8 vs 16 GB of RAM

[thekev]

just sells none working computers with 4gigs.
They explode when you turn them on.

They shipped the macbook air with 2GB for a long time, even when it was the minimum supported for the current shipping OS. They were relying on the ssd to partly compensate for lag on pageouts, but it's a very memory hungry OS, that doesn't like to relinquish memory when it should. While Apple is always conservative on memory configurations with the 13" mbp, the 13" rmbp now ships with 8GB stock. You seem to agree with someone who thought the majority of OSX memory usage under such a situation would be what is needed to process the document, rather than what is used by the OS and anything left open in the background.

 

[sabbyp]

I dont think any mortal being will need a 16gb ram mbp in the years to come

I dunno man, I do a lot of heavy word processing that fills it up pretty quickly

 

[Meister]

They shipped the macbook air with 2GB for a long time, even when it was the minimum supported for the current shipping OS. They were relying on the ssd to partly compensate for lag on pageouts, but it's a very memory hungry OS, that doesn't like to relinquish memory when it should. While Apple is always conservative on memory configurations with the 13" mbp, the 13" rmbp now ships with 8GB stock. You seem to agree with someone who thought the majority of OSX memory usage under such a situation would be what is needed to process the document, rather than what is used by the OS and anything left open in the background.

You must be looking at the future page
13" mbp doesnt ship with 8gb stock, even base rmbp comes with 4.
In my apple store they use the 2gb mba for demonstration sake.
They where sold in 2010/2011.
All works fine there.
Most notebooks are sold with 4gigs.
By the time 4gigs is not enough anymore you simple need a new overall notebook.
Recommending 16gb to average users is bad advice.

 

[Miss Terri]

In my case, I wanted more RAM so I could be lazy and use tabs in Chrome as if they were bookmarks. Chrome literally devours RAM and once you get 50 tabs open, it begins to bog things down.

Ha, "using tabs as if they were bookmarks"...that's me too (except....erm... maybe 100 tabs, and in Safari ).

Just about to buy a new MBP and this tells me to go for the 16GB of RAM. Shoot, maybe I can even use Firefox again (for some reason it just eats its way through the 8GB of RAM on my current MBP).

MT

 

[PeterJP]

I'm still in doubt as well, but if 8GB on Mavericks is like 12GB before, then I'm very safe. I was just doing some simple work on this Windows PC with 16GB (MS Word 365, PDF, Chrome) and I had 13.5GB to spare.

I was also in doubt about the 11" Air or the 13" retina. After a visit to the shop, I guess it'll be the retina, probably mid configuration. The 11" is nice, too, but the retina screen is really the killer argument (with the smaller track pad being a distant second, but the price and size are its main attractions). Somehow, I never liked the 13" Air. It feels heavy and looks big for its size. The 13" retina seems it's a better 13" offering in any way imaginable.

 

[Dwalls90]

Pretty much everyone will max out 4gb, considering that the OS takes up a huge chunk of memory and software developers have become ridiculously lazy when optimizing, 4gb will be chewed up in no time, and I do it on a daily basis without any heavy work.

8gb wont give you much extra and will be used up too considering all the extra bloat Apple's been packing into OS X.

16gb should really be the ONLY option for everyone considering how apple completely screwed everyone with the soldered ram.

Not really. Unless you're keeping 20 apps open and they are heavy usage apps, 8GB will be more than enough. 4GB is fine for basic usage, and the advantage 8GB provides for these users is virtually nothing. OS are becoming thinner and leaner, so as long as your usage habits remain the same, 8GB is pretty much future proofed.

 

[undesign]

Not really. Unless you're keeping 20 apps open and they are heavy usage apps, 8GB will be more than enough. 4GB is fine for basic usage, and the advantage 8GB provides for these users is virtually nothing. OS are becoming thinner and leaner, so as long as your usage habits remain the same, 8GB is pretty much future proofed.

False.

And here's the proof:

Notice that the majority of my apps are light, with only Photoshop, Firefox and Chrome being the biggest memory hogs and not even by a whole lot.

4gb is next to useless unless your running Snow Leopard. All later releases of Mac OS just added bloat and became a memory hog.

 

[Paapaa]

Pretty much everyone will max out 4gb, considering that the OS takes up a huge chunk of memory and software developers have become ridiculously lazy when optimizing, 4gb will be chewed up in no time...

100% crap I have used MBA 2GB and it works fine in light/normal usage. No heavy swapping, no lagging etc. Remember that you can't make conclusion just by looking memory usage: OSX will try to use all memory that is available. If there is less available, it will allocate less to file caches and what not. You will not max 4GB easily in normal office usage.

EDIT: And using 2 browsers is just stupid... Maverics also knows memory compression which results lower memory requirements. You seem to have close to 1GB free (Free + Inactive).

