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32GB RAM MacBook Pro release - when?
- Thread starter sparkie7
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No next summer is probably the best guess unless they bring out lpddr4 first, they are waiting for that and canon lake as far as anyone can tell to avoid power hungry desktop ram and separate controllers.
If I were a super-creative type (instead of a pathetically mediocre creative type who's OK with 16 GB RAM), then I'd probably do my work on an iMac Pro in a comfortable room with cold beer and good speakers. But hey, I'm not knocking your preferred work style. My point is that most people are probably more concerned, in the next offering, about things like a stable and dependable keyboard.
No you can buy a new Mbp, if you currently have one it has no more than 16gb of ram and has been doing the job or you would have moved to something else. Better SSD speeds will help as well.
You have a few choices
1. buy an mbp and accept that you may have to close some things when working on a ram intensive project or accept that it may not be as fast as you would like. Then sell to buy a new one when the 32gb models are released.
2. Buy a windows laptop with 32gb and accept the battery hit and the change in OS, and the myriad of other little niggles.
3. Get an iMac and do any ram intensive work on that.
As you have not stated why you need 32gb of ram, it's impossible to give you any specific advice.
Um, because I do? Right now as I switch to my Mac Pro, Activity Monitor is saying: Memory Used 16.64 GB. So yeah I need more than 16GB when I go abroad on my international projects for some of the worlds largest design companies and ad agencies, working on global brands and some of the biggest campaigns.
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I'm not a super creative. I work on a Mac Pro, with 3x 30" ACDs. I do have cold beer, very average speakers.
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I may have to close windows yes. I never sell any of my Macs
Shudder at the thought
Maybe. But I think the modular MP is going to be coming out in a year or two..
See above.
Used ram doesn't matter. What pressure is it at?
Thats hardly indicative. The more RAM you have, the "lazier" the system gets with moving stuff around. Try removing some of your Mac Pro RAM sticks and see how it goes, I'm fairly sure that you might be surprised.
As to your question: we will get it when Intel supports more energy-efficient RAM standard that won't kill your battery. Very few users right now need 32GB RAM in a mobile machine. To compromise battery/size/weight of the computer just to cater to those users is hardly a good move.
Not to nitpick, but I'm not sure how you can say that "very few users right now need 32GB RAM in a mobile machine." Given that Pros are (ostensibly) marketed to would-be pros, and a lot of those people do very memory-intensive work (including but not limited to virtualization, data science, and graphics and animation), it's probably a much larger chunk of people than you think. That is exacerbated by the fact that for many people, the laptop is the one and only work machine, aside from what they do with cloud computing.
Yes, that's how XPS15 can offer a 32Gb RAM option. Because it is much bigger, heavier, and has much shorter battery life than MBP 15.
Oh wait...
So I "only" have 16GB or RAM in my 2016 MacBook Pro but I was able to open 65 Tiff images in photoshop and work on them all without any slow downs or closing out any of the images. (My memory pressure didn't get yellow until I got to the 60th image). I hope this helps those who think they need 32GB of RAM to do professional type of work .
Hey, it's great that things are working out for you, but that's only one type of professional work. Many of us find the 16GB limit to be...well...limiting. It's not some imagined problem in our heads.
That means it's using 16 GB, not that it needs 16 GB. Unused RAM is wasted RAM, so MacOS memory management doesn't start clearing out what isn't needed until more is actually needed.
If you have a 32 GB Mac, and it's showing 20+ GB used, I can almost guarantee the amount would be under 16 GB if that's all your Mac has, unless you have VMs or other apps open using very large amounts of memory.
Well, as a computer/data scientist who does intensive work on my MBP 15", I'd say that in many applications, if people really need 32GB RAM, they most likely also need quad channel memory controllers and large CPU caches. There is a limit to what much you can do with 32 GB RAM if your theoretical max RAM bandwidth is around 24 GB/s. Yes, I believe that the real demand for 32GB RAM on professional level is fairly overestimated by many on these forums (in a laptop).
It wasn't a trick question. I'm not doubting you need a powerful machine to do your work, but to say you're 'stuck' because of 16GB limitation is strange to me.
