8GB RAM in M3 MacBook Pro Proves the Bottleneck in Real-World Tests

[Kal Madda]

It's being ignored because this thread isn't about that.

I'm typing this on that very chassis. A 14-inch M1 Pro MacBook Pro. Yep, the display is great. The sound is great. The battery runtime frankly isn't, but it's probably a lot better on the M3. But that's all moot, because this thread is about RAM.



Or a $1,299 computer, depending on how you look at it.

But you keep bringing the price up in this thread, “a $1600 laptop shouldn’t come with 8GB of RAM”. But that literally ignores every other stat of the computer. What if the computer was made of platinum? Would it be worth $1600 then? Again, you’re laser focused on one spec, as if that’s the one thing that dictates the computer’s value. The reason it’s a $1600 laptop is because it’s using state-of-the-art, high-end components that add cost in manufacture, and value to the end user. It would be like saying “no Ferrari or luxury car should be equipped with a V8, because my cheaper sedan has a V8”. It ignores all the other specs that make the Ferraris and luxury cars more expensive.

PS. When was the 14” MacBook Pro ever priced at $1,299? It was introduced at $2000. Are you talking about used or refurbished pricing?

 

[chucker23n1]

But you keep bringing the price up in this thread, “a $1600 laptop shouldn’t come with 8GB of RAM”. But that literally ignores every other stat of the computer.

Yeah, because the other stats aren't being criticized.

What if the computer was made of platinum? Would it be worth $1600 then? Again, you’re laser focused on one spec, as if that’s the one thing that dictates the computer’s value.

I don't really care about the material the computer is made from; I care about the build quality, and I have reasonable trust in Apple to pick the right material based on that. (Except when they sell the iPhone 15 Pro in grey, light grey, purple grey, and brown grey. Maybe they should've picked a material that works with colors?)

But, more than the build quality, I have a minimum requirement for specs, because this is a MacBook Pro, where the main purpose isn't to be thin and light, but to get stuff done. And the one spec that's currently weak is the RAM. So we're focused on that.

The reason it’s a $1600 laptop is because it’s using state-of-the-art, high-end components that add cost in manufacture, and value to the end user.

No, the reason it's a $1,600 laptop is that Apple knows it can sell them at the price tag.

It would be like saying “no Ferrari or luxury car should be equipped with a V8, because my cheaper sedan has a V8”. It ignores all the other specs that make the Ferraris and luxury cars more expensive.

I'm not buying a Ferrari, a luxury car, or any car for that matter.

PS. When was the 14” MacBook Pro ever priced at $1,299? It was introduced at $2000. Are you talking about used or refurbished pricing?

The $1,599 14" MacBook Pro replaces the $1,299 13" MacBook Pro.

 

[Kal Madda]

Yeah, because the other stats aren't being criticized.

I don't really care about the material the computer is made from; I care about the build quality, and I have reasonable trust in Apple to pick the right material based on that. (Except when they sell the iPhone 15 Pro in grey, light grey, purple grey, and brown grey. Maybe they should've picked a material that works with colors?)

But, more than the build quality, I have a minimum requirement for specs, because this is a MacBook Pro, where the main purpose isn't to be thin and light, but to get stuff done. And the one spec that's currently weak is the RAM. So we're focused on that.

No, the reason it's a $1,600 laptop is that Apple knows it can sell them at the price tag.

I'm not buying a Ferrari, a luxury car, or any car for that matter.

The $1,599 14" MacBook Pro replaces the $1,299 13" MacBook Pro.

I don’t think you understood the point I was making there at all, but whatever.

8GBs can get a lot done for a lot of people. If you need more, buy more, that simple… And it’s only weak in your opinion from your perspective, plenty of people get lots of work done with 8GB systems.

And how do you know what you’re saying is true? Do you have copies of internal business memos on the production costs involved in manufacturing the 14” MacBook Pro? They just reduced the price point by $400 for this new base model, and the hardware didn’t really become any cheaper, so why should we not assume they’re just eeking out a paltry profit on these base models? Apple sells the MacBook Pro for $1600 because it provides $1600 worth of value.

