start doing daily tasks on their comuputer; editing; audio work; whatever you do on a mac; and show the actual ram pressure; maybe then we'd have a baseline of what 8GB is enough to do. I personnally can work on heavy ableton session with 8GB; and the memory pressure will rarely go beyond green to orange (and with maybe a few browser windows open). That's when I know it's enough.
I do magazine and book layout for a living, so I'm constantly in the middle of In Design and Photoshop with a RU-vid or Netflix vid running in the top right corner of the screen. I do all this on an M1 Macbook Pro with 8 gigs of RAM and honestly, the machine rarely misses a beat. There can be a touch of slowdown towards the end of a project in In Design, where I see the spinning beach ball now and again but so far I've yet to be able to justify the outrageous price hike for the 16 GB model. I've told myself I'll upgrade when the M6 models come out so if it lasts me another 2.5 to 3 years at more or less the same performance level, I'll be happy with my choice. That doesn't make Apple any less stingy or greedy for not making those upgrade prices less painful though, but I'd say the 8 GB models do get the job done from a performance perspective, even if you are using them for more demanding work. Time will tell if my SSD holds out of course!
The problem With the 8GB models is that they often are to be bought at a discount which makes the upgrade to 16 even more expensive because the upgrade price is on top of the regular and not the discounted price.
My experience says 8 is not ok. Just dinking around on my 16GB Intel imac, I find that my “Memory Clean” app frequently reports less than 8GB free. I have better things to do than cleaning memory. This is just a marketing exercise on the part of Apple to keep the base system price artificially low, and extract an additional $200 from mac buyers who know better.
no 13 MBP was wayy outdated in the design, and when you compare with an older thing, while tech is updated day by day. you are outdated. Thing should get cheaper or more ram, its basic evolution
That is weird as the MB Pro 14 base has far better specs and design than the older MB Pro 13, so hard to understand the reasoning that they should be the same release price? For example, it has twice the SSD size, miniLED, 120Hz, more IO, better speakers, no Touch Bar, larger size, higher brightness, new design...
@@duncanidaho7494 sadly, the market is mature now and even in Windows land, yearly upgrades are rarely anything worth talking about. So it's more to do with inflation, exchange rates and supply side issues that have caused rising prices. This is across the board in all premium laptops and welcome to the new age of paying nearly $2,000 for Pro machines.
I have seen a number of reviews of x86 Steam games running under Rosetta on M1 Macs with both 8 Gb and 16 Gb of RAM. The recommended PC spec for most of these games was 8 Gb of system RAM and 4 GB of video RAM. Unsurprisingly the games worked well on 16 Gb Macs and very poorly on 8 Gb Macs. I am sure that with something approaching Moore's law in action, that Apple could now buy 16 Gb of RAM for the price of 8 Gb of RAM three years ago. Mac users are often not very tech savvy. They buy Macs because they just work. Apple should do the thinking for these users for them and give them 16 Gb of RAM and a 512 Gb SSD. One problem with Macs is that in the high street in stores such as Curry's it is impossible to buy 16 Gb RAM models. My last two iPhones were half price old stock brand new retail iPhones. The only choice that I had was iPhones with the minimum SSD memory because 90% of iPhones (and also Macs) sold by Apple are models with the smallest possible SSD memory.
Good points! Also, the Windows/Linux strongest advocates tend to be Information technology professionals too. Being more informed helps seeing through the lies that Apple's marketing team throws out.
A small technical quibble: 16GB on a Windows machine, at least one specced for gaming, is likely at least 20GB when you add in the memory on the Graphics card. On the Mac, that is included in the 8GB base memory making the difference to be made up by more efficient usage even more stark!
There is no "More Efficient usage" on Mac, i work on Mac daily, 32Gb is minimum requirement for professional work on Mac. It's not a question about performance, you just can't open files with less than 32Gb ram. I constantly run out of memory. And most of my colleges that just work on MacBooks with Google spreadsheet and PDF suffers from overheating on latest Google chrome, and memory is the reason behind overheating.
@@neo-jy8xl what you do is a hobbyist, not a remotely professional, i work in design, i simply can't open some "free mockups files", and there is also a lot more complicated client files that i receive on daily. I struggle with Photoshop and After Effect, C4D is also terrible. And i don't even talk about ArchiCAD. 16GB is simply impossible, it's nothing. I need to open 4Gb files when i have huge problems with 700mb files. Also the more you utilize your memory - faster your SSD will die. And i heard about real developers that have problems with there IDE's, they also run out of memory. You just generate anecdotal evidence that is not even real. 8GB is just a typewriter, 16Gb is barely minimum.
@@d1namis Yeah this is just common sense. All the examples you quote need at least 36GB versions, and the M3 Max starts at 36GB for that exact reason! Why are you complaining about 8GB nor being enough when that is stating the obvious as it would be on an 8GB Windows machine?
@@d1namis I am comparing premium macOS -v- premium Windows. Like many other products there are low-cost, mid-range and premium. If we judge only by price then we would have no premium cars or laptops. So that point used by Apple haters is irrelevant as Apple targets people with more disposable income, as the low-cost market is not profitable.
