How much RAM do I need in my MacBook?
Introduction:
Although all previous MacBooks allowed users to upgrade RAM, in all current MacBooks, MacBook Pros and Airs the RAM is soldered to the logicboard. This is why it is important to configure as much RAM as you need at purchase and to consider how much RAM you may need in the future.
Since this is not an easy decision and this update doesn't come for free, it is up to you to find out if it is worth for you to get 4, 8 or 16 GB of memory/RAM.
This decision depends on your individual usage, which refers to how you will use your MacBook and which apps you will use.
It is a common misconception that more RAM will always automatically make your macbook faster and more responsive. Keep in mind that this is very often not the case!
To give you a little help deciding I created this wiki which can be edited by all MacRumors members who want to share their experiences. Please add content to this wiki responsibly!
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How to read the Activity Monitor
The Activity Monitor is a utility that comes by default with OSX. As long as the memory pressure graph is in the green your system has enough RAM available.
Example of an activity monitor on a MacBook Air from 2014 with 4gb RAM:
![vyh8Gtx.png]()
RAM pressure here is still in the green, which means the system has sufficient amounts of memory available.
"2 Safari windows with about 10 tabs each, all with different websites, Skype, Thunderbird, Spotify, Photoshop with 13 files opened, MAMP, Coda with about 5 files opened. Also did some normal work with Photoshop, browsed the web and listened to some music on Spotify." Rodrigo Yoshida
OS Yosemite will try to utilize almost all the RAM available.
Here an example from a late 2013 retina Macbook Pro 15" with 16gb RAM:
![attachment.php]()
"The only Main Apps I have open were 3 Chrome Tabs (including the one I am using to post this message) and iTunes." Sam11B
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Apps/Functions that traditionally never require more than 4 GB of RAM:
Apps/Functions that strongly suggest at least 8 GB of RAM:
Apps/Functions that require at least 8 GB of RAM:
Apps/Functions that strongly suggest at least 16 GB of RAM:
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RAM questionaire
A little test Martin
Guy designed and all the credit for it belongs to him.
How to: Answer the following questions (the answers are split between A, B and C). Once done, add up your total (A = 1, B = 2 and C = 3).
Questions
1. How long do you wish to to keep your upcoming Mac?
A: 1 - 2 years
B: 2 - 4 years
C: 5+ years
2. How much do you you plan to run VM's (i.e running 2 or more Operating System's at one time)?
A: "I will just run OSX" or "I don't even know what a VM is"
B: "I plan to run a Virtual Machine, but I will not dedicate a lot of RAM to it (2 GB of RAM or less)"
C: "I plan to have at least one Virtual Machine, and wish to dedicate 4 GB or more to it"
3. How often will you use your virtual machine (if at all)?
A: "Never"
B: "Only when I need to run certain software" or "some of the time"
C: "I wish to have the VM running most if not all of the time"
4. Will you be using your new Macbook Pro for video editing?
A: "Little to none. If I am to make a video, it will only be small videos (like home videos) made in iMovie"
B: "I plan to do video editing often, using iMovie for heavy projects"
C: "I plan to do a lot of heavy video editing in Final Cut Pro X"
5. Will you be using your new Macbook Pro for photo editing?
A: "I plan to do some basic photo editing using iPhoto, like cropping as well as changing the lighting as well as some basic work in Pixelmator"
B: "I plan to do heavy photo editing with a few photo's at a time in either Photoshop or Pixelmator"
C: "I plan to do a lot of heavy photo editing with a lot of photo's at a time in either Photoshop or Pixelmator"
6. What is the primary use of your soon to buy Macbook Pro?
A: "Light web browsing, checking emails, basic word processing as well as spreadsheet and presentation work"
B: "All of the above, as well as video editing, photo editing, and programming (as well as any other heavy applications)"
C: "All of the above, as well as running Windows software in a VM"
7. How many programs do you see yourself running at the same time?
A: "1 - 5 basic programs" or "1 or 2 heavy programs"
B: "A lot of applications open at the same time, and I will be jumping back and forth between all of them"
C: "A lot of applications open at the same time, as well as a VM (or several)"
-End of questions-
Add up your total score (A = 1, B = 2 and C = 3), then find where you come in with the scores bellow.
