Hello. As the title says.....should I keep it or not? I am having second thoughts. I am teacher, I don't do any photo editing or coding. However, I am a Rimworld fanatic. Do you think the machine can handle some gaming (Rimworld, Terraria) or should I just cancel it? Thanks. In my country, getting a deal on a 16gb Air is almost impossible.
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Got a great dal on a 15" inch M2 air with 512GB SSD, however, only 8gb RAM...
- Thread starter FoX1112
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I used MBA M1 16GB RAM
MBA M2 8GB RAM
now using Macbook Pro M2 8GB. In using Office apps, Teams, Keynote and Numbers with multiple Safari tabs I found that there is absolutely zero difference in performance due to RAM. So don't worry about RAM and buy the configuration with largest SSD. If I'd export videos day and night yes, rendering would a bit slower (by 5 percentage points or so), which doesn't really matter much in real life.
So, the way I look at these posts is simple. If you care enough to ask the question on a forum, then you might care at least somewhat that at some point in the future, 8 GB of RAM is not enough. That's not to say it will be, but that it might be.
So, given that fact, the next question is what is the cost difference? You say you got a good deal. Does that mean the cost difference is more than the $200 on a new education-priced upgrade from 8GB to 16GB? This is a crazy amount for a RAM upgrade in the PC world, yes, but in the mac world right now, it is a marginal upgrade by percentage if you are really worried. So I would say do it if the difference was $1399 to $1599.
Now, I also don't really like having 8GB RAM on any of my PCs or Macs. I was looking for a Surface Pro 8 with 16GB of RAM (I don't care about SSD since I can upgrade it on my own). In the process of looking for this over a matter of a week or two, I came across a newly-listed Surface Pro 9 for like $600!!!! But it only had 8GB of RAM! I bought it anyway as that is like half the cost of a SP9 with 16GB RAM. Haven't regretted it yet.
So if the deal is good enough? GO FOR IT! You don't sound like you stress your machines anyway so it should be good for at least 3-5 years.
So, given that fact, the next question is what is the cost difference? You say you got a good deal. Does that mean the cost difference is more than the $200 on a new education-priced upgrade from 8GB to 16GB? This is a crazy amount for a RAM upgrade in the PC world, yes, but in the mac world right now, it is a marginal upgrade by percentage if you are really worried. So I would say do it if the difference was $1399 to $1599.
Now, I also don't really like having 8GB RAM on any of my PCs or Macs. I was looking for a Surface Pro 8 with 16GB of RAM (I don't care about SSD since I can upgrade it on my own). In the process of looking for this over a matter of a week or two, I came across a newly-listed Surface Pro 9 for like $600!!!! But it only had 8GB of RAM! I bought it anyway as that is like half the cost of a SP9 with 16GB RAM. Haven't regretted it yet.
So if the deal is good enough? GO FOR IT! You don't sound like you stress your machines anyway so it should be good for at least 3-5 years.
There are a surprisingly wide variety of ways of asking the question if 8Gb is enough, and the same people tend to pop up with '8Gb is a joke' or 'it's a bare minimum'. Their logic isn't sound, and the experiences of many perfectly sane and sensible users who don't have any reason to visit here and say otherwise would suggest that for most, in most situations, 8Gb is plenty sufficient.
If you think of it as a car, not a computer, it means that if you're going to spend all day, every day, driving around town, doing the usual trips to the store, the school run, commuting to the office, with days out in the country or a vacation at the beach, a vehicle that's big enough for you, your family, and your stuff, and can manage the odds and ends of a few interstate trips for a few hundred miles each at 70-80mph is going to be plenty. And using it like that won't particularly wear a modern vehicle out.
But if you spend hours a day at the wheel, drive a thousand miles a week, often carry loads, and like to go off road or up Mt. Washington, then you need something a bit more rugged, powerful and capable.
If you can afford it, you get a vehicle that can do the latter, just in case. But if you can't, or the former type of use is actually exactly what you need, that's all you really need. And yes, that means there's a risk that your needs might change in the lifespan of the vehicle, but that's why trade-ins exist.
In computing, the same kind of argument applies, and if you were to buy an 8Gb system today and then your needs changed in 3 years time and it was no longer enough, it'll have cost you about $1 a day, and that's if you don't trade it in. If you do, likely then about 65cents a day.
In this situation, I'd say there's more of a question about whether a Mac is good for gaming, and just how far can that go, than what RAM it needs.
In addition to the comments above is it a great deal? Reliable seller? Is there a warranty, return period? People have lost all of their money with some "great" deals.