The last time I had a Mac with less than 16GB of RAM was 2011 when I only had 12. It feels weird to consider buying a new one with less RAM than what I had 15 years ago. While a Mac with 8GB of RAM can still do many things, it seems to me that light workloads would be very well served with an old Mac with enough RAM and a great SSD… probably a cheaper option. Not everyone wants to tinker with hungry AIs on their Mac but everyone loves to leave 37 web browsing tabs open, right? :p
Yeah, but 35 of those can be swapped out or compressed just fine, and I think the browsers have got savvier about handling lots of tabs, now that people use them as bookmarks rather than active sessions. Still, I paid out for the reason you say. My 2015 iMac had 16GB and 2TB (+128MB fusion SSD), and I just wasn't going to upgrade in 2023 for less RAM or less SSD. (well, it is, 128MB less). Just on principle. I paid a lot ($600?) for the principle.
I have a MacBook Air 13” M1 (16 GB) and the main reason I’m considering an upgrade to the 15” M3 is the screen size, but the price difference from the standard 15” to the 15” with 16 GB is quite significant. It just seems silly to pay that much (even with a Trade-in program) and end up with a memory downgrade. Do I need 16 GB? Well… I know virtual memory swapping can do a lot, but the Activity Memory is usually 12 to 13 GB of RAM, so I probably get a slicker performance with 16 GB. What do you think?
If you’re only doing light computing, 8GB is fine, but if you’re working the machine a bit harder, 16GB will make a difference. I personally think that difference is even more noticeable with M3, especially in GPU focused workloads.
@@ConstantGeekery yes, but light computing may be considered something that isn’t CPU or memory intensive, and I’m not sure the latter applies. Activity Monitor can hit nearly twice an 8 GB’s physical memory with three windows (3 Chrome profiles) with over 20 tabs opened on top of a few mid-sized memory hogs, and even though the Memory Pressure graph is always green in my 16 GB I’m not sure that would be the case on an 8 GB. Is there some software that could help reproduce the performance of an 8 GB or diagnose this in a way that helps understand if the upgrade makes sense, do you know? Thank you!
@@himpoet you can’t really judge it based on Activity Monitor. macOS may use any available memory for caching etc., which it won’t do if there’s no memory available. Likewise it will use more compression and swap if it needs to do so. You can do pretty much everything on an 8GB Air, but if you’re pushing it hard for extended periods you can see the difference between 8GB and 16GB. In isolation, memory swapping is so efficient, it’s hard to bring an 8GB system to its knees. If you want to maximise performance, you’ll appreciate having 16GB. If you’re never pushing it that hard, 8GB is fine.
Apple should have made the base 12 GB of RAM since they are using multiples of 6GB RAM chips on the Pro &. Max models of the M3. The new Dynamic cacheing has major problems with just 2 4GB RAM chips. My assistant bought the New M3 MacBook Pro from Amazon when she came to work we tested it out with Logic and after pushing it with very minimal audio tests we came to the conclusion that she needed to send it back and get the 16gb model. But luckily they had the M2 pro base model on sale that day for $1849 which is basically the same price as the upgraded 16gb M2. It was only in Silver so I just gave her the extra $250 to get the M3 Pro model. She's a happy camper now, I have the M1 Max 16 inch and I am not going to upgrade it for a couple more years but I do want an M3 Ultra Mac Studio when those hit the market and then I will be in good shape for a few years with the Mac Studio staying in our recording studio permanently and I don't have to leave my laptop at work 24/7.
I think most buyers use common sense and understand that RAM-intensive pro-apps like Logic are highly dependent on the amount of RAM, so 8GB was totally unrealistic. I would suggest 36GB or more for pros, and 18GB minimum for semi-pros, and buy the M3 Pro chip, not the base M3 which is not a "pro" chip.
@@andyH_England She 19 and like most young people her age she doesn't have tons of disposable income so she was trying to get the best she could afford. I agree She should have waited until she had enough money for the M3 pro model. I always go for the best I can afford like M1 Max 16 inch I bought when those came out, I never debated on M1 pro versus Max since the memory bandwidth and slightly higher clock speeds would benefit my work!
@@OShackHennessy No she's a coworker, sicko. People that think like you are the reason talented women stay out of recording studio jobs. Being an adult is with manners and standards will get you further than trying to quote "tap that". Grow up.
Maybe if you just use it as an appliance - but why wouldn't you buy a nice chromebook at a fraction of the price? Anyone who uses Docker understands 8GB is wholly insufficient, especially given some of that 8GB is given over to video.
I saw a guy post that he has 100+tabs open in opera and 100+ in safari with auto cad open, WhatsApp’s, and other apps using a 8gb of ram iMac. M1 without any issues.
Saying that unified memory is an advantage when it comes to comparing Macs to PCs is a little incongruous as we do not count the graphics ram in the overall total. In your example you show a PC that would have, at least 16Gb and a 4Gb graphics card. Yet we still call that a 16Gb PC not a 20Gb PC, so whilst the data does get duplicated and that copy operation takes time, it does not represent a reduction in the amount of ram we were claiming. On the whole though I agree that the MBA 8Gb is a great machine with loads of power for the tasks it is aimed at. But the MBP is not suitable for the target market and is going to upset quite a few of their customers especially when you consider its lack of upgradability after sale.
