24gb ram worth it?

[HobeSoundDarryl]

OP, you have MANY great answers above and that may be all you need.

However, I'll add one thing: while you have your present needs well identified, Silicon demands that you think about future needs too because you can't add RAM later. With Silicon Macs you have to buy for the greatest (demand) need instead of only the present needs.

So, if you can anticipate a future need where you will use much more RAM, that might make the 24GB option a consideration. That greatly complicates this decision because it can be hard for people to anticipate future needs but it is as it is with Silicon Macs. The other option is replacing the whole computer because you need more RAM later.

That's not me overriding the correct answers you've already received in this thread... just encouraging consideration beyond today's needs. For example, if you anticipate this being THE computer for the next 5-7 years, any plans out there in years 3-7 that might need more RAM? If you can come up with ANYTHING that makes you think you'll need more RAM, you will NOT be adding RAM to this computer in years 3-7.

 

[geta]

Why stop at 24 you clearly need 32 gigs, more the merrier. Do it buy it now.

If only the MBA could support 32GB…

I don't know how this has changed with the new M-series SoC designs, but Intel systems came with a warning of adding too much RAM. My understanding of the analysis is the OS has to manage the full range of memory even when it's not in active use. I suspect this is a minimal resource hit, but the point is that extra RAM isn't all benefit.

As for the OP's use, I've owned two M1 Minis since launch, one with 8GB and the other with 16GB. Different use cases, but both usually have hundreds of tabs open, Photoshop and other graphic programs. On the 16GB, I often Zoom, capture my screen, and have multiple email and chat interfaces open. Nothing seems to dent these things. I've had to actively work to get either into red memory compression in Activity Monitor.

Your money, but I believe at this time 16GB is future proof unless you plan to do heavy and consistent video or 3D rendering. But if you go that route, and time is money, then a Studio might be the better buy at the time you need it.

And how much Swap memory you using for these tasks?

 

[StellarVixen]

This persons behavior wouldn't stress a 8GB computer, if they got 24GB of ram there would always be atleast 10-15GB unused at all times, why are you trying to upsell them something they don't need? There is absolutely a thing as too much RAM. Especially when your dealing with Apple prices.

Irrelevant, absolutely irrelevant to what I said.

I said if “you can afford it”, I didn’t say “24 GB is non negotiable”.

And this person might decide one day to do more with their computer than they do today. Then what?

 

[Puonti]

If someone knows their needs will grow in the next few years then preparing for it is perfectly fine. But there's not much sense in paying for what you don't know you'll have use for if you can put that money to better use.

Buy what you need with money you have. Do it again if your needs change a year or two down the line. Over time you'll get better at assessing your needs and learn to appreciate the fact that you haven't been overpaying every time "just in case".

 

[orionquest]

If only the MBA could support 32GB…

Clearly they need to update to a pro model then!

 

[ChrisA]

For general use, with no content creation, the standard 8 GB is fine. Even if you use the Photo app to straighten, crop and color adjust a few photos, 8 GB is enough. That said, macOS, or any modern operating system, will find a way to use all the RAM you give it. If nothing else, the OS uses it for caching data from storage.

If you are going to spend money upgrading from the base, the best place to spend is to move from 256 GB to 512 GB as this not only doubles storage but makes the storage TWICE as fast. After this, adding more only makes in larger, not faster.

 

[ilikewhey]

Performance-wise, 8GB of RAM in Apple silicon is close to 16GB in a PC world.

LOL its the other way around, i replicated my workflow on my pc when my mac was in for repair, 50gb in OSX, in windows, it was around 30gb.

 

[JuicyGoomba]

You're asking in the wrong place.

Most of the answers you have received are predictably from trolls and the odd bunch who fearmonger to justify their own purchase of too much RAM for $$$.

8GB is more than enough for most people for the next 5 years, even on Windows. Yes, even Windows is fine with only 8GB for normal usage.

Don't listen to all the Apple Kool-Aid regarding "8GB is so much better than PC cause MacOS". Apple's "magic" is in their marketing department. Don't be a simp.

Apple decided to go the route of using swap memory to offset low memory in situations that require more than 8GB. The exact same thing happens on Windows/Linux. It's nothing new or fancy.

Apple's advantage is that the RAM/CPU/GPU are all integrated, effectively making latency a non-issue. The SSD is also soldered, and very close to all of the other components. Again, reduces latency considerably and makes swap memory access less noticeable.

This is very much a problem created by Apple, so that they could create a solution to their own problem in order to market some amazing BS power that MacOS has.​

What do PC user's do when they need more memory? They spend $50 and double their RAM when they need to.

What do PC user's do when they run out of storage space? They either sell and upgrade their current SSD, or just add another.

With a PC you can simply remove the obstacles yourself with very little monetary cost.