But it isn’t the same MacBook Pro! It has a lot of improvements and advantages over the old MacBook Pro it replaced. And a $300 price difference to get a better chip, higher quality display, more ports, longer battery runtime, etc. is not bad at all. And it replaced a model that also had 8GB of RAM, so it makes perfect sense.

 

[ArkSingularity]

And if stores aren’t stocking enough of the upgraded versions, then that’s a separate issue. If I want a 1TB iPhone Pro, and they don’t carry it at the store, that doesn’t mean that 1TB should be the new base spec for all iPhone Pros. And as to discounts, several stores did discount the configurations with the other chips as well, and they discounted the 16GB M3 one as well for Black Friday. And again, discount pricing is a different issue.

The thing is, the need for 16GB Macs in the market is generally much higher in the market than the need for 1TB iPhones. If we were talking about 64GB Macs, it'd be a very different story, but 16GB is a fairly common spec requirement.

(I'm also not screaming from the rooftops "APPLE BAD" - it is true that 8GB goes a long way on Apple Silicon. But if we're having the discussion as to when it's time for the higher priced models to start upgrading the base spec, I'm arguing that I think the time is nearing.)

 

[Kal Madda]

The thing is, the need for 16GB Macs in the market is generally much higher in the market than the need for 1TB iPhones. If we were talking about 64GB Macs, it'd be a very different story, but 16GB is a fairly common spec requirement.

(I'm also not screaming from the rooftops "APPLE BAD" - it is true that 8GB goes a long way on Apple Silicon. But if we're having the discussion as to when it's time for the higher priced models to start upgrading the base spec, I'm arguing that I think the time is nearing.)

I used a bit of an extreme example, but the logic is the same. Who’s to say people want a 32GB RAM configuration and can’t find them in stock just as frequently as people looking for the 16GB ones? The 8GB base spec is very popular, I don’t see any reason to not continue to offer it. And again, the stores not stocking upgraded versions is a completely separate issue. Best Buy isn’t forced by Apple to only stock 8GB models, if it was a common enough issue, one would think Best Buy would just start stocking more 16GB models.

 

[chucker23n1]

I'm also not screaming from the rooftops "APPLE BAD" - it is true that 8GB goes a long way on Apple Silicon. But if we're having the discussion as to when it's time for the higher priced models to start upgrading the base spec, I'm arguing that I think the time is nearing.

Yup. And as I've said, 12 would already go a long way, I think. If next year's Airs are the $799 M1 at 8, the $899 M2 at 8, but also the $1,099 M3 (and $1,299 15-inch M3) starting at 12, and then in early 2025, the MacBook Pro with M4 (non-Pro) starts at $1,599 with 12? I think that'd be fine. But if in early 2025, the $1,599 laptop still comes with 8? That would really be stretching it.

 

[Kal Madda]

(I'm also not screaming from the rooftops "APPLE BAD" - it is true that 8GB goes a long way on Apple Silicon. But if we're having the discussion as to when it's time for the higher priced models to start upgrading the base spec, I'm arguing that I think the time is nearing.)

I get that you’re not doing that, and I think of the people I’ve talked to in this debate, you seem to be one of the reasonable ones. I know you haven’t made this argument, but in the course of this debate I’ve literally seen several people argue that if you’re using an 8GB configuration you’re not a pro, that 8GB only allows a few apps at a time, that nobody can actually do professional work with 8GBs of RAM, that no Pro laptop no matter the price point should ever have 8GB of RAM, etc. Those kinds of arguments irritate me because many professionals have very different needs, and gatekeeping “pro status” based on RAM configuration is stupid. I know you’re not making those arguments, I’m just talking about other people I’ve seen in this debate. Talking with people like you is like a breath of fresh air, because we may disagree (I think we may actually mostly agree if I’m understanding correctly), but you’re not dragging ad-hominems and other arguments like that into the mix. I respect that. 👍🏻

