13" rMBP, any reason to upgrade to 16 gb RAM?

I use Lightroom quite a bit and I shoot with a Sony RX-1 which has HUGE RAW files. Would there be a significant improvement in processing or file handling if I went from 8 to 16 GB?

Also, I need Internet Explorer for a couple of websites for work and so I'm thinking of installing BootCamp or some kind of VM. Does 16GB RAM significantly benefit any of that?
 
flux73 said:
I use Lightroom quite a bit and I shoot with a Sony RX-1 which has HUGE RAW files. Would there be a significant improvement in processing or file handling if I went from 8 to 16 GB?
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If you can afford an RX-1 you can probably cough up $200 for the ram whether you need it or not. Having said that, no - there probably won't be a significant improvement unless you are also doing a billion other things at the same time.

8gb ram wouldn't help you in bootcamp, but if you are using parallels or VMware WHILE you are also working in lightroom, then it might make sense to opt for the 16gb. Still very unlikely that you will ever use more than 8gb of ram though.
 
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It's simple really - if you're running VMs then max out the memory.

One thing to consider is that if you get 16GB RAM you should really max out on storage as the sleep image will take up 16GB of storage in itself.

A 16GB RAM and <=256GB storage configuration is terribly unbalanced.
 
Yea but on the 13" rMBP with the dual-core CPU, wouldn't running over 3 or so VMs cause the CPU to now become the bottleneck (even if you had 16GB of RAM)? That's what I keep hearing. But if its not the case and I can run 5+ VMs (for example, AutoLab) on 16GB RAM + a dual-core i5 I'll get the 13" rMBP.
 
I got 2.6Ghz and 16GB upgrade, mainly because you never know what I will need in a years time or what potential buyers of my rMBP will need!!
 
rasputin1969 said:
It's simple really - if you're running VMs then max out the memory.

One thing to consider is that if you get 16GB RAM you should really max out on storage as the sleep image will take up 16GB of storage in itself.

A 16GB RAM and <=256GB storage configuration is terribly unbalanced.
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That makes sense. Good point - thanks!

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teotuf said:
If you can afford an RX-1 you can probably cough up $200 for the ram whether you need it or not. Having said that, no - there probably won't be a significant improvement unless you are also doing a billion other things at the same time.

8gb ram wouldn't help you in bootcamp, but if you are using parallels or VMware WHILE you are also working in lightroom, then it might make sense to opt for the 16gb. Still very unlikely that you will ever use more than 8gb of ram though.
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Affordability isn't an issue, but I still don't like to buy things I don't need or noticeably benefit me. Thanks for the input!
 
flux73 said:
Affordability isn't an issue, but I still don't like to buy things I don't need or noticeably benefit me. Thanks for the input!
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I agree. I could afford a maxed-out model, but I went with the configuration that I felt was most optimized for my uses, and that was i7/8GB/256GB.
 
I chose 16gb because I always have multiple desktops running, with 5-6 apps running all the time. Plus I plan on taking advantage of airplay, etc so I dont want even the slightest chance that my computer will start slowigng up
 
teotuf said:
No. For your uses you would rarely even go past 4gb to be honest. 8gb is definitely a safe default for you.
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That's good to know. Now I need to decide if I want the 128GB or 256GB SSD option.

I know on the 128GB, it's slower than 256GB for SSD. Is this the same case for PCIe?

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hellfire88 said:
Yea but on the 13" rMBP with the dual-core CPU, wouldn't running over 3 or so VMs cause the CPU to now become the bottleneck (even if you had 16GB of RAM)? That's what I keep hearing. But if its not the case and I can run 5+ VMs (for example, AutoLab) on 16GB RAM + a dual-core i5 I'll get the 13" rMBP.
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You can run 20 VM's on a dual core or quad core. It's all a matter of disk I/O first, then memory, then CPU. A good virtualization software will manage cpu activity or assign higher weight to the vm you choose.

However, 20 idle VM's can be just as cpu hungry as 1 active VM. It all depends on what each VM is doing.
 
unplugme71 said:
That's good to know. Now I need to decide if I want the 128GB or 256GB SSD option.

I know on the 128GB, it's slower than 256GB for SSD. Is this the same case for PCIe.
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I don't know about speed of the PCIe SSD, but 128gb IMHO is too little, got at least 256GB
 
Anyone know where a 3rd party reseller has a 16GB config? I've searched and searched and they only have 8GB.

To the OP, I'm getting 16GB due to VM. If you're not using VM, I would stick with 8GB especially with Mavericks new RAM compression.
 