7 - 9 = 4 GB of RAM will be enough for you. (If you are scoring 9, consider 8 GB of RAM for future proofing and/or if you think you will do more work on it in the future, although this is not necessary)
10 - 19 = 8 GB of RAM will be enough for you. (If you are scoring 17-19, consider 16Gb of RAM for future proofing, although this is not necessary)
20+ = 16 GB of RAM will be enough for you.
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Multitasking example showing a Macbook Air 2013 (4gb RAM):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6oaUJPZKNc
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Performance differences between 4, 8 and 16gb or RAM:
http://www.macworld.com/article/203...tional-memory-on-a-mac.html#lsrc.twt_macworld
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bonus: What exactly is RAM?
"Think of the processor as an office worker, RAM as his desk, and the hard drive as the desk's drawers. To do work the worker must pull stuff out of his drawers, put it on the desk, and get going.
The faster and more efficient the drawer opening is (the hard drive's speed), the faster the worker can put stuff on the desk (put apps into RAM), and the faster he can work on it (CPU cycles).
More ram = bigger desk. You can put more stuff in front of the worker before he bogs down and needs to put stuff back in the drawers to make room for other work (caching to the hard drive), this slows down his workflow when it happens and is not desirable. (This happens when the machine doesn't have enough RAM for the tasks at hand)."snaky69
Introduction:
Although all previous MacBooks allowed users to upgrade RAM, in all current MacBooks, MacBook Pros and Airs the RAM is soldered to the logicboard. This is why it is important to configure as much RAM as you need at purchase and to consider how much RAM you may need in the future.
Since this is not an easy decision and this update doesn't come for free, it is up to you to find out if it is worth for you to get 4, 8 or 16 GB of memory/RAM.
This decision depends on your individual usage, which refers to how you will use your MacBook and which apps you will use.
It is a common misconception that more RAM will always automatically make your macbook faster and more responsive. Keep in mind that this is very often not the case!
To give you a little help deciding I created this wiki which can be edited by all MacRumors members who want to share their experiences. Please add content to this wiki responsibly!
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
How to read the Activity Monitor
The Activity Monitor is a utility that comes by default with OSX. As long as the memory pressure graph is in the green your system has enough RAM available.
Example of an activity monitor on a MacBook Air from 2014 with 4gb RAM:
RAM pressure here is still in the green, which means the system has sufficient amounts of memory available.
"2 Safari windows with about 10 tabs each, all with different websites, Skype, Thunderbird, Spotify, Photoshop with 13 files opened, MAMP, Coda with about 5 files opened. Also did some normal work with Photoshop, browsed the web and listened to some music on Spotify." Rodrigo Yoshida
OS Yosemite will try to utilize almost all the RAM available.
Here an example from a late 2013 retina Macbook Pro 15" with 16gb RAM:
"The only Main Apps I have open were 3 Chrome Tabs (including the one I am using to post this message) and iTunes." Sam11B
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Apps/Functions that traditionally never require more than 4 GB of RAM:
- MS Office (Word,Excel,Power Point)
- iWorks (Pages, Keynote, Numbers)
- Webbrowser
- Email Apps
- iTunes
- App Stores
- Media Consumption
- all versions of OSX require no more than 2 GB of RAM
Apps/Functions that strongly suggest at least 8 GB of RAM:
- Virtual machines (e.g. Parallels, VMware and VirtualBox)
- Multitasking Apps for media creation (e.g. Photoshop, FinalCut Pro)
- Multitasking Apps for Audio creation (e.g. Cubase, Logic, ProTools)
- Multitasking Apps for 3D Rendering (e.g. Maya, RenderMan)
- DaVinci Resolve
- Parallel use of different user accounts at the same time
Apps/Functions that require at least 8 GB of RAM:
- 3D functions in Photoshop
- compositing software like After Effects and Smoke and so on
Apps/Functions that strongly suggest at least 16 GB of RAM:
- Running several virtual machines
- Grading RAW video files in DaVinci Resolve
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
RAM questionaire
A little test Martin
Guy designed and all the credit for it belongs to him.How to: Answer the following questions (the answers are split between A, B and C). Once done, add up your total (A = 1, B = 2 and C = 3).
