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This is hopefully going to be my last thread before I commit to buy :eek:

What is better? More Ram (from 32GB) or Upgrade CPU option? (on the 8 core machine with 8GB graphics)

More Ram has always made more sense, but now all Macs come with SSDs the swap disk on it would be fast anyway - curious to hear what you think 😓

Sounds like you don't need either if you can't work out if your workload requires more processing power or memory.
 
It is a difficult question to answer. For example, I do have some idea about how photoshop works (I have watched a number of talks by one of its principal programmers where he discusses memory management), and it seem that it will use as much RAM as it can for undo/redo functionality. So I can clearly imagine it being able to "fill out" 64GB RAM. But do you actually need 64GB RAM for Photoshop and will it give you any benefits? I doubt it, but it is impossible to know without running a benchmark based on your use case.

There are two basic ways how RAM is used. The first one is what I'd call "working memory" — this is fitting all the data the CPU is working on right now. Imagine it as having things you need on your work desk. If you have a very small desk, you'd constantly need to run between your workspace and the warehouse, and your productivity will take a big dive. This is the most important reason to have more RAM and that is where people say that it affects your performance.

The second one is using RAM as a cache. Say you have a humongous work desk, so you can put all the items there you need for multiple workflows. This way you can quickly switch from one workflow to another, without having to go to the warehouse. But the important thing here is that you are only working with a small portion of the items at a given time. If fact, you couldn't do all these workflows simultaneously because you are simply lacking the hands to do them :)

It is similar for CPUs. The CPU in the MBP has two memory controllers, with summary total bandwidth of approx 30Gb/s. What this means that it cannot use the entirety of the memory as working memory (it is just not fast enough) — and has to use portions of RAM at a time. But then again you can use all the excess RAM to "preload" things — after all accessing RAM is still much quicker than loading data from disk. You are not necessarily gaining performance, but you might be improving your latency (time that you need to wait for things to happen). The question is now: will you notice this n practice or is the latency already hidden by something else? One often quoted example where I don't think that more RAM will do much good is browsing. People often say "oh, I have 50 tabs open, I need more RAM". But the funny thing is that the visual animation of switching a browser tab takes much longer than it takes to load that same tab from the SSD cache. So if you "workflow" is switching browser tabs 10 times per second, you might get a noticeable difference with more RAM. In a more normal situation — probably not. As always, you need to try it out.

As for your usage (Photoshop, After Effects etc.), I personally think that the sweet spot might be at 32GB RAM + 2.3 8-core CPU. I doubt that you will benefit much from 8GB GPU, but then again I am not a graphics professional and I don't really know how well these tools can use the GPU RAM.
Thanx. 32GB will probably enough Ram then. I have 16 now and i figured i could use a speedbump in After Effects when i make animations.
 
Some interesting questions that future reviews could answer:

1. How much more power does the extra 32GB of ram draw?
2. How much more heat is generated as a result of this extra power usage?
3. What is the effect, if any, on CPU throttling due to the increase pressure on power draw and the overall thermal envelope?
4. What is the effect on battery life?
5. What is the performance in Photoshop / Premiere when editing large files?

This article by Toms shows that in regards to 1 and 2, the effects are non-trivial (11.85 Watts per 32Gb of ram)
https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/intel-core-i7-5960x-haswell-e-cpu,3918-13.html

This means there may indeed be a 'sweet spot' and that trade-offs should be carefully considered. I am looking forward to reviews that look into these!
 
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32GB is more then enough ram, go with that if you have any questions or concerns. If you're planning on holding onto the laptop for many years, 32 could make sense, even for peace of mind, though 16 will be sufficient for most uses.
 
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16 is fine for photoshop. 32 might future proof you, but you won't have any issue with 16 for a long while.
Well it’s fine with you do light work. PS is RAM hungry. If he does pro work, I would invest in RAM big time. Will make the application run faster and the entire system overall, especially with many open applications.
 
We could be brutally honest and say we don't really need Macs HAHA!

I ended up with 64GB instead of CPU upgrade. Why? See:


And:

Turbo boost is basically automatic overclocking for a few seconds. I remember my younger days when I had to access the BIOS to overclock manually. Sweet memories.
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His test was on the 2018 version which had thermal throttling issues. There is no way to be certain if the new MacBook Pro will as well, BUT it is a completely redesigned heatsink and cooling system.Still think 64GB of RAM is crazy. Editing 4K I never even use over 12GB of RAM. But that's FCP X Maybe Premiere Pro is a memory hog.
Even a redesigned heatsink, better fans, etc. won't change the laws of thermodynamics. Turbo boost can't be sustained for too long in such a small package. My guess is that at most you'll gain a few extra seconds of boost. Would like to see the new test results though.
 