So true. My PC laptop came with 8GB and 6 of VRAM. (upgraded to 16GB) It crawled unless I enabled the discrete GPU. The VRAM counts as RAM, for gaming. For regular stuff, it filled up 8GB but browsing and office would have been fine, allowing for some extra SSD use for the swap space.
The base M3 MB Pro 14 is an ultrabook and 95% of Windows premium ultrabooks only have an iGPU which is of course using the shared RAM. So I think his point stands. For the M3 Pro/Max chips then they compete with Windows machines with a dedicated GPU so your point is understood. But the advantage of the Mac is that they can use most of that 18GB RAM for the GPU if needed, but the Windows machines are limited to the onboard vRAM of the dGPU.
@@andyH_England True. I’d just, not entirely jokingly, say that for the price of 16GB Mac unified, you can get 32GB main, 8GB vram, on a PC. What I don’t know is how often any usage would want more than 8GB vram.
Photo editing with 8GB does work with Apple photos and jpeg pics. But the moment you use anything more demanding like Lightroom or Photoshop or RAW images 8GB will struggle big time. You'd basically have to close anything else on your machine or see multiple GB or swap usage and slow performance. You can also forget to run Lightroom and Photoshop side by side. It makes the system very unresponsive. At this point in time it is simply unforgivable from Apple to only ship 8GB and to ask half a kidney for 8GB more. I pretty much regret not getting 16GB on my M2 Mac Mini that's my second computer. But I also did not want to pay 64GB prices for an extra 8GB. No matter how fast they claim their memory is. It is unacceptable and will sadly leave many people in the same situation as I'm in. And I'm sure it'll hurt them in the long run since people will start to look elsewhere eventually.
I’ve had the 15 inch MacBook Air for 5 months and I love it! 16gb RAM should be enough either way cause 8gb ram is just a huge disappointment so for MY use I got 24gb ram and gives me that piece of mind of not worrying about Memory swap or the Memory Pressure
It would not be an issue if you could upgrade it later on. Soldering the RAM on is another devious Apple tactic. And it hurts the planet too. But fsck the planet eh, Apple only pretends to care.
Upselling is a business model. Nothing wrong with it. If you need more than 8GB of RAM anyone with a double digit IQ would not be looking at the base MB Pro 14 (Pro)!
I remember those gigahertz wars in the '90s. Apple had just switched to their RISC PowerPC CPU and they argued that the numbers just weren't comparable. Sure, the intel chips work twice as hard but that's because they need to work twice as hard! My sister got an M1 MacBook Air (base model) for her work as a schoolteacher and as an eBay seller. I got an M1 MacBook Air, but with twice the RAM and twice the storage, mostly because that's just me. I can't imagine I'm getting all that more performance out of my MacBook Air than she gets out of hers. She's certainly had no complaints.
These computers are not upgradable. It makes sense to have a little extra memory because every year websites get bigger, cameras come with more megapixels, and so on. To be honest a Windows XP PC with 1GB of RAM from the 2000s, would do the same a MacBook Pro does now, you just edited MiniDV in PAL SD or NTSD SD and you had lower res photos. But in 2023 when higher res is available and you can't upgrade, Apple are just being d1cks. They should not be selling anything with 8GB. It costs them about $20 for 8GB of RAM. Or they could make their RAM slotted as most other makers do.
@@peterc4082 On the other hand, back in 2000, software was eating up RAM and CPU improvements as fast as they came out. Today, if I didn't need more GPU, a 2015 computer with 16GB works about as well now as it did when I got it. Going from 480 to 4K iPhone videos in iMovie didn't make a difference. Websites were having more problem with an old OS than RAM or CPU. Still, 8GB is pushing it when $20 of parts would give even the low end users some breathing room.
12GB is coming with the M4. It was due to arrive with the M3 chip but poor sales of the M2 chip meant that Apple had a glut of 4GB modules forcing them to utilise them rather than e-waste them. The unintentional consequences of reviews suggesting we should not buy 8GB models led to 40% drop in sales and the delay of the 12GB base model!
@@mikem9536 Most base-model Windows machines in 2024 still have an 8GB option. You don't see them in reviews as most Windows laptop reviews are sponsored, and the OEM gives out the top-of-the-line machines.
I don't think we should be having these "Is 8GB of RAM enough" conversations on a machine that is branded PRO and costs $1600, PERIOD. Don't buy the damn thing, don't talk about the damn thing, and they'll get the message when that thing doesn't sell.
I think we have to talk about it so that people don't buy it and so that Apple gets the message, as I clearly said in this video, it's not acceptable for a machine at this price point.
@@ConstantGeekery Yeah but at the beginning of the video you were talking about if 8GB is enough generally, and that's why I said that particular question is irrelevant for a Pro machine that cost $1600. I don't believe Apple will change their ways if they don't get very clear and harsh criticism, arguing if 8GB is enough generally invites a possibility even tho small but nonetheless gives a chance that it may be okey. Apple won't get the message until it's harsh and very clear. Their Mac sales were down 40% in Q2 and 30% in Q3 which is why they released everything in Q4 to save the day, but they pulled these tricks so they can maximize profit a bit more.
@@jihadrouani5525 I'm in agreement that 8GB is not sufficient for a MacBook Pro, and I very clearly criticised Apple for doing that in this video. I also know full-well that 8GB is enough for many users, because I have extensively tested most varieties of Apple Silicon with various specs, and because I run a company where we have more than 30 of these machines of various specs being actively used - including 8GB models.
