21.5" - 8GB or 16GB?

[Bargle]

You heard it here folks! "Heavy Facebook use" and casual gaming from the app store now requires 16gb ram.

Enjoy your new computer.

[virginblue4]

Originally Posted by Bargle

You heard it here folks! "Heavy Facebook use" and casual gaming from the app store now requires 16gb ram.

Enjoy your new computer.

Considering that EVERY other post reccommend the 16GB, no need to get sarcastic.

Anyway, as people have said, I don't know what the future holds. I may be undertaking much more intensive tasks in the future that require the extra RAM.

[Bargle]

Originally Posted by virginblue4

Considering that EVERY other post reccommend the 16GB, no need to get sarcastic.

Anyway, as people have said, I don't know what the future holds. I may be undertaking much more intensive tasks in the future that require the extra RAM.

The truth is not determined by the number of people who voice their opinion--they're just justifying their own poor decisions. But hey, it's your money not mine. One guy telling you to get 16 admits he doesn't even use 5gb on his own computer!

To be honest, you sound clueless about computers, so when you say, "you might use more intensive tasks" in the future I doubt you have the know how to even use them.

Are you a professional photographer or graphics designer? If NO, you will never use 16gb. But go ahead, because I'm being a smart ass, spend a hundred bucks for something you don't need (based on the information you provided).

Wait...I own apple stock....never mind, you should buy the 16gb!

[virginblue4]

Originally Posted by Bargle

The truth is not determined by the number of people who voice their opinion. But hey, it's your money not mine. One guy telling you to get 16 admits he doesn't even use 5gb on his own computer!

To be honest, you sound clueless about computers, so when you say, "you might use more intensive tasks" in the future I doubt you have the know how to even use them.

Are you a professional photographer or graphics designer? If NO, you will never use 16gb. But go ahead, because I'm being a smart ass, spend a hundred bucks for something you don't need (based on the information you provided).

Wait...I own apple stock....never mind, you should buy the 16gb!

You've never met me so cannot cast an opinion on whether or not I know about computers or how to use higher end programs.

And for your information, I do a lot of photography with a professional camera and also spend a lot of time stiching together panorama shots. I don't plan on using my iMac for these tasks, which is why I didn't mention them, but I may in he future, I don't know.

[Bargle]

Originally Posted by virginblue4

You've never met me so cannot cast an opinion on whether or not I know about computers or how to use higher end programs.

And for your information, I do a lot of photography with a professional camera and also spend a lot of time stiching together panorama shots. I don't plan on using my iMac for these tasks, which is why I didn't mention them, but I may in he future, I don't know.

Then don't ask for my opinion. Just go onto your computer you use for photography right now and look at your system usage. Answer your own damn question for yourself.

[nuckinfutz]

16GB

Go big or go home.

[unknownx]

So.. If you were to choose only two of these upgrades..

What would you choose ?

- 16 GB
- Core i7
- Fusion Drive

[virginblue4]

Originally Posted by Bargle

Then don't ask for my opinion. Just go onto your computer you use for photography right now and look at your system usage. Answer your own damn question for yourself.

I asked for everyone's opinions. I read yours and I took it into consideration.

I then went with a differing opinion to yours and YOU started with the insults.

Don't join in with threads in future if you can't accept that people have differing opinions to you.

[smoking monkey]

Originally Posted by Bargle

Then don't ask for my opinion. Just go onto your computer you use for photography right now and look at your system usage. Answer your own damn question for yourself.

Settle petal!

He didn't go with your opinion. Get over it and move on. No need to act narky towards the OP who has been nothing but civil.

You're could be right about not needing more than 8gb of Ram, but who knows what the situation might be later.

[Bargle]

Originally Posted by unknownx

So.. If you were to choose only two of these upgrades..
What would you choose ?

- 16 GB
- Core i7
- Fusion Drive

Totally go for the i7. The hyperthreading capabilities will provide a dramatic improvement to things like angry birds and pintrest.

[roxxette]

Mate if you plan on keeping these machine for 4-5 years def get the 16gb ram, infact the 21inch model is soldered so i would just get the 16gb ver. either way.

[roxxette]

Originally Posted by bargle

totally go for the i7. The hyperthreading capabilities will provide a dramatic improvement to things like angry birds and pintrest.

:d

[dinojr]

Thing is, 16GB RAM upgrade is likely to mean you are about £100 short of a 27" iMac price. Then what do you do?