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If you are just wanting to choose an upgrade, analyze what you do.
Typically unless, like some have stated, you do a lot of graphics heavy tasks. Additional RAM is not as much of an upgrade.
I do loads of Lightroom and Photoshop with 100+MB RAW files so I can normally use 20GB of RAM just with Lightroom alone.
I am currently sitting with 44GB used of 64 on my iMac. Now if I did not do this type of work regularly, I wouldn't personally spend cash on the RAM and would choose the speedier CPU. Again only if I just had to choose an upgrade option.
 
You can not buy it.

SSD, CPU and GPU upgrade prices have all become much more reasonable, which is one reason why I opted to upgrade all three.

Really, most people around here were expecting a huge "Apple tax" on this new model and predicting 3-4K starting prices. Thankfully they were wrong and we're actually getting the most bang for buck on release day since the 2015 models. Except for the RAM upgrade costs.

By all means upgrade to 32GB if you need it, but 95%of us don't need 64GB, and $800 for that upgrade is robbery.


Hold the phone here - are you telling me upgrade prices dropped in US ? Because in Europe they most certainly did not! Its €480 to go from 16GB to 32GB and another €480 to go to 64GB (so actually the second upgrade is cheaper (for why its the same chips!?!?!?)
 
As for your usage (Photoshop, After Effects etc.), I personally think that the sweet spot might be at 32GB RAM + 2.3 8-core CPU. I doubt that you will benefit much from 8GB GPU, but then again I am not a graphics professional and I don't really know how well these tools can use the GPU RAM.

For $100 to go from 5500M 4GB to 5500M 8GB, it is likely worth it for AE CC 2020 versions. GPU render and previews are vastly improved from previous versions. If you're using in conjunction with an 8GB eGPU then you have other tradeoffs to weigh.
 
Hold the phone here - are you telling me upgrade prices dropped in US ? Because in Europe they most certainly did not! Its €480 to go from 16GB to 32GB and another €480 to go to 64GB (so actually the second upgrade is cheaper (for why its the same chips!?!?!?)

My mistake - the $1000 upgrade price from Apple I saw a few months ago was the 64GB upgrade for the iMacs, and it's still the same outrageous price today.
 
For $100 to go from 5500M 4GB to 5500M 8GB, it is likely worth it for AE CC 2020 versions. GPU render and previews are vastly improved from previous versions. If you're using in conjunction with an 8GB eGPU then you have other tradeoffs to weigh.
Yep, went for 32Gb RAM, The 2.3 8core i9 and the 5500M 8GB. Figured i would be safe then since a lot is using GPU these days. Oh and a 1 TB SSD. I do most with external harddisks anyway but needed a bit more than the 500GB i have now.

And indeed, i do animation in AE and i preview a LOT and want that to be fast.
 
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I have read through a bunch of reviews, but nowhere has it been confirmed that I've read, if the RAM is USER upgradable. Also is the hard drive user serviceable?

Thanks in advance if I missed this information somewhere.
 
I have read through a bunch of reviews, but nowhere has it been confirmed that I've read, if the RAM is USER upgradable. Also is the hard drive user serviceable?

Thanks in advance if I missed this information somewhere.
Definitely not, you can see inside the machine on Apple's website. All as soldered down as it was before.
 
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This is hopefully going to be my last thread before I commit to buy :eek:

What is better? More Ram (from 32GB) or Upgrade CPU option? (on the 8 core machine with 8GB graphics)

More Ram has always made more sense, but now all Macs come with SSDs the swap disk on it would be fast anyway - curious to hear what you think 😓
Are editing multiple streams of 8K footage or running multiple virtual machines? If not, 32GB of DRAM is plenty.

I would actually upgrade to the 2.4GHz i9- 9980HK and put to the test whether Apple’s claims to increased endurance under stressful workloads. I would also opt for the 8GB GPU as you will never regret having the best GPU 2-3 years down the road, especially if you find a GPU intensive app in your daily workflow.
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I have read through a bunch of reviews, but nowhere has it been confirmed that I've read, if the RAM is USER upgradable. Also is the hard drive user serviceable?

Thanks in advance if I missed this information somewhere.
Neither is user serviceable, they are both soldered.
 
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For After Effects, Photoshop and C4D work, I would go:
2.3GHz 8‑core
64GB 2666MHz DDR4 memory
1TB SSD
AMD Radeon Pro 5500M with 8GB of GDDR6 memory

Maximize the RAM and GPU now since you can't upgrade.
I keep the internal 1tb for system files. I would get two external nvme drives and use in RAID 0 for project files and get another nvme for scratch disk.
Damn, that would be a blazing fast system for motion graphics.

I might consider this instead of getting the new Mac Pro or upgrade my current 5,1 MP.
 
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