What is a VM anyway? Guessing that I don't need 16GB RAM if I don't know this, but I would be interested to know.
 
unplugme71 said:
That's good to know. Now I need to decide if I want the 128GB or 256GB SSD option.

I know on the 128GB, it's slower than 256GB for SSD. Is this the same case for PCIe?

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You can run 20 VM's on a dual core or quad core. It's all a matter of disk I/O first, then memory, then CPU. A good virtualization software will manage cpu activity or assign higher weight to the vm you choose.

However, 20 idle VM's can be just as cpu hungry as 1 active VM. It all depends on what each VM is doing.
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Thank you for the information. I'll think about getting the 13" rMPB with i5/16GB/256GB then.
 
teotuf said:
You are exactly right. People really don't know how to optimize their purchases.

On the 15 incher it makes sense, as with multiple VM/heavy photoshop/video editing, you might need more than 8gb of ram, key thing here is that it's HEAVY multitasking (hence using multiple cores)

However, on the 13 inches, even if you have that much ram, you will still only have a dual core - which is going to be the speed bottleneck. You will feel the lag from lacking a quad core much faster than feeling the lag from running out ram on a 8gb machine. And considering that you cannot upgrade to a quadcore on the 13 incher, wasting $200 on the ram is rather pointless. You can use it to upgrade the SSD or upgrade the CPU (at the cost of battery life), and it'll be money better spent.

Some people say it's better for resale values... Yeah... Saving that $200 now is a lot better than getting $100 later in a year or two.
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Actually the dual core is fine for VMs and heavy lifting... bottleneck is the RAM for me. I have the 8GB 2012 13". I hit that cap every day at work.
 
If you think the amount of cores and ram have anything to do with each other, then just don't comment.
RAM is used to save data. CPU time is used to process data.
There is no relationship between CPU and memory usage. A process can occupy all CPUs of a system but use only a minimal amount of memory. Also, a process can allocate all memory available on a system but only use minimal CPU time. So there is no relation between both.
 

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teotuf said:
This is exactly what I did, took the $1499 model and got the 2.6ghz processor upgrade. If I wasn't so budget constrained I'd have gotten the $1799 base model with 2.6ghz/8gb/512gb. If I had another $200 on top of that I'd get apple care. And if I still had money left over I'd grab the i7.
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If I do the upgrade to i6 will that affect the battery life vs the i4
 
Raffi said:
If you think the amount of cores and ram have anything to do with each other, then just don't comment.
RAM is used to save data. CPU time is used to process data.
There is no relationship between CPU and memory usage. A process can occupy all CPUs of a system but use only a minimal amount of memory. Also, a process can allocate all memory available on a system but only use minimal CPU time. So there is no relation between both.
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We aren't computer illiterate. People know that CPU and ram are not inherently related. But, please show me one instance where you are using ram intensively but not CPU other than specific benchmarks.

From the top of my head, photoshop, lightroom, logic pro, final cut, multiple VMs - everything you might consider 16gb of ram for would benefit much more from going to a quad core instead of a dual core. It seems paradoxical for someone to tolerate NOT having a quad core to not tolerate having "only" 8gb of ram.
 
teotuf said:
We aren't computer illiterate. People know that CPU and ram are not inherently related. But, please show me one instance where you are using ram intensively but not CPU other than specific benchmarks.

From the top of my head, photoshop, lightroom, logic pro, final cut, multiple VMs - everything you might consider 16gb of ram for would benefit much more from going to a quad core instead of a dual core. It seems paradoxical for someone to tolerate NOT having a quad core to not tolerate having "only" 8gb of ram.
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Your comparing memory to processing speed. They aren't comparable. Your logic is flawed.
 
If you plan keeping your computer for, let's say, 3-4 years, I'd get 16GB. Otherwise, if you buy a new laptop each one or two years, 8GB is ok.

Also, as Mavericks tries using every RAM you have (decreasing I/O and hence saving energy), it's worth getting the more primary memory as possible.
 
What about using it for programming (Java development)? My plan was to take the i5 2.4 with 16GB of RAM but maybe it's better to invest the money in an upgrade to i7 and stick to 8GB. What do you say?
 
brdeveloper said:
If you plan keeping your computer for, let's say, 3-4 years, I'd get 16GB. Otherwise, if you buy a new laptop each one or two years, 8GB is ok.

Also, as Mavericks tries using every RAM you have (decreasing I/O and hence saving energy), it's worth getting the more primary memory as possible.
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why? do you think your needs will change after 2 years?
 
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