[Erko]

Originally Posted by roxxette

Mate if you plan on keeping these machine for 4-5 years def get the 16gb ram, infact the 21inch model is soldered so i would just get the 16gb ver. either way.

Where do you keep getting the idea its soldered in? There is no way to know for sure until they have actually released the product. It may as well have regular sodimms that are just very, very hard to access.

[roxxette]

Originally Posted by Erko

Where do you keep getting the idea its soldered in? There is no way to know for sure until they have actually released the product. It may as well have regular sodimms that are just very, very hard to access.

Look at the apple site, on the 21 model they only state you can either go 8gb or 16gb while the 27 model states four user accesible slots; if i where him i wouldnt want to pay apple top dollar in the future to upgrade the ram (IF they will offer such thing) , how much apple charge for 16gb kits ? 300-400usd ?

[majkom]

Originally Posted by unknownx

So.. If you were to choose only two of these upgrades..

What would you choose ?

- 16 GB
- Core i7
- Fusion Drive

Fusion Drive or SSD - HDD is the bottleneck

[Yebubbleman]

Originally Posted by glitch44

I personally would spend my upgrade money elsewhere, but that's just my computing needs. Maybe this will help:

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/...e-extra-juice/

If the RAM were user-accessible, then I'd agree whole-heartedly, but it isn't and thusly it has to be done at the time of purchase or it can't be done at all. If a version of OS X should come along that would otherwise run on that machine, but require 16GB of RAM, then having spent the $200 or so that Apple is raping him for would've been worth doing as it would've afforded him at least another year or two of use. Given that these are machines are essentially rentals, time is money and it is best to make the most out of both.

Originally Posted by APPLE-FANATIC

Thank you so much for this article! This is really helpful, guess I have my other answer. Looks like an i7 really isnt necessary and putting your upgrade funds into some of the other BTO's makes mores sense.

i7 is a good upgrade as you get more cache and you get hyperthreading and those are all great features, but RAM will limit you from being able to run apps down the road. It is inevitable. It's best to prepare for that in advance, especially when doing so down the road is no longer an option on these new 21.5" iMacs.

Originally Posted by Bargle

8gigs. For what you describe you will never even use the 8gigs you have. Anyone telling you otherwise is being a fool with your money.

An utter fool. There is no "future proofing" because I the future your graphics card, your hard drive et al will also all be out of date so you will just bottle neck somewhere else. But hey, if you've got 100$ just to blow away, go right ahead. At most right now, you are using 2 gigs tops doing the things you describe.

Aside from Mountain Lion, every version of OS X since Panther has been doubling the RAM requirement of the previous OS. They took a break from it this time, presumably to more focus on weeding out video cards that they could not procure 64-bit drivers for (given Mountain Lion's abandonment of the 32-bit kernel). But there's no reason to assume that they won't resume this practice in the future. Given that, and given the fact that the time at which your computers days are numbered is when software support stops (and that's largely dictated by (a) how limited your system is on expansion for things like RAM and (b) what version of OS X you're running), buying more RAM buys you more time. These computers aren't cheap. It's better to buy one that lasts for five years than to buy one that lasts for three or four and sometimes RAM can make that kind of difference.

It's not worth being so short-sighted when the rest of the computer costs so much money to begin with.

Originally Posted by APPLE-FANATIC

Ok, now Im so do you think 8gb is good enough for someone who primarily will be using their iMac for the following:

High Internet surfing
iMovie-Light to moderate
iTunes-High (including music video and movie viewing)
MS Office for Mac
Pages, Keynote and Numbers
iPhoto
FaceTime
**Ability to run the latest Apple OS software thats pushed out every year (it seems like anyway)

For everything but the last one, 8GB is sufficient. 8GB will more than likely let you run the next two versions of OS X, but it is likely that somewhere down the road 16GB will be the minimum requirement. At that time, it will be wise to consider replacing your computer, but at least, you won't have to as far as general compatibility is concerned.

Originally Posted by Bargle

Absolutely without any doubt. If you had 4gb it would be more than enough. It's actually easy to see how much ram you are using right now on your computer.

Are you on a Mac now? Just go to activity monitor. I do the same as you and have yet to use more than 2.79gb

That's with multiple web pages, iTunes, smart music, GarageBand, I producer, iPhoto and photo booth, face time, and ibooks author all open at the same time!

That's today and with current versions of that software. Who knows what future software will do with only that much RAM.