Maybe the time is nearing, I don’t know, but what I do know is that the market generally works this stuff out, and if the market dictates more RAM at some point, I’m sure Apple will follow the market. Who knows, by then, maybe some of the other hardware in these models will have become a bit cheaper to produce, and so they’ll be able to offset the extra cost of the higher RAM configuration at the base. But I think it’s far more likely that the price of the base model will go up to match the raised base specs. And I think unless you have a situation like the M4 or M5 only supports a minimum of 16GB of RAM in all platforms it’s in, you’re going to still have an 8GB option. They generally provide every configuration they have available of the M-Series chips in all the platforms they install them in. It would be weird if the M4 supported an 8GB configuration for iPads, MacBook Airs, and other M4 products, but only offered higher RAM options of the chip in the MacBook Pro. It’s one thing with a differentiated chip like the M3 Pro to not support a lower RAM configuration, because that chip is specifically designed for high-end machines, and the same is true of the M3 Max. But the M3 is Apple’s basic consumer chip, and they added the M3 configuration of MacBook Pro as a kind of bridge option between the MacBook Air and the MacBook Pros of yester-year. That’s at least my opinion.

 

[ArkSingularity]

I used a bit of an extreme example, but the logic is the same. Who’s to say people want a 32GB RAM configuration and can’t find them in stock just as frequently as people looking for the 16GB ones? The 8GB base spec is very popular, I don’t see any reason to not continue to offer it. And again, the stores not stocking upgraded versions is a completely separate issue. Best Buy isn’t forced by Apple to only stock 8GB models, if it was a common enough issue, one would think Best Buy would just start stocking more 16GB models.

Genuinely, 16GB is a much more common spec requirement than 32GB is for the kinds of folks who aren't getting the Max. Not that it wouldn't be good to also keep 36GB non-max models in stock, but the jump from 8GB to 16GB covers a lot of people.

 

[Kal Madda]

Genuinely, 16GB is a much more common spec requirement than 32GB is for the kinds of folks who aren't getting the Max. Not that it wouldn't be good to also keep 36GB non-max models in stock, but the jump from 8GB to 16GB covers a lot of people.

Like I said, I’m not saying stores shouldn’t do a better job of keeping both in stock, I think they should so people have an easier time getting the configuration they want. 👍🏻

 

[ArkSingularity]

I get that you’re not doing that, and I think of the people I’ve talked to in this debate, you seem to be one of the reasonable ones. I know you haven’t made this argument, but in the course of this debate I’ve literally seen several people argue that if you’re using an 8GB configuration you’re not a pro, that 8GB only allows a few apps at a time, that nobody can actually do professional work with 8GBs of RAM, that no Pro laptop no matter the price point should ever have 8GB of RAM, etc. Those kinds of arguments irritate me because many professionals have very different needs, and gatekeeping “pro status” based on RAM configuration is stupid.

See, on this, I agree with you. You're absolutely right, the 8GB models don't mean someone isn't a pro and this sort of gatekeeping is irritating. I used my 8GB Mac for software development for about a year and a half before finally upgrading, and while I'm glad I upgraded for what I do, the 8GB Mac did serve me just fine for its time. I certainly did not consider it a slow machine by any stretch of the imagination (to the contrary, it was quite impressive what it could do with such limited RAM for the workloads I was doing, and even though I did notice the difference when upgrading, the 8GB one still held up quite well).

Here's what happens a lot on these forums: Most people either have 8GB Macs, or they have 16GB+ Macs. Most don't have a reference to compare to, so what ends up happening is that a lot of the folks who use 16GB Macs are adamant that 8GB isn't enough for anybody (and vice versa, there are a lot of users with 8GB Macs who haven't ever compared the 16GB ones on Apple Silicon, so they don't have a clear reference to compare with).

Part of this is exacerbated by Mac OS' RAM allocation behavior, and its tendency to try to fill up RAM no matter what you're doing. It doesn't give the clearest picture of how much RAM you actually need until you start looking at memory pressure (and especially the color of the graph, which does a good job of indicating when the performance slowdowns actually start happening).