With Apple, they force you to either accept the base models knowing that in reality it's all that 90% of their customer base will actually need for the next few years, or accept the fearmongering and pay hundreds of dollars for overpriced upgrades you don't actually need.

Completely disregard any post that mentions "futureproofing". It's nonsense. Nothing but drivel created by those who fear that which they cannot control and then use it to justify their own insecurities when making purchases.

I've been using the base model MBA M1 since it came out, runs just like it did day 1. Code, gaming (WoW and emulators), media creation and consumption. It does it all, and if it's ever used swap memory in that time, I haven't noticed it at all.

 

[woolypants]

I strongly suspect the following is a truism:

If you have you ask if you need more than the default RAM in a new Mac, then you don't need more.

For example, if somebody's a video editor then they will know they need lots of RAM. They don't need to ask. Ditto image editors, ditto those using Macs for audio workstations, ditto developers running Docker/virtual machines etc.

Apple provides 8GB out of the box. The Mac Address YouTube did a test where they gave somebody the base model Mac Mini, with 8GB, for a week. At the end, she thought it was one of the high-spec models costing much more.

8GB is fine in the world of casual Mac usage. You can't say the same for Windows... but we're not talking about Windows. Apple controls the hardware and software!

I used to tell people to get more RAM for future proofing, but this rule just isn't true any longer (on Macs, that is – I still advise people to get iPhones with the most RAM if they want to use it for a long time).

For example, in 2015 I bought a MBP with 16GB of RAM. And here we are, now, in 2023, when 8GB is STILL a good amount. Things might change in the world of AR/VR that's coming. But that's still quite a few years away.

 

[Wokis]

Even talking casual use.. with the power of hindsight:

4GB would have been a terrible decision for a 2012 MBA.

8GB would have been a terrible decision for a 2015 MBP.

Base RAM has a history of punishing the long-term user. Difference now is that they have raised prices on upgrades. It calls into question if you, as an "average user" should ever consider keeping your laptop for more than 3 years anyway but instead just plan on flipping and buying a new one at some point. Probably a desired outcome for Apple.

Repeating the obvious: 24GB for OP is not worth it. You need to know a specific use-case before thinking about a $400 upgrade. Paying for 16GB could be called a "fair compromise", but that is when living in our reality distortion field over here in Apple-land.

8 to 16 is not even *really* just a $200 upgrade since you are foregoing better 3rd party retail prices in order to likely have to go MSRP for a CTO.

 

[saudor]

Performance-wise, 8GB of RAM in Apple silicon is close to 16GB in a PC world.

Memory is memory. Just because the architecture is different doesnt mean more ram gets magically downloaded. Plus PCs often have dedicated GPUs that have its own VRAM, freeing up main memory for actual use. in AS, it's all shared across CPU and GPU so from an application standpoint, it could have less to work with.

Once it starts relying heavily on swap, performance on both platforms will drop.

 

[Freida]

The stupidest advice ever! The OP clearly stated his usage is light so your advice is borderline bannable! You are no help to OP at all and I hope he didn't listen to your insanity!

There is no such thing as too much RAM. If you can afford it, get it. If you can’t afford it, 16 will be fine for now

 

[orionquest]

You're asking in the wrong place.

Completely disregard any post that mentions "futureproofing". It's nonsense. Nothing but drivel created by those who fear that which they cannot control and then use it to justify their own insecurities when making purchases.

Clearly with a statement like that, with BS advice.

I still use a 32 gig system, going on 9 years (Haswell). Why because I futureproofed it. Graphics daily, multiple apps and files open all the time, sometimes crunching video in the background. Recently over the last year I got into data analytics. 9 years ago I never imagined doing any of that work on my computer. Handled it like a champ. But I did bring MacOS to it'd knees 1 time by running 2 data sets at once and the OS reported an out of memory error. Never seen that before. Python was using about 90 gigs to process the data. I'm sure a lessor memory equipped system would have had more of any issue.

Yeah futureproofing is stupid, only to those who don't get it.

And most people around here doing light duties on their computer don't even need anything modern to do that kind of task.

 

[JustAnExpat]

>for general computing and YouTube etc. ie. no specialist work.

I really hate the term "general computing" because of how non-precise it is. For actions like:
- Streaming videos and audio from Youtube and Spotify
- Using Microsoft Word to generate letters and documents 20 pages (or thereabouts) in size.
- Using Scrivener to write books
- Using Microsoft Excel for simple spreadsheets (think adding sums in columns) and pivot tables.

8 GB is more than enough for those needs. The only reason why you'd want 16 GB is if your needs change in the future, but I've been using my MacBook Air to do 15 minute videos in FCP casually, and it works perfectly.

 

[saber32au]

Completely disregard any post that mentions "futureproofing". It's nonsense. Nothing but drivel created by those who fear that which they cannot control and then use it to justify their own insecurities when making purchases.