Originally Posted by APPLE-FANATIC

WOW! Ok, I am sitting at 5.12 (Used) as of right now on my early 2011 MBP and have 8gb installed. So I guess if I am not at the 8gb limit on my MBP, 8gb on the iMac would suite my needs just fine. Just hate that you cant upgrade the 21.5", thats what worries me...

The fact that you can't upgrade it later should be the determining factor. It's a change you can't make later should you ever need it and it's a change that is guaranteed to effect how long you use the machine before you replace it. I say it's a no-brainer.

Originally Posted by TheZA

Nailed it. The cheapest machine today, is better than the best machine of yesterday.

Yes, but the cheapest machine today will last you much less time than one with more money thrown into things like RAM increases.

Originally Posted by Bargle

Ok, in 2006 a guy needed 3gb of ram, and now in 2013 he's using 4.9.

So, your 8gigs of ram will need upgrading some time in 2050.

Man that logic doesn't even follow, and I'm pretty sure you know even know it.

Originally Posted by virginblue4

Thanks for all of your responses!

I have decided that I am going to go for the 16 GB of RAM in my new iMac. Just another quick question, will the baseline 21.5 inch iMac be powerful enough to run some basic games from the App Store and games such as SimCity, when it is released next year?

Good call, and yes, it ought to be powerful enough.

Originally Posted by Bargle

You heard it here folks! "Heavy Facebook use" and casual gaming from the app store now requires 16gb ram.

Enjoy your new computer.

Your use of the word now is both wrong and shortsighted. It doesn't NOW require 16GB of RAM. It WILL require 16GB of RAM. NOW vs. FUTURE. What about that is so hard to grasp, understand or empathize with, especially given Apple's pre-Mountain-Lion track record of doubling the minimum RAM requirement of the OS?

Originally Posted by Bargle

The truth is not determined by the number of people who voice their opinion--they're just justifying their own poor decisions. But hey, it's your money not mine. One guy telling you to get 16 admits he doesn't even use 5gb on his own computer!

To be honest, you sound clueless about computers, so when you say, "you might use more intensive tasks" in the future I doubt you have the know how to even use them.

Are you a professional photographer or graphics designer? If NO, you will never use 16gb. But go ahead, because I'm being a smart ass, spend a hundred bucks for something you don't need (based on the information you provided).

Wait...I own apple stock....never mind, you should buy the 16gb!

Any viable argument I could use against this is something I've said a thousand times over and is something you fail to address in your comments to anyone disagreeing with you.

Originally Posted by unknownx

So.. If you were to choose only two of these upgrades..

What would you choose ?

- 16 GB
- Core i7
- Fusion Drive

Personally, I'd do the RAM and the Fusion Drive, but that's only because the odds of Apple locking you out of being able to use an OS feature (and similarly the odds of any program limiting your ability to install and use itself on your system) are slim as they haven't done that since the PowerPC days. The Core i7 will be faster, for sure, but in terms of getting the most out of what you buy, I'd pick the RAM and the Fusion Drive. Though, I can't imagine the upgrade to the Core i7 being that much more; if you can save more money, it's worth doing all three.

Originally Posted by dinojr

Thing is, 16GB RAM upgrade is likely to mean you are about £100 short of a 27" iMac price. Then what do you do?

Probably still get the 21.5" iMac as its transition away from some desktop components to laptop components (like 3.5" HDD to 2.5" HDD) is likely to make it much more reliable of a Mac whereas the 27" iMac doesn't seem likely to have such an increase in reliability (if anything a decrease given the way increased thinness for only removing the optical drive). Frankly, a Mac model's reliability is a pretty important feature to consider given that's one of the primary reasons to consider a Mac over any other machine.

[glitch44]

Originally Posted by Yebubbleman

If the RAM were user-accessible, then I'd agree whole-heartedly, but it isn't and thusly it has to be done at the time of purchase or it can't be done at all.

You quoted me but you misread my comment. My comment "I would spend my upgrade money elsewhere" (and the article to which I linked) was about the i5 vs i7. Earlier in the thread I said he/she should get 16GB (or go up to the 27" and its user upgradeable RAM slots).

[Bargle]

Future proofing is a crock. Putting 16gb of ram is akin to putting a formula 1 engine in a Honda civic, yes, your ram is future proofed but that will not help you when your graphics card and hard drive won't be up to the tasks IN THE FUTURE.

It's the Wendy's triple cheeseburger phenom. He sees the 27" as too expensive, feels the stock 21.5" is too cheep so tries to upgrade and feel thrifty while "getting more bang for the buck".