 

[Chuckeee]

Yup. And as I've said, 12 would already go a long way, I think. If next year's Airs are the $799 M1 at 8, the $899 M2 at 8, but also the $1,099 M3 (and $1,299 15-inch M3) starting at 12, and then in early 2025, the MacBook Pro with M4 (non-Pro) starts at $1,599 with 12? I think that'd be fine. But if in early 2025, the $1,599 laptop still comes with 8? That would really be stretching it.

Just wondering something a little different here. Why do you think the obvious growth path is to 12 Gb not 16 Gb? While 12 Gb is used in some places it seems to be kind of an odd off configuration with 16 Gb seems to be much more common.

 

[chucker23n1]

Here's what happens a lot on these forums: Most people either have 8GB Macs, or they have 16GB+ Macs. Most don't have a reference to compare to, so what ends up happening is that a lot of the folks who use 16GB Macs are adamant that 8GB isn't enough for anybody (and vice versa, there are a lot of users with 8GB Macs who haven't ever compared the 16GB ones on Apple Silicon, so they don't have a clear reference to compare with).

I mean, I have 32, and I could use more, even, but I would never suggest that in the next five years, this is a common or important use case.

Part of this is exacerbated by Mac OS' RAM allocation behavior, and its tendency to try to fill up RAM no matter what you're doing. It doesn't give the clearest picture of how much RAM you actually need until you start looking at memory pressure (and especially the color of the graph, which does a good job of indicating when the performance slowdowns actually start happening).

Yep. "How much RAM would do me good" is a tricky question to answer, and Apple has basically removed the notion of "free" RAM from the UI for a reason — low free RAM was not an indicator that you had too little RAM.

Just wondering something a little different here. Why do you think the obvious growth path is to 12 Gb not 16 Gb? While 12 Gb is used in some places it seems to be kind of an odd off configuration with 16 Gb seems to be much more common.

I'm just saying I'm OK with a 50% bump. The technical details of whether that's practical (by using 2x6 GiB chips, or by using three controllers with 4 GiB each) are another matter.

 

[ArkSingularity]

Just wondering something a little different here. Why do you think the obvious growth path is to 12 Gb not 16 Gb? While 12 Gb is used in some places it seems to be kind of an odd off configuration with 16 Gb seems to be much more common.

I agree, 16GB would be better given the cheap prices of RAM wholesale. But knowing Apple, they like to do market segmentation quite aggressively with this stuff. I suppose it's just a matter of having realistic expectations with it.

 

[Kal Madda]

See, on this, I agree with you. You're absolutely right, the 8GB models don't mean someone isn't a pro and this sort of gatekeeping is irritating. I used my 8GB Mac for software development for about a year and a half before finally upgrading, and while I'm glad I did finally upgrade, the 8GB Mac did serve me just fine for its time. I certainly did not consider it a slow machine by any stretch of the imagination (to the contrary, it was quite impressive what it could do with such limited RAM for the workloads I was doing, and even though I did notice the difference when upgrading, the 8GB one still held up well).

Here's what happens a lot on these forums: Most people either have 8GB Macs, or they have 16GB+ Macs. Most don't have a reference to compare to, so what ends up happening is that a lot of the folks who use 16GB Macs are adamant that 8GB isn't enough for anybody (and vice versa, there are a lot of users with 8GB Macs who haven't ever compared the 16GB ones on Apple Silicon, so they don't have a clear reference to compare with).

Part of this is exacerbated by Mac OS' RAM allocation behavior, and its tendency to try to fill up RAM no matter what you're doing. It doesn't give the clearest picture of how much RAM you actually need until you start looking at memory pressure (and especially the color of the graph, which does a good job of indicating when the performance slowdowns actually start happening).

Ya, that makes a lot of sense. I think a lot of people don’t realize that fact about macOS that it expands it’s RAM usage has you increase the RAM spec. I noticed that behavior when I upgraded my Mid 2012 MacBook Pro from 8GB to 16GB, the amount of RAM the system used went up with the amount of RAM. I think it’s like “yay, more room to sprawl!” 😂👍🏻.

 

[chucker23n1]

I agree, 16GB would be better given the cheap prices of RAM wholesale. But knowing Apple, they like to do market segmentation quite aggressively with this stuff. I suppose it's just a matter of having realistic expectations with it.

