Apple argues in favor of selling Macs with only 8GB of RAM
With the launch of the M3 MacBook Pro last year, many reviewers and customers criticized the company for still selling...
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To be fair, M-series Macs are pretty insanely efficient with memory. Unless you’ve actually used one extensively, I can understand the attitudes here…BUT:
I’ve done broadcast animation for many years, and back in ‘21 delivered an entire season of info/explainer-type pieces for a network show — using Motion, Cinema 4D, and After Effects (+ Ai and Ps) — all of it running on a base-level, first-gen M1 Mini (8/256). Workflow was fast and smooth; even left memory-pig apps running in the background most of the time…not one hiccup. Oh, and everything was delivered in 4k.
So 8gb actually is plenty for most folks…even professionals doing some heavy lifting. Sure I’d go for 16 next one, but damn I was/am still impressed. (Maybe it sucks for gaming, I don’t do that so have no clue).
It's clear that the M3 MacBooks are noticably slower with 8GB or RAM than with 16GB for various tasks, though, including photo & video editing, and 3D rendering.
Sure, 8GB gets the job done but why are Apple selling "professional" grade laptops in this price range that clearly require additional memory to reach peak performance?
Point taken! Clearly more is always better. Don't have any experience with the M2 or 3.
I'm just adding a personal experience with having the minimum be plenty to get big jobs done.
I get more because I know I’ll need more. I don’t get less and then complain I should have gotten more even though I knew I couldn’t upgrade later.
Really, Apple just shouldn’t have said what they did and they wouldn’t be in hot water.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
videos showing how the M3 MacBooks struggle with 8GB of RAM
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It doesn't matter how 'insanely efficient' they are. If your tasks need to use more than 8Gb of memory you are going to run out and start swapping to disk.
8gb worth of data is not heavy lifting for professional use.
...And yet..?
My point is that while of course more is better, 8 sufficed for me...a professional, doing demanding...professional...work.
Sufficed is not an objective term but still is not a favorable term especially for machines that cost that much.
Your original point was that apple's cpu are somehow more 'efficient' with ram. That's misinformation to put it kindly.
It mostly just shows how crazy fast modern SSDs are that they can do swap duties with performance that is acceptable to many people. The SSD in my MacBook Pro can read/write at 5-6 GB/s. That means it can write out the whole 8 GB of memory of one of those smaller machines in under 2 seconds. As long as your current task fits in 8 GB and you're fine waiting 2 seconds to switch between apps...
Yes if you don't run out of ram you won't face ram performance issues..
I wouldn't be ok waiting 2 seconds to switch between apps on something the price of Mac laptop, even the cheapest m1.
To be fair, at the price point of Macs, 16GB is easily achievable.