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4th gen MBP owners -- How much RAM do you have?

  • 8 GB

    Votes: 11 22.0%
  • 16 GB

    Votes: 25 50.0%
  • 32 GB

    Votes: 14 28.0%

  • Total voters
    50

ghanwani

macrumors 601
Original poster
Dec 8, 2008
4,881
6,230
This is a poll only for 4th gen MBP owners--the machines with only USB-C ports.

Did you wish you got more?
 
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I bought the machine in a rush (needed a machine to replace a failing 2011, had to take what was in stock).

I’d have got 32GB if I had time to BTO, but it’s not the end of the world, it’s a spare/out-of-the-office machine now anyway.
 
Wow so few with 8 GB. I wasn't expecting that given all the discussions about 8 GB being enough.
 
I have the now deceased 2017 MacBook Pro 13" with only two thunderbolt ports. (Bought at Black Friday 2018, and yeah, I got a really good deal ;))
It was a replacement of my old 2013 MacBook Air 13".

I bought the stock version with only 128 GB SSD and 8 GB RAM.
The RAM is more than enough for me, what I really regret, is that I didn't get the 256 GB SDD version.

I mostly use it for browsing the web, dealing with my photos and streaming my old DVD's to my Apple TV. But when I need to run Logic Pro X, for creating some mixtapes it works great.

I am feeling quite cheated though, now that Apple has released the new 2019 spec with quad-core processor. I would have liked that. But I don't have to deal the touch bar, so I guess it is okay. I like my "function"-keys as they are.
 
I was using a MAX 2016 15" MBP with 16GB of RAM (2.9 i7/460/2TB), but I recently upgraded as I got a really good deal on a 2018 15" MBP with 32GB of RAM (2.9 i9/560X/2TB) and a brand new warranty.

Happy with it so far. Still getting used to the keyboard as it feels slightly different compared to the 2016/2017 ones.
 
I have 8GB. Mainly, I use MS Office apps, and Parallels to run a Mac and Windows VM. I've never had any memory issues and the system is very fast and responsive. I am running a 2019 2.4Ghz with 8GB and 512 SSD. For a test, I fired up 2 Windows VM's and a Mac VM at the same time. Each allocated 2GB of memory. Memory pressure got into the yellow for a period of time, but at no point did the system slow down . That test was not real use case for me, asI typically only run a single VM at any given time. When doing that, I never have any issues, and memory pressure is at the lower third of the graph. For me, 8GB is plenty.
 
Wow so few with 8 GB. I wasn't expecting that given all the discussions about 8 GB being enough.


16GB is the base amount on the 15", so every 15" MacBook Pro user is going to be selecting 16GB or 32GB, even if they bought the machine to merely author a novel.
 
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16GB is the base amount on the 15", so every 15" MacBook Pro user is going to be selecting 16GB or 32GB, even if they bought the machine to merely author a novel.

Yeah, I think the correct way to have done the poll would have been 5 options to separate the 13” and 15”.
 
8 gigs, no reason to have 16 on 13" when macOS handles RAM extremely well. Memory compression and allocation deal with the available RAM and I've never had a feeling "hmm, I should've gotten more RAM".
I consider myself somewhat heavy user, a lot of apps open, at least 3 or so at a time that consume around 800MB of RAM each, have some x265 video playing in the background etc. I max out at 6 out of 8 gigs of RAM used. Memory compression at times increases to 2 gigs from one, but that's it, 0 slow downs.
 
Good to hear comments from folks. I’m wondering if I’ve been buying too much RAM for my needs.

I just returned my 2.4 machine because of headaches from the display (I didn’t have problems with my nTB or my Windows machine). That was spec’ed to 16/512.

I’m thinking of giving the 1.4 a shot, but given there’s a keyboard redesign around the corner, I prefer to buy only as much machine as I need at the moment without worrying about the need to keep the machine for 3-5 years. Normally I would get 16/512 but I’m wondering if I can get away with 8/256. My current disk usage is 100 GB, and I have not been adding very much in last couple of years.

In terms of RAM I’m not a power user. The biggest memory/CPU hog for me is probably Chrome.
 
8 gigs, no reason to have 16 on 13" when macOS handles RAM extremely well. Memory compression and allocation deal with the available RAM and I've never had a feeling "hmm, I should've gotten more RAM".
I consider myself somewhat heavy user, a lot of apps open, at least 3 or so at a time that consume around 800MB of RAM each, have some x265 video playing in the background etc. I max out at 6 out of 8 gigs of RAM used. Memory compression at times increases to 2 gigs from one, but that's it, 0 slow downs.


Yeah that's similar to my experience too.


Good to hear comments from folks. I’m wondering if I’ve been buying too much RAM for my needs.

I just returned my 2.4 machine because of headaches from the display (I didn’t have problems with my nTB or my Windows machine). That was spec’ed to 16/512.

I’m thinking of giving the 1.4 a shot, but given there’s a keyboard redesign around the corner, I prefer to buy only as much machine as I need at the moment without worrying about the need to keep the machine for 3-5 years. Normally I would get 16/512 but I’m wondering if I can get away with 8/256. My current disk usage is 100 GB, and I have not been adding very much in last couple of years.

In terms of RAM I’m not a power user. The biggest memory/CPU hog for me is probably Chrome.


There are folks here who will tell you that you cannot use Chrome for more than 3 tabs without an 8GB machine dropping to its knees; but in reality there's a lot of hyperbole over memory requirements. It's bizarre.

If I was buying today and wanted to hold it for 5-6 years I'd likely go for 16GB, but I do typically have a few apps open at once and although it doesn't cause problems today it is more likely to over 5 years. But hanging onto it for a year or two, if I was buying I'd go for 8GB. It works great for me today.
 
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It is surprising to see so many with at least 16GB of RAM. Then again like others have said the 15" MBPs have come with 16GB as standard on all models since 2014.

My gf's 2015 15" MBP has 16GB of RAM in it, even though she was totally fine with the 8GB in the 2013 13" MBP that she used for a long time. Moving up to the 15" gave her 16GB by default.
 
I had a 2017 model with 8GB. It got stolen. Just got it replaced with a 2018 version with 8GB. Only thing I really need extra RAM for is when running ArcGIS in Windows in Parallels. I had run it a few years ago on a MacBook Air with 4GB of RAM. I had just upgraded Parallels to a version that works with the latest MacOS and was able to double the amount of RAM available for Windows. Seemed much faster.

I'm just using ArcGIS to learn right now (someone want to hire me?). So I didn't see the need to get 16GB of RAM for another $200. I did get the 2018 MBP that had cost $1799 to get a little bit better GPU than the base models -- the 2017 model I had was $1299 down from $1499 right before the 2018 models came out.
 
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