Right now my mac says I am using 10GB and I'm literally only replying to this thread and watching a youtube video (a few apps idle like email etc..). During work hours I also use this mac to run 2x VMs at a given time, Photoshop, Figma, Affinity Designer, PHPStorm, Outlook, Slack, Rambox, Chrome (lots of tabs), Sequel Pro, Transmit... i.e. I can throw a lot at it, and it will never skip a beat.
if you think you need 32GB simply because your Mac is saying it's using 16GB you need to do a real-world stress test to see what it can actually handle, I assure you, you will be surprised.
I would safely say you will be able to get on with your work some way or other, if you literally can not work any less than 32GB RAM then I doubt a Macbook pro is even the right machine as a computer is only as fast as its weakest component and something will bottleneck before you hit 32GB imo.
It does have shorter battery life. Significantly so. Please read up some reviews. Power-hungry screen and less efficient RAM will quickly do that. Despite the XPS being heavier and having a larger battery. BTW, all tests I've seen were for 16GB version of the XPS. The 32GB will reduce the battery life further.
P.S. There is a reason why most laptops that strive for good battery life (Apple, Microsoft etc.) use LPDDR3 instead of DDR4
No, it does not, except in light load scenarios. Under medium and heavy loads, which is what the "Pro" 15 inch laptops are build for, it is quite a bit better. And please don't compare Microsoft Ultrabooks to a quad-core laptop, it's meaningless.
The fact of the matter is, Apple sacrificed battery life for thinner design, and LPDDR3 was the only choice to not make it even worse.
P.S. - I'm not trying to make XPS15 sound great BTW, I'm not really a fan. I'm just pointing out that Apple design strategy, which includes reducing battery size and maintaining 16Gb RAM as a limit for years is not really friendly to people that use their machines for more than browsing/movie watching.
Light load scenarios is exactly where you see the difference of always-on components such as RAM and display (which is what we are talking about here). There is no question that Dell has a larger battery, which gives it a slight edge under heavy load, since both laptops will draw around 90 Watts or more in that scenario. But frankly, battery under load is the least interesting metric, since it doesn't make much practical difference whether you laptop gets 40 minutes or 1 hour. This is when you use a plug. What is most interesting about these ultraportable quad-core laptops is that they can give you good battery when on the road and good performance when stationary.
For real world realistic mobile use, the 15" MBP will certainly outlast the Dell 15" in a similar configuration, despite being lighter and having a smaller battery.
I've used practically very 15" model since 2008 and the 2016 one has the best battery life of them all. Independent reviews also show this. So unsure what you are basing this statement on. The battery life on the 2016 model at least is excellent. Didn't work with the 2017, but I can imagine that it only improved with Kaby Lake.
Lol, does this qualify as computer illiteracy?
Either way, it's just fascinating how many people that use high end machines are completely clueless on the basics of computing; it's a real testament to how easy the manufacturers make day to day computing for every type of consumer, something we all take for granted.
There are lots of professionals working for Apple: programmers, illustrators, engineers, big data analysts, scientists and etc. If the 16GB RAM on MBP is crippling their ability to perform in their work, Apple will sure produce a more powerful laptop that is better suited for professionals.
Sure, 32GB RAM is much desirable, so is full-day battery life, so is its thin and light profile for maximum portability. 16GB is probably the best compromise at the moment from the collective feedback of their in-house professionals + market surveys.
Sure, 32GB RAM is much desirable, so is full-day battery life, so is its thin and light profile for maximum portability. 16GB is probably the best compromise at the moment from the collective feedback of their in-house professionals + market surveys.
32GB Ram would be great if battery life doesn't get compromised. But rather than 32GB Ram I'd like to see Apple implement terraced batteries and get even more in the MBP to actually have those 10hr battery life a day they claim. Because right now it's more like 4hrs even if you just browse the web, twitter, a bit of video & music.
Why would you expect these people to be using an MacBook Pro? Most are probably using something like an iMac. Data Scientists probably use something with an NVidia GPU to offload their processing to the GPU(s) for quick tests, and then do their real work on server farms. Big Data work is probably also done on servers.
I'm using the MBP to prototype the code which is then run on a supercluster in a research center.