Well, to your point, it's more about market segmentation than actual cost. They're basically the same.

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MT62F1536M32D4DS-023 FAAT:B TR Micron DRAM LPDDR5 48G 1.5GX32 FBGA datasheet, inventory & pricing.

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(I believe Apple uses SK Hynix rather than Micron, but that shouldn't make a big difference.)

 

[ArkSingularity]

Ya, that makes a lot of sense. I think a lot of people don’t realize that fact about macOS that it expands it’s RAM usage has you increase the RAM spec. I noticed that behavior when I upgraded my Mid 2012 MacBook Pro from 8GB to 16GB, the amount of RAM the system used went up with the amount of RAM. I think it’s like “yay, more room to sprawl!” 😂👍🏻.

Mac OS very much does this on purpose. Part of it is because of the page cache and things of that sort, which have a lot more than just speculatively loaded cached files from the filesystem that might be needed in the future. The page cache (not sure if that's the right technical term on MacOS) has pages that contain code from binaries that are being executed, libraries that are being used, and all sorts of other data that is actively needed by applications that are executing also.

When you, say, load up Chrome, it's not going to just straight up load the entire Chromium binary into RAM and execute it. Instead, it loads up a tiny portion of it to bootstrap the execution, then loads additional pages as they are actually needed. This prevents it from having to waste a ton of RAM loading pages that contain code that might not need to be executed right now. (Technically, when it does load pages, it loads several at a time. This reduces how often it has to fetch, so there are still some pages that are loaded in a read-ahead manner, but it's not the entire binary).

(Some of this, by the way, very much get loaded into memory that isn't always labeled as cached on Activity monitor. I'm unsure why MacOS does this differently than Windows or Linux, but this indeed appears to be the case from the testing I've performed.)

Anyway, what MacOS does here is really smart: It will keep these pages in memory a lot longer than Windows or Linux might, and is generally much more hesitant to purge them before it actually needs to. The reason that MacOS does this (as I found out recently) was because it's actually quite a lot faster just to compress these pages and to decompress them when they're needed than it is to straight up purge them and have to refetch them from the disk completely.

This is why MacOS RAM requirements tend to balloon on machines with more RAM. A lot of it is this sort of memory that MacOS can take advantage of to reduce disk IO for applications that are running. It does have an impact on performance, but there are diminishing returns to some extent. Just because a workload uses 13GB on a 16GB system doesn't mean it won't run just fine on an 8GB system also.

I actually ran a test recently to see how far this could be pushed on systems with less than 8GB. It isn't a perfect test (had to use a VM, and I also ran decidedly light workloads, namely around 5 chrome tabs or so with a handful of other light applications like the app store and the calendar open at once. But the results were better than expected.)

 

[Kal Madda]

Mac OS very much does this on purpose. Part of it is because of the page cache and things of that sort, which have a lot more than just speculatively loaded cached files from the filesystem that might be needed in the future. The page cache (not sure if that's the right technical term on MacOS) has pages that contain code from binaries that are being executed, libraries that are being used, and all sorts of other data that is actively needed by applications that are executing also.

When you, say, load up Chrome, it's not going to just straight up load the entire Chromium binary into RAM and execute it. Instead, it loads up a tiny portion of it to bootstrap the execution, then loads additional pages as they are actually needed. This prevents it from having to waste a ton of RAM loading pages that contain code that might not need to be executed right now. (Technically, when it does load pages, it loads several at a time. This reduces how often it has to fetch, so there are still some pages that are loaded in a read-ahead manner, but it's not the entire binary).

(Some of this, by the way, very much get loaded into memory that isn't always labeled as cached on Activity monitor. I'm unsure why MacOS does this differently than Windows or Linux, but this indeed appears to be the case from the testing I've performed.)

Anyway, what MacOS does here is really smart: It will keep these pages in memory a lot longer than Windows or Linux might, and is generally much more hesitant to purge them before it actually needs to. The reason that MacOS does this (as I found out recently) was because it's actually quite a lot faster just to compress these pages and to decompress them when they're needed than it is to straight up purge them and have to refetch them from the disk completely.