The "pro" branding is marketing. I find it inconceivable that techies are judging something on a brand name. The Galaxy Book 3 Pro does not even have a dGPU so cannot be pro, so why are you not flexing in those reviews? I assume you are simply being negative for negative sake. As a techie surely you look at the specs and decide what is pro and not. Are the average consumer confused? That is another question as these videos are rarely watched outside the YT tech bubble.
@@andyH_England If Apple markets something as Pro then proceeds to not treat it as such while still asking Pro money then they're intentionally misleading customers, and they deserve to be called out for it, and they deserve harsh criticism. I'm a game developer, and the base M3 is considered a Pro chip as it excels at what I do (programming, compiling code, level design etc...) But 8GB of RAM won't even open the game engine without using swap memory. And even if they remove the term "Pro", that won't excuse them from harsh criticism because their asking price is $1600, on the PC side you can get 32GB of RAM for that amount of money.
Siunds the information on the unified memory on Apple can be accessed faster, but 8gb is 8gb. It can get the information faster, but still can only hold 8gb. Period. Yes?
My wife is also „average user” and with all tabs she opens for work she experiences memory pressure with 16G. I work as IT manager and 16G is a plenty for me. 😂
With browser tabs, there is memory "leak" so if you do not close your browser on a regular basis that will swamp the memory over time. I close my browser at least once a day (Quit), at the end of the day, which releases RAM that is dead weight.
If 8GB is enough for a consumer they should buy MacBook Air for $1k. Yes 8GB is enough for some use cases but this does not justify apple's move here. It is comical that this Pro labeled machine has 8GB ram.
If 8GB is enough for the average user they can get a fantastic refurbished business laptop for $200. That’s where it all breaks down for me yeah I know apples/oranges but for 8GB there is nothing worth over $1000.
A few things to note: - Comparing to Intel Mac’s is worthless, since Intel Mac’s were shit. There were plenty of good Intel laptops back then, just not Apple ones. - The problem is not that 8GB is “not enough to run basic programs,” is that “8GB is not enough for laptops that start in the thousands of dollars range.” - The other problem is that Apple charges an astronomical markup on a mere extra 8GB of memory. There is no justifiable reason for this upgrade to cost 20% of the price of the base device.
As I watched this video on an M1 17" MBP wih 64GB ram, one Chrome tab open and Stats monitoring in the background it was consistently using 10GB of ram.
Geez chrome is thirsty..! Presuming it’s 16”. I still have a 16” 10/16 M1 MBP with 16GB of RAM and 1TB of storage plus an M1 256 8GB Air and and M1 iPad. The 16” M1 MBP runs DaVinci Resolve editing 4k video just as smoothly as my 17” win laptop with an RTX 3070 and 32GB of RAM. The windows laptop generates ridiculous amounts of heat and exports slightly faster. Prefer the Mac.. And DaVinci Resolve is now available on the iPad..🤩😁😁
17"?? Did I miss something 😀 RAM use isn't consistent between machines because macOS will dynamically make use of available RAM for caching and optjmising performance. Check the wired memory figure in Activity Monitor - that's the space that critical OS data uses - everything else can potentially be compressed, swapped, or released as needed.
@@inwedavid6919 The requirements go up with every xpac. My 2016 21" imac was fine playing the 2014 expansion (WoD), uncomfortable for the 2020 xpac, and really tiresome for the 2022. Granted, that's mostly a matter of GPU power vs amount of RAM. The 5th gen Intel had a special really fast 128MB eDRAM cache at 50GB/s... half the speed of the M3's main RAM/VRAM. I don't think 8GB on this M3 iMac would be satisfactory at all. I got 24, and I don't think that was a waste considering I want several other things going while I play. 8GB for the WoW app, 4GB VRAM, 2-4GB for the system, plus more for everything else. An 8GB M1 is probably swapping out a bunch of the World of Warcraft app to make room for the VRAM. Yeah, it'll "do the job", but the $200 for 16GB would not have been a waste.
It's fine for basic development. If you need to run containers and VMs, you might find the limits. The thing is, if you're serious about development, your skills might increase considerably in, say 2 years, and being stuck with 8GB will be a frustration. I'd recommend at least 16GB.
Great video, I make buying decisions based on CG videos. So here's a dilemma, I multitask big files in multiple applications rather than single large files in single apps. SO for £1700, did I make a mistake buying a 16GB RAM 1 TB SSD M2 15" Air or should I have bought an 8GB 0.5TB SSD 14" M3 Pro?
My imac 2017 came with 8gb but also has 4 gb of video ram... I have got 16gb ram upgrade ready to fit when im brave enough (Screen has to come off) as it does run out of mem when using photo edit software...
If someone is not a heavy user but will purchase mac with the plans of installing windows on it, would you recommend getting 16b, or 8gb m3 mba is enough?
