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ghanwani

macrumors 601
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Dec 8, 2008
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I have 8 GB on my 2019 and it sometimes feels sluggish. Looking at the activity monitor, it seems to say memory pressure is low. I have running:
- Chrome with 5 tabs
- Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Skype for Business, Teams

If you can open a similar number of apps on a 16 GB machine, I would like to see what the memory pressure looks like from the Activity Monitor on your 16 GB machine.

I don't see any issues with the CPU or GPU, so I can't figure out where the sluggishness is coming from.

If I shut all the apps and most of the tabs, the sluggishness reduces, but it still never feels fluid.

Thanks.
 

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Whatever the reason for the sluggishness, your memory capacity isn't the cause. Your apps and macOS aren't even filling up the 8GB of memory. (macOS will cache files in unused RAM, so that's another sign you're not using all your RAM)
 
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I have a 2013 air 8gb and in activity monitor I am also using all my available memory.

I am using chrome with 15 tabs, and brave with 3 tabs. I regularly watch youtube videos, again in chrome. I do not like using safari as I find it slow to use for browsing, but chrome uses all the memory.

Now deciding to buy a new 2020 MBA or base 2020 MBP, with my use of chrome and wanting to play youtube in high settings on a new mac, I will have to upgrade to 16gb, unless I switch to safari only.
 
I have a 2013 air 8gb and in activity monitor I am also using all my available memory.

That applies to pretty much all MACs without being an issue. The memory pressure is the parameter you should look for. If it is anything than green, you may have memory issues.
 
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That applies to pretty much all MACs without being an issue. The memory pressure is the parameter you should look for. If it is anything than green, you may have memory issues.

Thanks for info. My memory pressure is green, so all is good. However, would you recommend 16gb for a new MBA or MBP, if I was hoping to keep the new laptop for 5+ years?
 
If you can afford it and find it meaningful (nothing in your current usage seems to suggest you need it), why not. Personally, I have had mine Air 2012 with 8 GB for 8 years with no memory issues and now I have an i3 with 8 GB, which most likely will serve me and my usage well for many years to come.
 
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Thanks for info. My memory pressure is green, so all is good. However, would you recommend 16gb for a new MBA or MBP, if I was hoping to keep the new laptop for 5+ years?

Generally, if someone doesn't have a specific reason for why they think they need to upgrade RAM, they probably don't.

Physical RAM is not a "hard limit" due to the concept of virtual memory -- using swap file on the SSD when needing more space than the physical memory allows. Used to be slow HDDs made it very noticeable when swapping; with today's SSD's reading/writing at gigabyte-per-second rates, there's far less impact even if it does happen. Plus, macOS is very good at managing virtual memory,

So - unless you're going to be running virtual machines you likely don't need to upgrade.

Now if you really want to spend the $200 it won't hurt anything but your wallet to do the upgrade. Just realize you likely won't see any perceivable real world benefit from it, and after a couple years there's typically little to no resale value to the upgrade. There are probably better uses for that $200. :)
 
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How much ram is allocated to graphics?

I currently have only 4GB ram and my machine is using virtual memory.

My understanding is that newer machines allocate more ram to graphics and I’m trying to understand how much effective additional capacity I’d get with 8GB in my next purchase.
 
How much ram is allocated to graphics?

I currently have only 4GB ram and my machine is using virtual memory.

My understanding is that newer machines allocate more ram to graphics and I’m trying to understand how much effective additional capacity I’d get with 8GB in my next purchase.

It is my understanding that Intel integrated graphics uses between 1% to 5% of the total memory.
 
It is my understanding that Intel integrated graphics uses between 1% to 5% of the total memory.

Ok thanks. That seems low. I recall seeing a figure over 1GB.
[automerge]1590009297[/automerge]
I’m reading up to 1.5 GB typical. I’m not sure if that increases as you add more ram.
 
