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8GB RAM in M3 MacBook Pro Proves the Bottleneck in Real-World Tests
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Welcome to the mac world, in where the OS EOL will stop you from using your computer, and now they are also selling their hardware with less than the bare minimum specs (8/256 🤮)
I mean, nobody is forcing you to buy a Mac if you don’t want to… 🤷🏼♂️. But it would be kind of odd that you’d be in a Mac fan forum and not like Macs… 🤔
PS, the base spec M3 MacBook Pro comes with 8GB RAM and 512GB SSD, not 256GB. And Windows computers get about the same OS support lifespan, and in the case of the update to Windows 11, many got far less and are stuck on 10…
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I love Apple Products but the way Apple has declined into a former shadow of itself after Jobs departure and keeps doing absolutely devilish anti consumer decisions, essentially mocking their own customers, anti repair etc. is an absolute shame.
But more shameful are the blindfolded here defending the 8GB ram decision as if somehow Apple gets a pass but no one would accept anything even remotely similar from another company. This is what allows Apple to keep doing this, you pay an insane amount for a laptop with 8GB of ram and 256GB SSD and quickly come to their defense with the most ridiculous takes. "My dad is fine with it" yes, he is, because he's using it to browse news websites and other random ****. He won't notice if it actually slows down and craps all over the SSD with swapping. Just like my dad uses an absolute ******* PC and is fine because all he does is browse ******** websites and facebook and use excel, except it cost $500 instead $1600
But more shameful are the blindfolded here defending the 8GB ram decision as if somehow Apple gets a pass but no one would accept anything even remotely similar from another company. This is what allows Apple to keep doing this, you pay an insane amount for a laptop with 8GB of ram and 256GB SSD and quickly come to their defense with the most ridiculous takes. "My dad is fine with it" yes, he is, because he's using it to browse news websites and other random ****. He won't notice if it actually slows down and craps all over the SSD with swapping. Just like my dad uses an absolute ******* PC and is fine because all he does is browse ******** websites and facebook and use excel, except it cost $500 instead $1600
Upgrading to components with higher performance and energy efficiency isn’t “devilish” or “anti-consumer”. Most people aren’t interested in cracking open their computer and swapping out fragile internal components. Why keep using slower and less energy efficient components to appease the very very few people who would want to swap components? More customers benefit from the performance and efficiency benefits of the newer and better components than the “swappable” components which use older standards with lower speeds and higher energy consumption.
And just because we have a different opinion than you doesn’t mean we’re “blindfolded”. I’m perfectly fine with Windows PC manufacturers making 8GB base spec models as well. There’s nothing scandalous about it in my opinion, 8GB is a good base spec. And I’d be perfectly happy buying a Mac with 8GB RAM, 512GB SSD (yes, it is 512GB, not 256GB), and the high quality display, high performance, unrivaled battery runtime, high quality sound system, etc. that the new base spec M3 MacBook Pro has to offer. It’s a great value considering that the only way you could benefit from all of that other hardware before was by paying more, now it’s a lot cheaper to get if you don’t need excessive amounts of RAM. I’ve already talked about the kinds of work I’ve used my 8GB M1 Mac for, they’re hardly “basic tasks”. 8GB works beautifully, and is more than enough for most base spec customers. And the 8GB base spec models sell very well, and customer satisfaction is very high.
I have purchased several Windows PC's and laptops over the last several years and they all came with 8GB of RAM and not once has it been a problem and they are all crazy fast. The only Windows PC's with more than 8GB of RAM are my two gaming rigs and those need lots more RAM than 8GB because of the games I play.
I own several Macs and all were purchased with 8GB of RAM. My 2018 i5 Mini came with 8GB of RAM and I upgraded the RAM to 32GB because I fell for the 8GB is not enough. I recently purchased an M2 Mini with base specs. The M2 Mini is twice as fast as my i5 Mini with 4 times the RAM and the i5 Mini has the faster 256GB onboard SSD, go figure.
As for your example of Dad is fine with it or dad uses a crappy PC but is fine with it because all he does are the basics, that says that dad doesn't have a problem with 8GB and 8GB of RAM is good enough for the basic tasks.
Exactly my experience as well with the M-Series Macs. 👍🏻. I had an Intel Mac with 16GB of RAM, and my 8GB M1 Mac way outperforms it. RAM isn’t the only important spec for everyone, and to many it isn’t even the most important either. I’ve done heavy work like 3D modeling/sculpting on my 8GB M1 Mac without even touching swap memory. And for whatever reason, some people are scared of swap memory, but they really shouldn’t be. Swap memory has been around for a very long time, and I have yet to find a single example of premature SSD failure due to swap memory. If swap memory affected the SSD lifespan at all, it would likely be a while after the computer already lost OS support for latest OS releases. Swap memory is a normal system feature that’s existed for decades, and is nothing to be afraid of.