The M2 Pro comes with 16GB, so your choice is to pay $400 to double that to 32GB, or pay $300 to add 2 CPU cores (both performance cores) and 3 GPU cores. You'll see the benefit of the RAM only if you can saturate the memory, and due to the efficiencies of macOS and Apple Silicon, that would only be likely if you have a very RAM-dependant workflow (and you'll know if you are). In this video there is some B-roll where you can see me manipulating a HUGE canvas (86,469 x 3919 / 339 mega pixels) in Affinity Photo on the 8GB M2 MacBook Air. I've seen that same file chug on current PCs with 16 and even 32GB of RAM, yet here it runs fine on 8GB. That's not the case for every task, but you'd have to be pushing the M2 Pro hard to see the benefits of 32 over 16GB RAM. The additional CPU and GPU performance would again only become noticeable if you do a lot of multi-threaded tasks, or graphical work... but it would probably be more noticeable, more often than the RAM upgrade, for most users. Every use case is unique, and my results may not necessarily be the same as yours.
The key difference is that you can’t upgrade the RAM or SSD storage on Apple Silicon machines. 8GB may be fine now, but may not be enough in 2 years. With the vast majority of PCs; you can upgrade the RAM and storage for MUCH less that replacing the machine. With Apple Silicon, you have to buy a new machine. Add in Apple’s premium pricing for the base machines, and their OUTRAGEOUS pricing for buying a machine with more RAM or SSD storage. This is likely to hurt Apple in the next few years as many customers get pissed off about these.
With upgradable ram, you can’t get 400gb/s throughout and impressively low latencies. 😅 If you’ve ever used M macs, you’ll know how snappy they are in performance.
@@mal7916 You mean desktop PCs and workstations which all use upgradable RAM are less snappy than M- macs? I happen to have an M device and it's not particularly 'snappy'. I think you drank too much Apple koolaid.
@@mal7916 Yes, you can. It just requires multiple channels. For space reasons, a different packaging from SO-DIMM is also useful. LPDDR5X-6400 gives 100GB/s per 64bit wide channel, so 2 channels on an M1/M2/M3 gives 200MB/s, or 4 channels on a Pro/Max gives 400MB/s the 8533MT/s versions increase that nearly 40%. It takes a lot of pins to go that on external RAM, but Intel and AMD do 2 channel support on their lower end CPUS, and 8 channel support on their server CPUs. Completely doable.
95% of all 8GB Windows premium ultrabooks also have soldered RAM. It is clearly the industry standard. If 8GB is not enough, move on and get 18GB on the M3 Pro base model for $400 more.
NO! NO! NO! 8GB of shared memory is not enough period. "Fight the swap!" and excessive SSD wear overtime as normals keep devices for five, or more years. Thing is with mass production and if Apple was putting 16GB as the base shared memory in every device how much is the cost difference between 8GB, and 16GB shared memory? MAJOR FAIL on Apples part. Just like base SSD storage space of 512GB should be the minimum storage space in any Apple Mac device.
If my own buying experience is anything to go by Apple's up-spec marketing strategy will backfire in them big time. By making the up-spec decision so consequential (on the one hand it is stupidly expensive to up-spec, on the other if you buy too low you are locked in and cannot upgrade) and giving no clear guidance on what you need or even how to make the decision, you make it very easy to decide just to postpone hitting 'buy' and view a few more Constant Geekery videos instead! I do not see how Apple do not get this: they must see hordes of people going into the shop multiple times, spelunking around trying different combinations of up-spec options and then giving up and buying nothing!
Most premium Windows ultrabooks base models start at 8GB and are soldered. So, it is an industry standard. But, the funny thing is, I never see you and others complaining about those? Of course, most Windows reviews are sponsored and the OEM gives the top of the line model. It appears only Apple gets blamed and whined at; maybe because they do not sponsor YT creators?
@@andyH_England First off, I never mentioned Windows, I was very much comparing Apples to Apples! But at the price point of an 8GB Mac Book Pro or even Mac Book Air, you'd be very hard pressed to find a Windows machine with anything less than 16GB. While many do have soldered in base memory, most of these do still have a socket for memory expansion although there is a distressing tendency to make it hard to access. In most cases you can get a 16GB to 32GB bump for significantly less than Apple gouges for 8GB to 16GB, though in the PC case, it may be bundled with other upgrades such as a storage or resolution bump increasing the price bump. Mac Mini or Studio is more my speed and I have NEVER seen a desktop PC that did not allow memory upgrades! However this misses the point: if a PC manufacturer price gouges there is always another available offering better value. I am happy to pay a premium price for quality, but I expect a generous spec for that spend. The 1 year warranty with paid extension is what rankles most: if your pitch is quality at a premium price, surely you should be prepared to stand by it lasting longer than a year?
It's very clear that the base model M3 with 8GB is designed for those who prioritize a better screen and speaker quality. It also caters to individuals engaged in some creative work, although not at a level that necessitates opting for the M3 Pro version. Many people choose the base model M3 and upgrade from 8GB to 16GB. It's not accurate to say that the 8GB variant is silly, as there is a considerable demand for this model.
They could get the M1 MacBook Pro 14 at a lower cost, more ports, 16GB of RAM, and 512 GB of SSD storage. Just bad product strategy by Apple and consumer awareness.
Yes, many tech analysts believe this is Apple’s offering to enterprise and education IT depts. It’s probably fine for most corporate executives or academia.
You are missing one important part of the equation, when making a math: it's not 8 or 16 gigs of memory. Loaded macOS is no less than 5.7 gb, let's round it to 6. So, we are talking about 2 vs 10 gb of memory available to user. It's a whole different story.