 

[Orr]

Yeah thats why the new mba dont run with 4gigs. They are just useless right out of the box ...

just sells none working computers with 4gigs.
They explode when you turn them on.

So much win.

 

[OTACORB]

What I find is the more memory you have the more it seems the apps use. I have 16GB and I could show you how my apps use up to 16 GB, that proves nothing.

I use a memory cleaner that will clean up all the stuff that is taking up memory that really doesn't need too and this works amazingly well. Not all programs when closed returns all the memory and some hold on to memory unnecessarily even when they are running in the background.

8GB vs 16GB has been being discussed for a long time. I've got machines with 8GB that run perfectly fine using the same software on my 16GB machine. In my opinion the only time you really need large amounts of ram is if you are working on complex graphics or programs that memory intensive. For the most part 8GB will work just fine for 90% of the average consumers out there.

 

[Paapaa]

What I find is the more memory you have the more it seems the apps use. I have 16GB and I could show you how my apps use up to 16 GB, that proves nothing.

Exactly. You can't make any conclusions just looking at Activity monitor. Simple fact.

 

[undesign]

EDIT: And using 2 browsers is just stupid..

Please don't tell a web developer how to do their job.

 

[Dwalls90]

False.

And here's the proof:

Image

Notice that the majority of my apps are light, with only Photoshop, Firefox and Chrome being the biggest memory hogs and not even by a whole lot.

4gb is next to useless unless your running Snow Leopard. All later releases of Mac OS just added bloat and became a memory hog.

First off, Photoshop is a RAM hog and is not "simple/light usage".

Second, the average user will go after Safari, not Chrome or Firefox, which from my experiences, aren't optimized as well for OS X as Safari, and thus will use more RAM. That said, users aren't going to be using Chrome AND Firefox fogether.

Lastly, as others noted, OS X will allocate RAM based on available. "Inactive" is basically RAM that is ready to be freed, so really you're only "filling up" just over 3GB.

 

[undesign]

Exactly. You can't make any conclusions just looking at Activity monitor. Simple fact.

Yes you can. Swap memory use, total amount currently used, etc. How else would you know how much your using.... a magic 8 ball perhaps?

----------

First off, Photoshop is a RAM hog and is not "simple/light usage".

Second, the average user will go after Safari, not Chrome or Firefox, which from my experiences, aren't optimized as well for OS X as Safari, and thus will use more RAM. That said, users aren't going to be using Chrome AND Firefox fogether.

Lastly, as others noted, OS X will allocate RAM based on available. "Inactive" is basically RAM that is ready to be freed, so really you're only "filling up" just over 3GB.

From the screen grab, I'm not doing any heavy photoshop work, so in my case, it IS a light scenario. Anything serious and the memory usage will jump sky high.

Assuming most people wont use Chrome or Firefox is a sweeping generalization.

Even if the 3gb mark were completely accurate, this is still a horrible idea to suggest that 4gb if 'perfectly fine' as your already 75% of the way to your maximum capacity. Not to mention to negate what you said about needing '20 apps' to max out your ram... clearly proves your statement wrong.

4gb is petty considering pretty much everyone will get close to 3-4gb usage without being a heavy user. 8gb should be the bare minimum.

 

[Meister]

They shipped the macbook air with 2GB for a long time, even when it was the minimum supported for the current shipping OS. They were relying on the ssd to partly compensate for lag on pageouts, but it's a very memory hungry OS, that doesn't like to relinquish memory when it should. While Apple is always conservative on memory configurations with the 13" mbp, the 13" rmbp now ships with 8GB stock.

Standard in 2013 is 4gb ram (for a notebook)
Mavericks runs ace on the mba2008 with 2gigs of ram and ssd.
I think the mba2008 will still run for a few years. You get like a decade out of that baby.
4gb machines will run ace in 2018.
If u dont need it now - u wont need it then.
If u need 16gigs now get it! If not, dont get it!
If u want the retina get the 8/256 config. Enjoy it! Its the best bang for the buck by far!
U want insane portability get the mba 4/256 config. Enjoy it!
Its a superstition from the computer stoneage that just more ram will work wonders.
(Get insurance in case u drop your macbook instead!)

I dunno man, I do a lot of heavy word processing that fills it up pretty quickly

...

 

[Paapaa]

Yes you can. Swap memory use, total amount currently used, etc. How else would you know how much your using.... a magic 8 ball perhaps?

Totally incorrect. Modern OS'es use swap way before they need to. Why? To move unneeded stuff to disk so that they can utilise bigger caches for better use. See this (swampiness-value in Linux kernel) if you haven't heard about this common technique:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swappiness

It is a total misconception that swap is used only in out of memory situations. Again, stop making blind conclusions just by looking at Activity monitor.