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I have 8 GB on my 2019 and it sometimes feels sluggish. Looking at the activity monitor, it seems to say memory pressure is low. I have running:
- Chrome with 5 tabs
- Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Skype for Business, Teams

If you can open a similar number of apps on a 16 GB machine, I would like to see what the memory pressure looks like from the Activity Monitor on your 16 GB machine.

I don't see any issues with the CPU or GPU, so I can't figure out where the sluggishness is coming from.

If I shut all the apps and most of the tabs, the sluggishness reduces, but it still never feels fluid.

Thanks.
There you go with the apps you listed plus apple mail which I have running on mine. Usual use is around 10-11GB after a few days, a reboot will deflate this to 6GB but over the day it will quickly rise to levels indicated.
 

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That seems like normal usage, yet so many people are saying the average user doesn’t need more than 8GB.

Regardless if you have 8 or 16 GB, the OS always strives to fill it up as much as possible for optimal performance (stuff in RAM is faster than on disk). That’s why the memory pressure (green in Loogs case) is the important parameter to look for. Not how much is actually used (as long as the RAM content does not need to be flushed frequently to the disk, all is good).
 
That seems like normal usage, yet so many people are saying the average user doesn’t need more than 8GB.
Possibly because most people haven't had 16GB before and are just content with 8GB because it works. I agree with @twintin, its less about the RAM when the OS does a good job or memory management, however application are becoming more RAM hungry and without room to grow the only place left to draw resources from is the disk or compression.

I run both Mac and Windows on separate devices, the end user experience from 8GB > 16GB is quite subtle but noticeable if you use your machines daily, especially if you don't reboot them, or if you go down the rabbit hole and have a large number of tabs open, use VM's or other memory hungry applications. You've only got to look at some of the insane resources some websites consume to quickly see that its not uncommon for 300MB for a single page (352MB this forum for example). Artificially the OS will compress and swap out to compensate but this is all an overhead which when running all your daily apps together does have some lag from time to time if resources are just simply not there.
 
Artificially the OS will compress and swap out to compensate but this is all an overhead which when running all your daily apps together does have some lag from time to time if resources are just simply not there.

This is only an issue if it happens frequently and that’s what the memory pressure is telling you, how hard does the OS need to work to relocate memory. As long as it is green, you won’t notice a difference whether you have 8 or 16 GB.
 
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I don't use Chrome due to unreal resource pigishness, lousy performance and occasional instability.

I have Opera running (with no plug-ins); 10 windows open, (even stooped so low as to run) Chrome for this exercise, Word, Excel, Skype, Zoom, ARD, Adobe Connect, Adobe Lightroom, Safari and Messages open on a 16 GB i7 Air 2020. No fan noise either and driving UHD 32" display.

Screen Shot 2020-05-21 at 1.44.25 PM.png
 
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This is only an issue if it happens frequently and that’s what the memory pressure is telling you, how hard does the OS need to work to relocate memory. As long as it is green, you won’t notice a difference whether you have 8 or 16 GB.
Really... I have a MBA with 8GB and 16GB, trust me whether I'm told by the OS its fine there is a difference in end user experience. My wife's machine has 4GB and runs very different to my daughters on 8GB, hers shows fine RAM pressure, go figure. Apple is great a shuffling around active, cache, hot cold etc, however if you flip between applications, web pages, VM's etc the user experience is subtlbly noticeable. I guess if you're used to waiting a second then nothing is different, why pay the extra, if you expect it pretty much instantaneously, more headroom is the way to go. RAM usage isn't going to reduce, only grow, if you want longevity invest when when you click 'buy'.

8GB is totally usable now, for most people who are web surfers this will be fine, will this be the case in a few years? The new MBP is running with 16GB, is this for vanity or for longevity? I suggest the latter.

I do use lots of RAM so my views may be distorted, however sites like this consume 300MB, with others apps and system services runnings they do quickly consume resources which need to the serviced from somewhere, either physical or synthetically obtained from elsewhere.

Compression comes at an overhead, it's not free, whether you see it or not, it will take up clock cycles that can be better used elsewhere i.e getting the job done apposed to house keeping.
 
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