It's the "wired memory" number you need to look at. That's the data space reserved for macOS - it's about 1GB. The rest is used for apps and can be compressed, swapped, reduced, expanded as required. The M2 MBA featured in this video sits at around 4.6GB used when freshly booted, of which 3GB is apps and 1GB is wired (the rest is probably GPU and other parts of SoC). macOS will use memory when it's available for caching and other optimisations, and it can reduce or swap this space when it needs to. The memory pressure graph shows the real situation. You are right in saying that 16GB on Apple Silicon is more of an upgrade than 2x - I've said this in many videos. I've always recommended 16GB on these computers for anything other than basic general purpose computing. The majority of viewers commenting on this issue are users who are enthusiasts and could never get by with 8GB, but that's not representative of the actual users and purchasers of these machines. I own a digital agency with more than 30 staff, and the admin team use 8GB Apple Silicon MacBook Airs with precisely zero issues... whereas the 8GB Intel MacBook Airs they had previously were awful!
Apple punditry seems certain that the biggest market for that base M3 (non-Pro chip) Macbook Pro is the corporate market rather than creative/aspiring creatives, so I'd argue it's passable. Though I'd hate for any aspiring creatives to fall for purchasing one of these. Excellent video though, very balanced.
Corporate market goes for PCs. Where you don't need all these BS features Apple has. And you can have ethernet ports, or Kensington locks and more options.
Ditto uses ARM chips with soldered RAM for Samsung, Google, VIVO, etc. Do you not have a phone, and if you do, why are you being hypocritical; they all have soldered RAM? Duh, it's a SOC for speed and low latency. Designed for the 21st century, not 1980s socketed parts that add cost, and waste, and are no longer the best alternative!
@@andyH_England I was talking about the laptops from Apple considering that the comment is placed under a video discussing the fact that Apple Pro Laptops come with 8gb of ram in 2023. Isn't it wasteful just making the device obsolete with software updates and throwing the device into the e-waste, rather than letting the user upgrade the ram and storage to get another 2 or 3 years out of it? You just jump to conclusions, don't you 🤔🤔
@@bobans it's more about the chipset than it is about the form factor. We are moving towards a system on chip and that means that RAM will be soldered on to 100% of the upcoming Windows machines as well. This is a new tech and people living in the past will have to acknowledge that tech moves on and an SOC means soldered RAM on PCs.
@@andyH_England People should be able to upgrade their components. Apple started this bullshit in order to sell more, and people are believing it. I have a fairly powerful window's laptop and upgraded to 32gb of ram and added 1tb SSD to it. Imagine if I had bought a Mack book, goodbye unreadability. I am not living in the past, I really want to be able to do what I want with the tech I purchase, it's that simple!
@@bobans If you buy new with the required RAM/storage, add some extra for headroom and future-proofing you will be fine. The average user never upgrades internal hardware as they are not techies in a YT bubble.
Let's call it what it is: Planned Obsolescence. This is a slightly misleading video. 8GB is enough for basic computing tasks only if you use Safari and very light applications. You don't have to be a Pro to want to use apps such as Chrome/Firefox and god forbid Telegram, and you'll see that 8GB is not enough. SSD life is not the real issue here, but rather your system will start to stutter and slows down significantly. Also, you didn't mention the fact that these machines are not upgradable, so as the the OS, Apps and websites become larger and more resource intensive each year, your performance will get worse each year as well, and I'm sure nobody who can't afford $200 for more RAM wants to upgrade their laptop every other year. Your resale value for these 8GB machines will also be very poor down the line. Why spend so much money for a laptop and be at the limit form the day one? Always buy a computer with headroom so you can grow into it. You'll never know what apps or website you want to use years down the line.
I will accept that with on-SoC RAM and SSD swap space things have stepped up a whole factor from slow off-chip RAM and spinning swap files us oldies grew up with. But there’s also durability and longevity in terms of workability in 3-5 years. And while keeping 8GB in the line-up makes sense for basic use, I fully agree that it does *not* belong in a machine with the pro-moniker
The problem is you confuse the average consumer if you rebrand, and as the MB Pro 13 was always Apple's second best selling machine, also starting at 8GB, that is very risky. You never change something unless you have to, especially when it is a big seller.
my 512gb m2 air has been plenty for my -relatively light- day to day professional tasks.. I also like to think that the dual channel ssd also helps some.
It is not enough. I am watching you with only one Chrome window in my 8Gb RAM mac and I am using 1,29GB of swap. There is no other app opened in my mac.
Thank you for your comment around Apple pushing "what they can get away with". I always look at "future proofing"... as software changes (usually) than hardware, and demands of software grow with improvements in hardware. I've been wanting an Apple for probably 6-8 years but whenever I go to a slightly higher RAM or HD configuration... the cost increase blows my mind and I stop... and empty my cart.
It's like he said, the base price is a lie. You have to look at new Mac models assuming the "base" price is $400 more than they talk about. Which is exactly the wrong way to market. You offer a _discount_ before checkout, not an upcharge. But, hey, they seem to be selling plenty, and the marketing won't change long as that's true.
I have a different perspective, and say that if I keep my Mac for 7 years and pay £200 extra for 16GB of RAM, that cost is 0.08 pence per day for the headroom and future-proofing. People should not base decisions on the initial cost, as it is about the long term value.