This is why MacOS RAM requirements tend to balloon on machines with more RAM. A lot of it is this sort of memory that MacOS can take advantage of to reduce disk IO for applications that are running. It does have an impact on performance, but there are diminishing returns to some extent. Just because a workload uses 13GB on a 16GB system doesn't mean it won't run just fine on an 8GB system also.

I actually ran a test recently to see how far this could be pushed on systems with less than 8GB. It isn't a perfect test (had to use a VM, and I also ran decidedly light workloads, namely around 5 chrome tabs or so with a handful of other light applications like the app store and the calendar open at once. But the results were better than expected.)

That’s really interesting! I knew that macOS increased its RAM usage in the background when more RAM was available, but I didn’t know all of the reasons why. That’s actually really cool! 👍🏻

 

[ImKo96]

And those help (well, I'm not really sure how the display helps; you might), but no matter how fast the SoC or SSD, at some point, you want to stuff multiple gigabytes' worth of data into your RAM, and oops, you don't have enough physically available, so the OS needs to swap. That's wasteful, it's slow, and it creates strain on the SSD. And eleven years later, Apple can do better.

I agree with you, especially with how cheap RAM is. Obviously, RAM is RAM, and a bit in Apple hardware has the same value in a machine running Windows. After all, trying to revert physics is an inglorious task. BUT, the RAM usage between the two operating systems is incredibly different. I am pretty sure that engineers at Apple want to add RAM, but product pricing is part of a product stair designed to start at a Macbook Air and end in the Mac Studio (Mac Pro is useless). Let us not forget that a regular step cost increase between products is essential in marketing, and this baseline model is just a product that makes a transition between the Air and the Pro (a non-pro chip is a pro machine).

However, this does not imply that the experience with 8GB is terrible. It is a great machine when you consider the whole system architecture instead of focusing on crazy (and useless) benchmarks or a single spec. Yes, the SSD will be used as a RAM backup (as any other machine) but once again, the SSD drama is simply exaggerated, as the SSDs appear to be far more reliable than the manufacturer says (as any other typical warranty). Once again I say, let the market take its course. Pros know what they need!

 

[Kal Madda]

However, this does not imply that the experience with 8GB is terrible. It is a great machine when you consider the whole system architecture instead of focusing on crazy (and useless) benchmarks or a single spec. Yes, the SSD will be used as a RAM backup (as any other machine) but once again, the SSD drama is simply exaggerated, as the SSDs appear to be far more reliable than the manufacturer says (as any other typical warranty). Once again I say, let the market take its course. Pros know what they need!

Exactly, in my experience, the performance on the 8GB RAM M1 MacBook Air is just amazing. My primary computer is an M1 iPad Pro with 8GB of RAM, and I can have tons of very large 8K files with thousands of layers open in Affinity Photo and Affinity Designer, plus over 300 tabs open in Safari, plus several other apps open, and it never breaks a sweat. Of course, I know iPadOS is different from macOS, but I’ve seen similar results with the 8GB M1 MacBook Air as well. 8GB of RAM on the M1 Macs definitely feels a lot faster and more performative than 8GB of RAM on Intel chips, and feels a little snappier than even 16GB RAM Intel Macs, at least, that’s been my experience.

 

[bobcomer]

That’s really interesting! I knew that macOS increased its RAM usage in the background when more RAM was available, but I didn’t know all of the reasons why. That’s actually really cool! 👍🏻

That's not unique to MacOS, most modern OS's do the same thing. And yes, it is cool.

 

[HongKongRose]

Apple engineer: "Hey, all the newest macOS and software versions now requires more hardware resources to run properly, so maybe we should bump the minimum specs of the Macs up to 16 GB RAM and 512 GB SSD and we should fix..."

Apple top management: "But isn't it cheaper and more profitable to just keep selling the 8 GB RAM Macs for the top dollar and pretend no one will notice?"

Apple engineer: "No we are in 2023, not 2008, and that's not..."

Apple top management: "Yes it is fine don't worry, no one will notice!"

