8GB RAM 2018 Enough for Illustrator?

[Jtrippe10]

My budget capped at buying a 2018 MacBook Pro with TouchBar 8GB RAM. I will be running Illustrator on it so will 8GB suffice? If not, what work-around could I consider to increase RAM the safest way, being that (to my understanding) Apple doesn’t make MacBook Pro easily customizable if at all? Thanks.

 

[jerryk]

My budget capped at buying a 2018 MacBook Pro with TouchBar 8GB RAM. I will be running Illustrator on it so will 8GB suffice? If not, what work-around could I consider to increase RAM the safest way, being that (to my understanding) Apple doesn’t make MacBook Pro easily customizable if at all? Thanks.

The only way to upgrade RAM or SSD on the 2016-2018 TB MBPs is with a credit card. The RAM and SSD chips are soldered onto the board.

I don't use Illustrator so cannot comment on it's RAM or CPU requirements.

 

[xwacomx]

get atleast 16gb of ram im using illustrator on my BTO 2017 15" mbp

 

[ixxx69]

My budget capped at buying a 2018 MacBook Pro with TouchBar 8GB RAM. I will be running Illustrator on it so will 8GB suffice? If not, what work-around could I consider to increase RAM the safest way, being that (to my understanding) Apple doesn’t make MacBook Pro easily customizable if at all? Thanks.

These kind of questions get asked every week and here's the thing... it's all about your expectations of performance.

Illustrator will work great on 8GB - to a point. What are you doing with Illustrator? How complex and large are your project files? Is this for educational/hobby or professional use?

What other software would you be using at the same time?

If you demand best performance and/or time is money, then you might get a little bit frustrated with 8GB on more complex projects. I certainly recommend 16GB for anyone buying a computer who has the budget for it, but 8GB is still just fine for most usages.

Keep in mind you've come to a computer enthusiast forum - you're going to see a lot of posts here by people who study the frame rate of the the UI animations or consider a 2 second "hiccup" while switching between application windows the same as having their finger nails pulled out.

 

[dk001]

My budget capped at buying a 2018 MacBook Pro with TouchBar 8GB RAM. I will be running Illustrator on it so will 8GB suffice? If not, what work-around could I consider to increase RAM the safest way, being that (to my understanding) Apple doesn’t make MacBook Pro easily customizable if at all? Thanks.

Because everything is soldered into place, you need to plan for today and a couple of years from now. My thought? It isn't if you are doing or planning to do anything substantial.

 

[csurfr]

My budget capped at buying a 2018 MacBook Pro with TouchBar 8GB RAM. I will be running Illustrator on it so will 8GB suffice? If not, what work-around could I consider to increase RAM the safest way, being that (to my understanding) Apple doesn’t make MacBook Pro easily customizable if at all? Thanks.

If you’re going to run illustrator on a 13” MacBook Pro, your largest limitation is going to be the integrated video card. It will run fine to a point, but with larger files it’s going to slow down some. Adobe has been terrible at optimizing their software, and only in the last couple of point releases actually fixed the issues with rendering on the 13” MacBook Pro. Unless you *must* have illustrator, I’d look into Affinity’s software, it runs much better and has 99% of illustrator tools, and will even read and write .ai files.

Tldr: 8gb might be limiting in some aspects, but your video card will certainly be a bottleneck too.

 

[Jtrippe10]

These kind of questions get asked every week and here's the thing... it's all about your expectations of performance.

Illustrator will work great on 8GB - to a point. What are you doing with Illustrator? How complex and large are your project files? Is this for educational/hobby or professional use?

What other software would you be using at the same time?

If you demand best performance and/or time is money, then you might get a little bit frustrated with 8GB on more complex projects. I certainly recommend 16GB for anyone buying a computer who has the budget for it, but 8GB is still just fine for most usages.

Keep in mind you've come to a computer enthusiast forum - you're going to see a lot of posts here by people who study the frame rate of the the UI animations or consider a 2 second "hiccup" while switching between application windows the same as having their finger nails pulled out.

Good take. I appreciate your perspective and input.

 

[maflynn]

8GB, may be fine, if you don't do much multitasking and/or VMs, but in all honesty since the ram is non-upgradable after the sale, it will be safer to with 16