16GBs of RAM .. Worth it ??

[that user]

I'm getting ready to order one myself. It will be my third Apple laptop. I've always done the memory upgrade. I will do it again. The one I have now is 5 years old. The benefit has always been that the computer physically gets worn down and old but you're never left behind. My laptop with runs Adobe Creative Suite almost smoother than my 2 year-old iMac at work. It's able to keep up. I am able to download and update whatever I want.

Also, Mountain Lion seems to be coming with A LOT of applications that run in the background compared to a couple years ago. The computers will constantly try to stay in synch, fetching and pushing. I'm not an expert when it comes to RAM and memory and what consumes how much of what, but the future seems to be all about these always up and running, always ready to use, no time to start programs. It's all about multitasking. This will need more memory. How much? I have no idea.

 

[NiCk-]

First of all, thanks for all of your answers guys, they are greatly appreciated !

I think that this actually is a difficult decision, so after a lot of searching and reading I've concluded that I will choose 16GBs of RAM .. A few reasons as to why:

1) I won't be able to upgrade in the future .. So, it's now or never !

2) Cost .. Since I have already decided to pay $2200 for a laptop, an extra $160 for two times the RAM is not that bad

3) Buyer's remorse .. Sure, 8GBs are fine for now, but what about the future ?? Let's say that OS X 10.10 "Mufasa" arrives and is a RAM hog .. It works OK with 8GBs of RAM but it is optimized for 16GBs .. I don't want to look back 3 years down the road, regretting my decision to choose 8GBs of RAM instead of 16GBs ..

4) Wearing the SSD down .. This is totally new to me and I want to thank bhtooefr for sharing that information ..

So, that's pretty much what I think .. Thanks again guys for all of your help and I hope that you will find my post useful as well !

P.s. "Thread Starter" really ?? I'm pretty sure that I have made less than 10 topics in 5 years !

 

[iTiki]

You're spending over $2k already, what's another couple of hundred more?

 

[jtcedinburgh]

My take...

Can I just add that I think memory usage depends a lot on your 'style' of using a computer. For example, some folks work mainly in one or two apps at a time, closing them down when not in use. Some folks reboot regularly. Others, such as myself, leave a machine on as long as humanly possible - sleeping rather than shutting down. With multiple apps open all the time.

My workhorse iMac, with 12Gb, is (I feel) the sweet-spot for my purposes. I run a Parallels 7 VM running Windows 7 64-bit Pro, with 4Gb allocated, and everything else is done in OSX - Photoshop CS5 mainly, plus an assortment of browsers and utilities. Plus mail. Plus Word. And so on. Most of which are open all the time.

16Gb might seem excessive but it gives room into which you can expand should you change your computing 'style' OR should future updates demand more of the memory. I'm not concerned about the SSD issue as such - Anandtech et al have shown that (under typical usage of up to 10Gb writes per day) SSDs should last for at least a decade if not two. It's far more likely that a PSU component will go bad, or a capacitor will leak, before the SSD chips will fail completely. However, I could be wide of the mark on this.

If I were buying the new MBPR, I'd treat the 16Gb upgrade as a no-brainer as it's better to have the capability and not need it than not to have it and need it (and you can't retrospectively update).

Just my thoughts...

 

[mac jones]

16 is a lot of ramsters. I'm a bit suppressed actually that this is even an option.

I'm happy

 

[bhtooefr]

Well, the MBP is positioned as workstation-class to an extent, and other 15" workstation-class laptops are up to 32 GiB nowadays...

 

[Auzburner]

I went with the 16GB. I figured it would be difficult to do myself and it's something that cannot hurt. It was a $180 option in the education store. Well worth it when it comes down the road to OS updates. Eventually, I think it will come in handy. I keep old machines around. As you can see in my sig...