 

[Kal Madda]

Apple engineer: "Hey, all the newest macOS and software versions now requires more hardware resources to run properly, so maybe we should bump the minimum specs of the Macs up to 16 GB RAM and 512 GB SSD and we should fix..."

Apple top management: "But isn't it cheaper and more profitable to just keep selling the 8 GB RAM Macs for the top dollar and pretend no one will notice?"

Apple engineer: "No we are in 2023, not 2008, and that's not..."

Apple top management: "Yes it is fine don't worry, no one will notice!"

The newest macOS and software versions run just fine on the 8GB RAM configurations. That’s why they’re so popular. If they didn’t run well, then presumably customer satisfaction wouldn’t be as high as it is, and the 8GB RAM base spec wouldn’t be as popular as it is. Besides, this 8GB configuration is significantly cheaper than the last two years’ base spec models. If Apple really wanted to make “top dollar” they wouldn’t have provided us with this cheaper option, they’d just stick with the $2,000 entry price for the M3 Pro with 18GB of RAM. And the content creators probably wouldn’t have said a word about it, since they didn’t the last two base specs at that higher price point. But as soon as Apple offers a cheaper option, that’s them price gouging… 🙄.

 

[ArkSingularity]

See, and the folks saying "8GB performs really well for its spec" aren't wrong either. I've used both. I was shocked at how well 8GB performed with the workloads I was throwing at it, even with several gigs of swap usage and yellow memory pressure.

The differences start to become much more apparent with multitasking. Both feel lightning fast to open new apps and switch tasks when not much else is open, but you do start to feel the difference more with a bunch of other stuff open.(Granted, you don't really notice this quite as much if you aren't comparing them side by side. Both are still very fast even in yellow memory pressure, and in the grand scheme of things, waiting an extra 2 or 3 seconds for VSCode to launch is not a big deal.)

I'm mostly concerned about the future. I hate to see MacBooks having to be replaced before their time. A lot of the 2012 MacBooks shipped with 4GB of RAM, and that was probably sufficient for the everyday user back then, but today, a lot of these same MacBooks are still being used by a lot of people because they could be upgraded to 8GB or 16GB (nowadays CPUs are the bottleneck on these machines, but Apple Silicon was such a monumental leap that this is unsurprising. I don't think that this necessarily means that the M1 will be obsolete any time soon.)

My first Mac was a used 2012 that I snagged for about $600 before going to college, and it served me far better than a $600 PC would have. The second hand market is very important for the Apple ecosystem. It allows Apple products to be more accessible to a wider portion of the market without Apple necessarily having to make compromises on their products to bring the base cost down. My concern with aging base specs (in the age where soldered memory has become more commonplace) is that these markets might slowly become less accessible than they were in the past.

 

[Kal Madda]

See, and the folks saying "8GB performs really well for its spec" aren't wrong either. I've used both. I was shocked at how well 8GB performed with the workloads I was throwing at it, even with several gigs of swap usage and yellow memory pressure.

The differences start to become much more apparent with multitasking. Both feel lightning fast to open new apps and switch tasks when not much else is open, but you do start to feel the difference more with a bunch of other stuff open.(Granted, you don't really notice this quite as much if you aren't comparing them side by side. Both are still very fast even in yellow memory pressure, and in the grand scheme of things, waiting an extra 2 or 3 seconds for VSCode to launch is not a big deal.)

I'm mostly concerned about the future. I hate to see MacBooks having to be replaced before their time. A lot of the 2012 MacBooks shipped with 4GB of RAM, and that was probably sufficient for the everyday user back then, but today, a lot of these same MacBooks are still being used by a lot of people because they could be upgraded to 8GB or 16GB (nowadays CPUs are the bottleneck on these machines, but Apple Silicon was such a monumental leap that this is unsurprising. I don't think that this necessarily means that the M1 will be obsolete any time soon.)