There is no such thing as "future proofing". 16gb of ram will come standard in 10 years (the earliest any casual user will need such power) so actually spending money on it now, is a waste unless you need it now. He's just putting a fancy muffler on a Honda civic.

He might as well try and put 32gb of ram in it--32gb sits idle just as well as 16gb. Top end video games barely use 4gb--for games that his graphics card will struggle with now! Crysis 2 uses between 2-5gb of system ram, and the high number is do to some memory leakage. The computer he's buying can't even play crysis on medium settings, so what good does 16gb get him in the future? Squat.

[Mic2904]

Since i am in a similar situation and i would use the mac for similar things, would people recommend to get the 2.9 instead of the stnadart 2.7?

Wuld it be worth paying the extra money?

I will buy this imac and it should last a while, best would be for the next 4-5 years.

[Trinite]

Originally Posted by Bargle

Future proofing is a crock. Putting 16gb of ram is akin to putting a formula 1 engine in a Honda civic, yes, your ram is future proofed but that will not help you when your graphics card and hard drive won't be up to the tasks IN THE FUTURE.

It's the Wendy's triple cheeseburger phenom. He sees the 27" as too expensive, feels the stock 21.5" is too cheep so tries to upgrade and feel thrifty while "getting more bang for the buck".

There is no such thing as "future proofing". 16gb of ram will come standard in 10 years (the earliest any casual user will need such power) so actually spending money on it now, is a waste unless you need it now. He's just putting a fancy muffler on a Honda civic.

He might as well try and put 32gb of ram in it--32gb sits idle just as well as 16gb. Top end video games barely use 4gb--for games that his graphics card will struggle with now! Crysis 2 uses between 2-5gb of system ram, and the high number is do to some memory leakage. The computer he's buying can't even play crysis on medium settings, so what good does 16gb get him in the future? Squat.

Listen, I see what you're saying (though, really, I DON'T understand why you're so angry about it; there's definitely a LOT of "get the absolute max amount of ram possible" in these forums, and if you're not an expert, it's not surprising that you might think it's necessary).

But it seems to me that what several people are saying is that it's not the games, or most programs, themselves that are the problem, but what they see as the likely increase in required ram by whatever future OS? operating system comes along? What's been said about the trend in ram requirements since Panther (or whatever it was) sounds fairly convincing to me, actually, and something worth trying to "proof" oneself against.

Can you explain why you don't think this is an issue? Thanks!

[Bargle]

Sure.

1) We are in a post PC era where apples presumed goal is to marry iOS with OS, the goal of companies is no longer to push power, but to push integration; integration with weaker iOS devices.

2) we are past the stage where technology is doubling. Just look at graphics chips. Ivy bridge is 10% faster than sandy, haswell chips will be 10% faster than ivy, we are not doubling power and even these updates are further and further apart.

3) The money is zero sum. He can take that 200$ now that will have zero performance effect (actually less than zero because having it just sit there doing nothing still takes up system resources and will cause the computer to run hotter than if "only" 8gb were there), that money buys a lot of apps NOW on the App Store, or iTunes, or a nice printer, or an iphone5 or the fusion drive which has dramatic performnce impact, etc. It's ludicrous.

4) OSX mountain lion recommends 2gb of memory. Two. T.W.O! In 2003 panther reccomended 512mb. That's ten years and it supported 96mb! So in 2023 if we see the same trend, we're looking at 8gb of reccomended ram for iOSX ocelot.

[Yebubbleman]

Originally Posted by glitch44

You quoted me but you misread my comment. My comment "I would spend my upgrade money elsewhere" (and the article to which I linked) was about the i5 vs i7. Earlier in the thread I said he/she should get 16GB (or go up to the 27" and its user upgradeable RAM slots).

Huh. My bad then. Carry on.

Originally Posted by Bargle

1) We are in a post PC era where apples presumed goal is to marry iOS with OS, the goal of companies is no longer to push power, but to push integration; integration with weaker iOS devices.

Have you used Mountain Lion at all? The point of it isn't to converge iOS and OS X, but rather to give OS X features that excel well on iOS, such as Facebook integration (love it, hate it, or have no need for it), Notes and Reminders apps, and Documents in the Cloud, and AirPlay. Note that none of these features at all disturb the ability to use a Mac as a Mac nor do they function to eventually disrupt that. If you are not demoting the Mac, then these features are all boons and not detriments. Given that the Mac is still positioned to be able to do things that even the most powerful iPad will never be able to do (and will be for the foreseeable future), this point is not only wrong, but moot as well.