Whilst I agree with several points (especially regarding Apple marketing and upgrading), IMO “futureproofing” is relevant for folks who keep their laptops for several years (ie 5 years and greater), and are purchasing an M series powered mac with non-upgradable ram.

Unfortunately Apple has created a “one time deal” with their non-upgradeable ram…

For the OP, yes 24GB will be overkill, and 8GB (based on their stated usage) will be perfectly fine…though for the OP hasn’t stated how long they plan to keep the macbook for…

For me, if the OP’s use case stays the same for the next 4-5 years, 8GB will be fine.

If the OP is like me and runs their equipment for as long as possible (ie 10 years and longer), I’d go with 16GB.

And most people around here doing light duties on their computer don't even need anything modern to do that kind of task.

Agree 100%

At home, I too have a haswell based PC (4800MQ powered laptop), which has had an SSD and ram upgrade (8 to 16GB ram 6 or so years ago).

For my use case (I'd guesstimate 90% of my use is web browsing, watching youtube, watching movies, listening to music, reading and marking up pdfs, the occasional MS Word or Excel doc etc etc), there is little difference between my laptop vs my much more powerful (on paper) work PC (Dell Latitude with an 11th gen intel i7 processor, gen 3 NVME drive and 16GB ram).

On my home laptop, I use less than 8GB ram the majority of the time. 16GB is needed when I'm heavily multi-tasking, or running a memory hungry app (ie virtual machine).

Websites load in roughly the same time. My older laptop doesn't slowdown with 30+ tabs open (using firefox browser).

Pdf files open in roughly the same time. There is next to no slowdown with 20+ pdf files open.

Movies (ie mp4, mov, mkv, wmv, avi, flc etc) load up in roughly the same time, and there are no playback issues at 1080p (the laptop's max screen resolution). Ditto for music.

 

[saudor]

Clearly with a statement like that, with BS advice.

I still use a 32 gig system, going on 9 years (Haswell). Why because I futureproofed it. Graphics daily, multiple apps and files open all the time, sometimes crunching video in the background. Recently over the last year I got into data analytics. 9 years ago I never imagined doing any of that work on my computer. .....

The issue is that many people replace their system every 2-3 years (and phones every year according to that poll!) so with that assumption, many folks would say the base model is more than enough since they're replacing it anyways. For those who want to keep machines for years, upping the RAM beyond current needs is a great idea.

For instance, the base model 2012 macbook air had only 4gb (the 2011 had just 2gb!) which we now know is too little but if they had upgraded to 8gb back then, it'd still be usable today.

 

[CraigJDuffy]

This is just too simplified. If whatever process you’re running needs to allocate more than 8 gigabytes of memory there’s nothing that Apple Silicon can do to help you. macOS is by default tuned quite nicely for memory starvation and will do anything to stay alive and running, but its performance won’t be that different from a well tuned PC system.

I think the biggest difference is the insanely fast swap speed compared to the average PC

 

[JamesMay82]

I’m on a m1 Air with 8 gigs and at present i have safari, outlook, photos excel, teams and what’s app open and memory pressure is yellow and says I’m using 6.78 of my 8 gig which surprised me considering how little i have open.. so with that in mind I’d be leaning towards 24 gig in future..

 

[auxbuss]

I’m on a m1 Air with 8 gigs and at present i have safari, outlook, photos excel, teams and what’s app open and memory pressure is yellow and says I’m using 6.78 of my 8 gig which surprised me considering how little i have open.. so with that in mind I’d be leaning towards 24 gig in future..

8Gb M2.

Loaded: Sublime Text, Photos, Pages, Calendar, OSMand, Gnucash, Numbers (with 3 projects), Activity Monitor, NetNewsWire, Mail, Messages, Firefox (20-odd tabs), Drafts, Obsidian, Dictionary, Scrivener (with 2 projects)

In background: Moom, espanso, PopClip, Be Focused, Maccy

App Memory ~2.8Gb. Barely touching the sides. Gobs of headroom.

Memory Used floats around 6GB, because that's macOS doing its thing, caching and whatnot, making use of available memory. Even when I close all the apps, it's still ~5Gb, because that's how macOS works; it doesn't mean the mahcine is close to being "maxed out".

 

[JamesMay82]

8Gb M2.

Loaded: Sublime Text, Photos, Pages, Calendar, OSMand, Gnucash, Numbers (with 3 projects), Activity Monitor, NetNewsWire, Mail, Messages, Firefox (20-odd tabs), Drafts, Obsidian, Dictionary, Scrivener (with 2 projects)

In background: Moom, espanso, PopClip, Be Focused, Maccy

App Memory ~2.8Gb. Barely touching the sides. Gobs of headroom.