@amfrepo that's if you take it in isolation. I ended up buy a Windows PC for half that and 2X the performance and capacity. Also, you statement still doesn't taek away that gut feeling that Apple is trying to get away with wha they can. Also, doesn't account for the possibility that people may not have that kind of money. So Apple becomes a status symbol, exclusive to the West and only those in the West that have sufficient money to buy. And finally .08 pence could have been 0.4 pence.
@@CalmTurtle2023 I guess his assumption is that a windows PC/laptop won’t last as long as a mac. Not my experience but I don’t know the stats. My 800 lenovo outperforms my 2500 imac, albeit with a worse screen. The cost to amortize, though, is the extra vs windows the apple costs as a price-per-year that you got to enjoy MacOS and Mac hardware vs Win11 and PC build quality. I got the Win11 and M3 the same time. Wow, is the Apple worth the extra. But, I need windows for work.
@@andyH_England Well you have to do some estimating as to what the total cost is COUNTING the sale of the older mac. You upgrade at 3-4 years, the sale takes a bunch off the new one’s price. Wait 7 like I do, and the old one is worth a few hundred. Plus, you had to live for 3-4 extra years with future proofed slower CPU vs a current model. Which may be fine. I shouldn’t have waited so long, personally, but I hate migrating stuff over to new computers. Something always breaks.
The raw power of even the base M3 pro is completely wasted on 8GB of RAM. Base config should have been no less than 16-24GB and 1TB storage. Storage keeps getting cheaper, but apple keeps putting a premium on it.
You're telling me... OTOH, 512GB main drive would have been way more than enough, and 1 TB of external SSD for $50 would have handled everything else fine (esp for a desk PC). Most of it is media, anyway. But here I am, paid $400 more to get 2TB main drive. That wasn't nice of Apple.
People can keep their Macs for 10+ years so that raw power is future proofing, so in 5 years time it will still feel snappy. I find it funny that people complain at overhead and wonder if they are just flexing as why would you not want the fastest chip now rather than getting a slower chip?
I guess you compare a 8GB mac with 8Gig PC with shared memory, while a lort of PC have a dedicated graphic card with super fast RAM access that add some more RAM to the computer, a mac that run a game (like baldur gate 3) and uses 4GB of Vram for graphics has only 4GB available for aplications. While a PC have 2 set of RAM, one for graphic and one for CPU. Low end PC has shared RAM, while there are no Mac now with dedicated hi speed RAM, a Good 16x modern GPU explod the speed of Apple bus speed with its GDDR6. The second thing is most of the PC you can upgrade if you want more and ram is like 3 time cheaper than in a Mac. I update mine with DDR5 for 200€ , the price of the option from 8 to 16 in a Mac.
You are talking about pro Windows machines versus the base M3 MB Pro which is an ultrabook. Compare the SP9 with 8GB and only an iGPU and then come back to me with your results.
Apple claiming that 8 GB is sufficient is rubbish! Absolutely unacceptable and I refuse to be exploited like that. With what I'm trying to do with music I need 64 GB of RAM or better no matter what architecture of Mac I use
They aren't really claiming that 8GB is sufficient for someone who needs 64GB, but I agree it is rubbish for anyone starting out in music creation. As new music creatives grow their skills, they will quickly find the limits of an 8GB system and then be in a position where they have to upgrade. 16GB is a far more reasonable starting point for anyone pursuing a professional creative path.
Apple never said 8GB is sufficient for your music production. An Apple marketing guy (not an engineer) simply made a comment that 8GB on Apple Silicon is like 16GB on other systems. If Apple raised the base spec to 16, 18, or even 24GB you still would not be satisfied, because you said you need 64GB. So you need 64GB. All that means is you have special requirements, which is OK, in the same way that my work needs 32GB. But that does *not* mean 8GB is not sufficient for anyone. I know many casual users whose computer use, mostly web-based, fits within 8GB. As he says in the video, Apple should increase the base spec. We can all agree on that. But that would not affect people who need 32GB or 64GB because it will be many years before those become a base spec.
@@brightboxstudio another thing that kind of irritates me about this whole thing is that it's the huge exorbitant ridiculous price the Apple wants even for their base specs when it cost nowhere near the amount to even make the materials to build the computer. Everything comes from China and it's cheap stuff from China. I wish there was a way to just build a PC from scratch that can run macOS software compatibly and properly like the same way you could build a windows PC by grabbing parts off of sites like Newegg. If there was a way to build your own computer to be able to do and use whatever operating system you want to use that would be a lot cheaper than having to give Apple thousands and thousands of dollars for a computer I desperately need that I shouldn't have to pay an arm and leg for. Apple accessibility is also slipping as well and so I kind of rely on them for accessibility as a person with disabilities. If Apple continues to raise their prices I'm not sure how I'll be able to do what I need to do. I rely on Apple accessibility because it's probably the best in the business when it comes to technology but being on a fixed income and trying to launch a music career is not easy when Apple multi hundreds of trillion dollar corporation that they continue to raise the prices and give people like me nothing in return
As Macs become more mainstream I think the definition of "Pro" needs to be looked at. Most "Pro" machines aren't sitting in creative studios, they're attached to a dual screen dock in large offices across the country, in their thousands - that's the bulk "Pro" market. The workload demand is nowhere near that of a creative machine (though MS Apps are memory hogs - especially Teams & Outlook) and storage is centralised and managed so even 256GB is plenty. That said, Apple's biggest barrier to market, is Apple. The weak base specs & upgrade gouging are going to hurt it. A base model with 12GB RAM (two of the M3 Pro's 6GB RAM packages), a downgraded 256GB SSD (dual NAND - the M3 Pro has 4 for 512GB) and the ability to drive two 1080p panels would have made a perfect, corporate M3 MBP. But no, it's Apple.