Originally Posted by Bargle

2) we are past the stage where technology is doubling. Just look at graphics chips. Ivy bridge is 10% faster than sandy, haswell chips will be 10% faster than ivy, we are not doubling power and even these updates are further and further apart.

Tiger didn't up the graphics requirements from Panther, which didn't up the graphics requirements from Jaguar, nor did Leopard up the graphics requirements from Tiger, nor did Snow Leopard up it from Leopard, nor did Lion from Snow Leopard. It was only upped in Mountain Lion because driver support for those cards had dropped. Intel had abandoned the GMA 950-X3100 cards and AMD pretty much dropped support for the ATI RADEON X1xxx series soon after they finished buying ATI. Were it not for those facts, Mountain Lion would've probably had the same system requirements as Lion. Then again, this is a refinement release, not a feature-creep release. The point of this release is to polish the one that came before it. Similarly, Apple dropped PowerPC support in Leopard because supporting the two architectures in an OS-wide universal binary was inefficient on storage and it made Leopard clunky as all hell.

This being said, RAM requirements, save for Mountain Lion (which, mind you, wasn't as serious of an overhaul as Snow Leopard was), have steadily doubled from Jaguar to Panther, to Tiger, to Leopard, to Snow Leopard, to Lion. It is safe to assume that when Apple releases the next feature-creep version of OS X, the minimum requirements will be 4GB. And then eventually it will be 8GB. Machines at the lower end, capable of running Mountain Lion did not originally ship with enough RAM to do so, same was true with Lion, and Snow Leopard before it. This is a trend that WILL continue. A Mac truly becomes obsolete when you can't install the software you need to run on it. This is dependent on being able to run the latest OS or even the one before the latest. When you can't run a newer OS, the machine's days become numbered. You have cited nothing that disproves this. You have only disagreed and supplied extraneous and sometimes erroneous information to back it up.

Originally Posted by Bargle

3) The money is zero sum. He can take that 200$ now that will have zero performance effect (actually less than zero because having it just sit there doing nothing still takes up system resources and will cause the computer to run hotter than if "only" 8gb were there), that money buys a lot of apps NOW on the App Store, or iTunes, or a nice printer, or an iphone5 or the fusion drive which has dramatic performnce impact, etc. It's ludicrous.

Spending more on 16GB of RAM buys anywhere from one to two extra years of life for the computer. That's no less significant that an iPhone, Fusion drive, or a nice printer.

Originally Posted by Bargle

4) OSX mountain lion recommends 2gb of memory. Two. T.W.O! In 2003 panther reccomended 512mb. That's ten years and it supported 96mb! So in 2023 if we see the same trend, we're looking at 8gb of reccomended ram for iOSX ocelot.

It doesn't recommend 2GB of RAM, it REQUIRES 2GB of RAM. There's a difference. 4GB is recommended. It didn't change from Lion to Mountain Lion because the latter was a refinement release that was less drastic of a refinement than Snow Leopard was. Expect this trend to resume with 10.9 and beyond. And yes, the RAM will matter for OS X upgrades long before the CPU, graphics card ever do. And we have the last five versions of OS X to prove it.

[smoking monkey]

Originally Posted by Yebubbleman

Probably still get the 21.5" iMac as its transition away from some desktop components to laptop components (like 3.5" HDD to 2.5" HDD) is likely to make it much more reliable of a Mac whereas the 27" iMac doesn't seem likely to have such an increase in reliability (if anything a decrease given the way increased thinness for only removing the optical drive). Frankly, a Mac model's reliability is a pretty important feature to consider given that's one of the primary reasons to consider a Mac over any other machine.

Mate, loved your replies. Well done. Just this last point. At this point it's totally uncertain, but it seems that removing the SD from the iMac, they have actually increased the reliability. It created a lot of heat and was prone to stuffing up. Also, others have pondered that the actual thinness will help with ventilation and not hinder it. That this new design will be significantly better in terms of cooling.

Of course this is only conjecture, but a lot more knowledgeable people than I have concluded this on these boards.

I think Apple have addressed the two biggest problems with the imac - screen issue (fixed with lamination process) and heat (new design)

Let's hope I'm right! Cause if I'm not, then we might be in big trouble!

[LachlanH]

Forget the base 21.5" with 16gb, just use that money to get the high end 21.5" with 8gb ram.

Better CPU and graphics card is going to go further in 'future proofing' than 16gb of ram.