 

[undesign]

Totally incorrect. Modern OS'es use swap way before they need to. Why? To move unneeded stuff to disk so that they can utilise bigger caches for better use. See this (swampiness-value in Linux kernel) if you haven't heard about this common technique:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swappiness

It is a total misconception that swap is used only in out of memory situations. Again, stop making blind conclusions just by looking at Activity monitor.

That still doesnt address the issue of having any kind of idea of how much ram is being used at any given time. If not Activity Monitor, then what??

 

[barnettgs]

When I first received my Macbook Pro in 2007 with 2 GB and now it has 6 GB which is 3 times the amount I first got it. That was with Tiger OS.

So 16 GB is 2 times the amount of 8 GB and you will never know how much memory you will need so it's probably always better to go for 16 GB.

Worth bearing in mind that programs will grow bigger with each update over the time and will use up more memory, plus every upgrade of OS X.

 

[NocturnalJazz]

In a computer with an HDD ram is important. It becomes less impactful as you increase ram in in SSDs.

 

[wwohl]

Please don't tell a web developer how to do their job.

BAHAHAHAHAHA

To back up his image, my mac mini was maxing out the ram with just safari open. 4 GB is just not enough. And speaking of heavy word processing... If I have mail, safari and MSword/Pages open, I start getting keyboard lag...

8GB is probably fine, but 16gb is safer

My recommendation is always to buy a single 8GB stick if you're strapped for cash. At least then you can go back and upgrade to 16 when you shake $60 more out of your pocket

B

 

[AppleFanatic10]

My girlfriend is buying herself a new 13" Retina MBP very soon. I'm helping her decide which model to go for. I've already decided for the model with 256GB and 8GB RAM, but I'm not sure whether or not to upgrade it to 16GB of RAM.

She mostly use the machine for kind of heavy Word Processing and her 2009 MacBook no longer does the job. As she's studying a masters degree in petroleum geosciences there are A LOT of pictures involved when handing in documents. Besides school she does some not heavy image editing, surf on the web and watch movies.

My question is, will these 8GB of RAM be worth it in the long run? Will the machine be adequate for her for a longer time if upgrading to 16GB of RAM or will it not be necessary for her use?

What do you mean by heavy word-processing?

 

[Orr]

She mostly use the machine for kind of heavy Word Processing and her 2009 MacBook no longer does the job. As she's studying a masters degree in petroleum geosciences there are A LOT of pictures involved when handing in documents. Besides school she does some not heavy image editing, surf on the web and watch movies.

My question is, will these 8GB of RAM be worth it in the long run? Will the machine be adequate for her for a longer time if upgrading to 16GB of RAM or will it not be necessary for her use?

What do you mean by heavy word-processing?

Sounds like she's writing complicated theorem that is well beyond the scope of comprehension for mere mortals like us. I always have a wry smile whenever anyone invokes the 'heavy word-processing' line on MR. Figure it's safe to assume that they mean business and best not to question minds far greater than my own.

 

[thurgood]

not sure what counts as heavy word processing, but I find that working with 100+ page documents with embedded citation data throughout, massive amount of control codes, etc. can be really taxing on the system. On my system with 4GB Ram, working on a couple of those documents while browsing through 1k page/1gb pdfs virtually renders the computer unusable. Not making a claim about 4 v. 8 in general, because I'm on a 2008 macbook with lots of limiting factors, but I page out like crazy. Have to use a work computer, because my personal computer just cannot handle it. Again, I have no idea how all this stacks up on Mavericks + newer macbook pros, but my workflow was so paralyzing to my computer that I'd probably be comfortable calling it heavy word processing.

 

[Meister]

not sure what counts as heavy word processing, but I find that working with 100+ page documents with embedded citation data throughout, massive amount of control codes, etc. can be really taxing on the system. On my system with 4GB Ram, working on a couple of those documents while browsing through 1k page/1gb pdfs virtually renders the computer unusable. Not making a claim about 4 v. 8 in general, because I'm on a 2008 macbook with lots of limiting factors, but I page out like crazy. Have to use a work computer, because my personal computer just cannot handle it. Again, I have no idea how all this stacks up on Mavericks + newer macbook pros, but my workflow was so paralyzing to my computer that I'd probably be comfortable calling it heavy word processing.

its your old macbook.
i process word docs with 100+ hd pics on my mac mini with 4gigs and an old hdd with no problem.
have to add that it slightly glitches when shuffling through the pages but i think thats due to the graphic card cuz of the hd pics.

 

[thekev]

Lastly, as others noted, OS X will allocate RAM based on available. "Inactive" is basically RAM that is ready to be freed, so really you're only "filling up" just over 3GB.

It's supposed to, yet it doesn't always do so.