Memory Used floats around 6GB, because that's macOS doing its thing, caching and whatnot, making use of available memory. Even when I close all the apps, it's still ~5Gb, because that's how macOS works; it doesn't mean the mahcine is close to being "maxed out".

ah I understand - I was reading it wrong then.

My 2014 iMac which has same stuff open and on 8gig has 700MB swapped and its open same amount of time today. so I suppose shows how much better M1 is?

 

[neatokino]

Memory is memory. Just because the architecture is different doesnt mean more ram gets magically downloaded. Plus PCs often have dedicated GPUs that have its own VRAM, freeing up main memory for actual use. in AS, it's all shared across CPU and GPU so from an application standpoint, it could have less to work with.

Once it starts relying heavily on swap, performance on both platforms will drop.

If I can add a few instances of anectodal experience:

1) I recently bought a base M2 mac mini (8gb RAM, 256GB HD) for my 94 year old (surprisingly computer savvy) mother, who uses her computer daily for 'basic' things (browsing, emails, MS Word, some imaging programs), and it surprised me how well this setup works. So, for what it's worth, her basic needs were more than adequately met, and the performance was, to me, quite impressive, especially in comparison to my Intel MACs. Based on this, I'd say a 'basic user' would be fine with 8GB at the moment.

2) I use a 2017 Macbook Pro 13" with 8GB RAM, and it still meets all my basic needs, which include photo editing. I have an aging Hackintosh with 16GB RAM, and I can't say that the memory has made much difference, except maybe when dealing with batches of RAW photo files. I don't code or edit video, but I never have to give thought to how many windows are open or how many applications are running.

2) My wife was given a Dell 2 in 1 laptop for work, with 8GB memory and a 256GB HD. I'm a Mac guy but thought it might be fun to learn Windows 11, so I've been using the Dell for the past week. Works fine, pretty cool machine, maybe an OK alternative to Mac laptops, though not as nicely designed, BUT it performed really sluggishly with 8GB RAM. This weekend I sent Amazon $35 for a 16GB memory upgrade, installed it yesterday, and it made a significant difference.

The bad news for Windows 11 users is that 8GB doesn't seem to be enough. The good news is that a memory upgrade is extremely cheap and very easy, as is a hard drive upgrade.

The good news for Mac users is that 8GB seems quite adequate for basic use right now and probably in the very near future. The bad news, as we all know, is that more than basic memory and HD in Macs are expensive and can't be upgraded after purchase.

I don't know why the PC performed so badly with 8GB of RAM. I'm not a Windows user, so maybe I could have optimized the system, but the upgrade to 16GB was night and day.

No, I have no plans to switch to Windows, and my next computer purchase will likely be a new mac for myself. I'll get 16GB of RAM and cross my fingers it'll stay good enough for 5 years. But the ease and affordability of upgrades for the Dell laptop certainly made me understand why some people feel ripped off by Apple and refuse to buy into their systems.

 

[Aves]

It surely is. So the next step up is 16GB, hehe. I've bought a 15" MB Pro in 2013 with 16GB. Pure decadence back then. Now I am very happy. I think it all depends on how long you want to keep the Mac. The good thing is, you can do everything with 8GB. But, still, 8Gb in 2025 would very likely (promise) just feel as if someone hits you with a brick from time to time ;-)

I have a 2019 21.5 4K iMac with 8GB of RAM, works like a charm.
Do you think I should upgrade the RAM?
I'd have to take it apart to do it, but it's doable.

 

[ignatius345]

16GB is you want to splurge and leave every app open

You can actually do that with 8GB without it being too horrible. I'm using an M1 Air with only 8GB of RAM for a lot of design work these days. I under-spec'ed it when I bought it because I didn't realize I'd be using it for Illustrator, InDesign and a bunch of other stuff. Honestly I'm pretty shocked at what I'm able to get away with. That's not to say there aren't hiccups and quick little slowdowns as stuff gets swapped out to VM -- but being short on RAM is nowhere near as awful and disruptive as it was back when we all used slow HDDs. (I'd definitely prefer 16GB for this kind of work, don't get me wrong, but it's not a showstopper.)

 

[saber32au]

But the ease and affordability of upgrades for the Dell laptop certainly made me understand why some people feel ripped off by Apple and refuse to buy into their systems.

Couple that with the longevity of windows systems: with a few tweaks, W11 can run on some older hardware (ie processors such as the Intel i7-965 released in late 2008. Experience is decent enough (for the basics such as web browsing with 10 or so tabs open, opening a few pdfs, typing a few documents in Word etc) provided you have an SSD and sufficient ram...

Never used the open legacy patcher, but I assume it does a fine job in allowing people to install the latest and greatest version of macos onto unsupported macs...

 

[ocnitsa]

Get more than 8 for future performance...as folks said OSs change over time. 24 is likely over/overkill...and I'd go less for affordability. 16GBs is the sweet spot here.