My first Mac was a used 2012 that I snagged for about $600 before going to college, and it served me far better than a $600 PC would have. The second hand market is very important for the Apple ecosystem. It allows Apple products to be more accessible to a wider portion of the market without Apple necessarily having to make compromises on their products to bring the base cost down. My concern with aging base specs (in the age where soldered memory has become more commonplace) is that these markets might slowly become less accessible than they were in the past.

It’s interesting that you mention the 2012 MacBooks, my first Mac was my 13” Mid 2012 (non-retina) MacBook Pro. I bought it in 2019, so I got it really cheap because I was on a tighter budget at the time. I originally had 8GB of RAM, and then I decided to upgrade it to 16GB of RAM about a year later. It’s actually surprisingly solid, even 11 years after it was made, and I think that’s a testament to Apple’s build quality. The only hardware issue I’m having with it now is that the display flickers occasionally, I think it’s the display cable, and I’ve considered trying to fix it. All of that said, I’m not sure how many professional users would still be using the 2012 MacBook Pro at this point, I think it’s now more a cheap laptop to give kids at this point in it’s lifecycle, especially since it doesn’t run the latest versions of macOS. It also doesn’t run a lot of the software that the M1 Mac can, so it’s of very limited practicality at this point.

I guess I think a lot of people upgrade their computers about every 5 years. It’s nice to be able to extend their lifecycles beyond that, but I think especially for professionals it could become a stretch at some point trying to use a model older than that. I do think Apple Silicon will probably age better, though. 👍🏻

I think that on the used/refurbished market, people will be able to get used models with more RAM pretty cheap as well. I know that with the M1 Mac Mini, you can get 16GB RAM models pretty cheap as well as the 8GB ones. So I don’t think it will be too much of a problem for people in the used/refurbished market. Every Apple device I’ve ever bought has been either used or refurbished. 👍🏻

I understand the concern about the future, but I think the market will work things out. People will still be able to choose the RAM they want on the used and new market. If 8GBs is less practical for pro work in 3-5 years, then more will just get used or new 16GB models, and the 8GB models can be used by people with lighter needs like kids and lighter use cases. That’s at least the way I look at it. 👍🏻

 

[ArkSingularity]

It’s interesting that you mention the 2012 MacBooks, my first Mac was my 13” Mid 2012 (non-retina) MacBook Pro. I bought it in 2019, so I got it really cheap because I was on a tighter budget at the time. I originally had 8GB of RAM, and then I decided to upgrade it to 16GB of RAM about a year later. It’s actually surprisingly solid, even 11 years after it was made, and I think that’s a testament to Apple’s build quality. The only hardware issue I’m having with it now is that the display flickers occasionally, I think it’s the display cable, and I’ve considered trying to fix it. All of that said, I’m not sure how many professional users would still be using the 2012 MacBook Pro at this point, I think it’s now more a cheap laptop to give kids at this point in it’s lifecycle, especially since it doesn’t run the latest versions of macOS. It also doesn’t run a lot of the software that the M1 Mac can, so it’s of very limited practicality at this point.

I guess I think a lot of people upgrade their computers about every 5 years. It’s nice to be able to extend their lifecycles beyond that, but I think especially for professionals it could become a stretch at some point trying to use a model older than that. I do think Apple Silicon will probably age better, though. 👍🏻

I think that on the used/refurbished market, people will be able to get used models with more RAM pretty cheap as well. I know that with the M1 Mac Mini, you can get 16GB RAM models pretty cheap as well as the 8GB ones. So I don’t think it will be too much of a problem for people in the used/refurbished market. Every Apple device I’ve ever bought has been either used or refurbished. 👍🏻

I understand the concern about the future, but I think the market will work things out. People will still be able to choose the RAM they want on the used and new market. If 8GBs is less practical for pro work in 3-5 years, then more will just get used or new 16GB models, and the 8GB models can be used by people with lighter needs like kids and lighter use cases. That’s at least the way I look at it. 👍🏻

Well, in the used market, if many retailers aren't even stocking the 16GB models, the market is going to be flooded with 8GB Macs. In 3-5 years, the ones with upgraded RAM are going to get bought up much more quickly, driving up the price.

The second hand market isn't going to go away any time soon, but the market is still nowhere near as good as it used to be on that front.