128GB RAM on M3 Max worth it?

[PotentPeas]

It will basically take anything that is read from disk and store it in RAM, so that it doesn't have to be read from disk a second time. A cache. Reading from memory is faster than reading from disk (even with today's speedy SSDs). Pretty much all modern operating systems do this (Windows/Linux/macOS). The oldest stuff in the RAM disk cache will be chucked if the system needs memory for anything else.

 

[miniConverted]

MacOS will always be greedy with using up as much RAM as it can if it's there. This is one reason why it's mostly useless for most users to obsess about RAM usage numbers. It doesn't necessarily mean it needs to use that RAM for anything. If it's open, it'll be claimed.

You're also still going to be using at least some swap even with all that RAM. It's just the OS working as it's supposed to. It's not an indication that 128GB of RAM still isn't enough.

Not seen any swap usage as yet, but I wouldn't expect it to with that much memory available. Still, it's good to see it being utilised.

 

[AugustineQ]

When running gptk2, does 64gb and 128gb of memory have a big impact on picture quality and frame rate?