i do everything with my 8gb 4k video / color grading with danvinci / front end and back end development with rider / docker and anything.. does it swap? yes?.how much 120gb per day .. dont you worry that it ll die?... no because this buys me 5-6 years of usage and i usually upgrade at 4 years
Great video. I agree with every point you made. I’ll just add I call Apple’s pricing “diabolical” because the prices also demonstrate a deep understanding of their competitors. For years I wasted money chasing the often quoted “just as good or better, but for less money” devices offered by the competition. It’s a fantasy. Apple knows exactly how their devices compare against all comers. Not only will you never find “better”, Apple knows you will not find as good build quality AND display AND speakers AND processors AND battery life AND performance AND resale value. Leaving the “just as good for less” a pipe dream as well. The buyer is really faced with a series of compromises they’re happy to accept for less money.
Great content as ever Dave. I only thing I would say is when RAM is discussed (especially in the Mac world), the system is very happy to use swap memory. So in general a user with a 8gb model won’t see an error saying out of memory, it will just be slower (as it has to swap). Obviously, this is highly generalising but it’s worth noting. I guess it comes down to ‘time vs return’. Regardless 8gb is a little tight in 2023. 😂
Exactly. The pros keep talking about large files. The usual user has several small or medium ones, and swap works perfectly for that. Still, it's just (excessive) profiteering to charge $200 for $40 extra RAM. But, hey, we all know that.
@@radellaf Its a business model. Lower point of entry with 8GB and profits are generated from people upgrading. They have been doing it since day one, so people complaining every year becomes a bit redundant. Apple is due to start at 12GB, probably with the M4, so hopefully that will stop the flexing.
@@andyH_England Just not sure it’s the best business model, and it’s certainly transparently crass and thus worthy of ridicule even if it does net them a few more bucks. I’m selling a 2010 Win7 low end laptop that has 8GB ffs….
This machine is called “pro”! And you don’t call a machine with just 8GB ram pro in 2023 sorry Apple. They increased the base ram to 18 in other M3 models and why not giving at least 10-12 gb ram to this base model? Yes, maybe Mac behaves like 26 gb when you operate with a browser and a word document, but you can not really run a virtual machine in it as you do in a 16gb pc. That’s a tricky comment.
In 2021 I bought an Apple refurb M1 MacBook Air. I wanted to be able to store my entire 750GB photo library so I got a 2TB SSD and 8GB of RAM. Mostly it is a general purpose computer but I do most of my photo editing on this MacBook using iPhoto, Pixelmator Pro, and Topaz Photo AI. I have never noticed any slowdown or high memory pressure doing any of this. However, when I tried to do some video editing things were a little slow. I got a M2 Pro Mac mini when they were released with 16 GB of RAM and 1 TB SSD. For my uses that's an editing monster.
There's no reason that would convince me 8gb ram is enough. not even for a base user. Its just a broken logic. If the basic user doesnt need 16gb ram, they also dont need the performance that m2 has to offer. They also dont need the price that M2 retails at. Even If the basic user just has to view mails, watch videos, use office apps, 8gb isnt enough. Apple might have the best optimisations but ram used by chrome, playing 4k videos or having multiple applications open, isnt under apple's control. Its a physical limitation. An 8gb version might be good for today, but not for tomorrow. They have deliberately designed the pricing structure and base models such that people are forced to upgrade. The base models aren't built to last. It's strange because the same company says they're helping the environment by not including chargers and earphones with their phones. Yet, they keep bringing out a new iPhone every single year. They talk big about their goals for 2030, but at the same time, they sell gadgets that you can't upgrade or fix, and they have specs that make the device useless in just a few years. Its about time people realize this irony.
32gb for gaming and serious music production is what I recommend. 64 so it can stand beating. 128 will soon be the new 32, so 64 is 2030s or today s new standard.
NO. 18GB isn't enough. If you actually USE your laptop and don't want to worry about what the hell is running and always worrying about closing things that aren't in use then go with 18GB. 36GB is what everyone should be buying.
My parents use 3-5GB of active RAM at the most. Why would they need 36GB. I just use my Mac for Office and 8GB has never been an issue for the last 15 years. You are speaking for a techie group without understanding that the world is bigger than the techie bubble.
As an actual user on the M1 MB Pro 13 for 3 years, I can confirm that it is close to the equivalent of 14GB. That is what I usually have on my Activity Monitor. And experience no issues. That consists of 8GB RAM + 4GB of diskRAM (swap) and 2GB of compressed RAM.
True. Just like upgrading to M3 Pro over the M3, and getting a 2TB SSD instead of 512GB. Clearly, higher specs equals better performance, so it follows that if you need better performance...upgrade. Let the people that can live with 8GB buy the base models and those that need more buy something else.