Questions
1. How long do you wish to to keep your upcoming Mac?
A: 1 - 2 years
B: 2 - 4 years
C: 5+ years
2. How much do you you plan to run VM's (i.e running 2 or more Operating System's at one time)?
A: "I will just run OSX" or "I don't even know what a VM is"
B: "I plan to run a Virtual Machine, but I will not dedicate a lot of RAM to it (2 GB of RAM or less)"
C: "I plan to have at least one Virtual Machine, and wish to dedicate 4 GB or more to it"
3. How often will you use your virtual machine (if at all)?
A: "Never"
B: "Only when I need to run certain software" or "some of the time"
C: "I wish to have the VM running most if not all of the time"
4. Will you be using your new Macbook Pro for video editing?
A: "Little to none. If I am to make a video, it will only be small videos (like home videos) made in iMovie"
B: "I plan to do video editing often, using iMovie for heavy projects"
C: "I plan to do a lot of heavy video editing in Final Cut Pro X"
5. Will you be using your new Macbook Pro for photo editing?
A: "I plan to do some basic photo editing using iPhoto, like cropping as well as changing the lighting as well as some basic work in Pixelmator"
B: "I plan to do heavy photo editing with a few photo's at a time in either Photoshop or Pixelmator"
C: "I plan to do a lot of heavy photo editing with a lot of photo's at a time in either Photoshop or Pixelmator"
6. What is the primary use of your soon to buy Macbook Pro?
A: "Light web browsing, checking emails, basic word processing as well as spreadsheet and presentation work"
B: "All of the above, as well as video editing, photo editing, and programming (as well as any other heavy applications)"
C: "All of the above, as well as running Windows software in a VM"
7. How many programs do you see yourself running at the same time?
A: "1 - 5 basic programs" or "1 or 2 heavy programs"
B: "A lot of applications open at the same time, and I will be jumping back and forth between all of them"
C: "A lot of applications open at the same time, as well as a VM (or several)"
-End of questions-
Add up your total score (A = 1, B = 2 and C = 3), then find where you come in with the scores bellow.
7 - 9 = 4 GB of RAM will be enough for you. (If you are scoring 9, consider 8 GB of RAM for future proofing and/or if you think you will do more work on it in the future, although this is not necessary)
10 - 19 = 8 GB of RAM will be enough for you. (If you are scoring 17-19, consider 16Gb of RAM for future proofing, although this is not necessary)
20+ = 16 GB of RAM will be enough for you.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Multitasking example showing a Macbook Air 2013 (4gb RAM):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6oaUJPZKNc
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Performance differences between 4, 8 and 16gb or RAM:
http://www.macworld.com/article/203...tional-memory-on-a-mac.html#lsrc.twt_macworld
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bonus: What exactly is RAM?
"Think of the processor as an office worker, RAM as his desk, and the hard drive as the desk's drawers. To do work the worker must pull stuff out of his drawers, put it on the desk, and get going.
The faster and more efficient the drawer opening is (the hard drive's speed), the faster the worker can put stuff on the desk (put apps into RAM), and the faster he can work on it (CPU cycles).
More ram = bigger desk. You can put more stuff in front of the worker before he bogs down and needs to put stuff back in the drawers to make room for other work (caching to the hard drive), this slows down his workflow when it happens and is not desirable. (This happens when the machine doesn't have enough RAM for the tasks at hand)."snaky69
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