The same maxtech guy from youtube tested new apple macbooks with 8gb ram versus 2 or more year older macs with 16gb - in all cases newer cpu gave more performance versus old 16gb.
You just need to know which bottleneck you are hitting.
Since this year’s 8GB base spec provides better performance than yesteryear’s 16GB system, then that just makes the 8GB model an even better bargain! 👍🏻.
And that's the key point. I'm not hitting any bottlenecks with 8GB on my M2 Mini.
My 2018 Intel Mini gets used everyday up until I purchased the M2 Mini. I checked the SSD with DriveDX and it shows a loss of only 4% five years. My M2 Mini shows an SSD lifetime loss of 0%. Unless a user is punishing the SSD with TB of data written on a daily basis the SSD should outlast Apple OS support. We know that as fact because we see older Macs with onboard SSD's still for sale.
Yeah that's odd, I don't like macs (price).
And OS Support is not true, Windows gives you lots more years of support and software works a lots of years more, for example software for windows are slowly removing support for windows 8.1, windows 10 will have 2 more years of support from Microsoft and about 4 or 5 more years of application support from different manufacturers.
If you’re a Windows fan, and don’t like Macs, then why hang out in a Mac fan forum? Many Windows computers aren’t officially supported by Windows 11, and a bunch of janky modifications have to be made with things like registry edits in order to get them to install Windows 11. And Windows 10 will be dropped in 2025, that’s only 1 year from now since we’re in 2024. And many computers that don’t officially support Windows 11 are A lot less than 8 years old. One of my family members had a Windows computer that was 5 years old when Windows 11 was announced, but didn’t get Windows 11 due to Windows 11’s overly strict hardware requirements. And lots of heavier apps require newer versions of Windows as well. I can still install plenty of basic softwares on my old unsupported Intel Mac, but just not heavier apps that have higher requirements. And the same is generally true of Windows.
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TPM 2.0 was required by Microsoft to be sold with every Windows computer in 2016. It's used to store encryption keys and other secure information within TPM 2.0 and it's the reason Microsoft cutoff earlier versions such as TPM 1.2 but getting around that is rather simple by editing the registry and there are many websites that give a simple outline on how to do it. It is really easy to do with almost no risk unless a person is purposely trying to break the registry and as always it's best to backup the registry just like a Mac user backups their Macs via Time Machine.
I was able to install Windows 10 on a 2006 IBM ThinkPad with 4GB of RAM without a single registry edit. I could have installed Windows 11 but I dislike W11. The key component will be if a newer version of TPM will be required and Windows 12 will be just a few years away from Windows 11, that i'm not sure Microsoft will require a newer version of TPM for W12.
So there is a bit more longevity with Windows devices vs having to resort to unsupported Mac versions.
And there are softwares that add patches for running newer versions of macOS on unsupported Macs. But your average person isn’t going to do registry edits or the patcher softwares. What I’m talking about is official support, and 5-6 year old computers were dropped with official support with Windows 11. 👍🏻
Well, the weird entry-level Pro has been a “pro as in premium, not as in professional” thing for many years now. Heck, even if you go back to, say, the 2012 13-inch rMBP. It had a Retina display, but it had a weaker CPU, was integrated graphics-only, and so on. The $1,599 at least… gives you the same chassis, with most of the features that come with that.
I’m OK with that. Part of it is probably a weird “gotta buy the Pro” mentality among consumers and corporations, when the Air is sometimes a better product for them. Lighter, thinner, no fan. Cheaper, even.
But, I nonetheless think it’s time to give it 12 or even 16 GiB as a base config.
As for tablet-class, well. You could also flip that around and say the iPad SoCs are frankly overpowered for what they need to do.
I don't disagree with any of that. The recent years of non-pro Pros have been very odd indeed. It's like the base Pro is intended for buyers that need an Air but prefer the prestige of the name (or want a bigger/better screen).
I think it’s a good thing that customers now have a cheaper option for the MacBook Pro that allows them to benefit from the nice hardware that the 14” MacBook Pro has to offer. As you said, I think many people want the better display on the 14” MacBook Pro, and now they can get it much cheaper than they could before. 👍🏻
I would say that many pro workflows can benefit from the base spec MacBook Pro as well, I wouldn’t go so far as to say that the base spec pro isn’t professional. Maybe it’s not enough for some professionals, but it is for others.
By the way, the "tablet class SoC" comment was more in line with what can be produced for ~$40 today and run cool enough in a tablet... it's cheaper for Apple to design and produce those than it was to buy Intel i7 chips just a few years ago. However prices have only gone up as core component costs have fallen.
Historically we've been limited by CPU speed on many applications, but now even iPhone chips could be in a Mac and do well enough for basic/middling work. As CPU bottlenecks have gone it feels like artificial RAM and SSD bottlenecks are Apple's vision.
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I don’t know if the M3 is cheaper to produce than the Intel i7s costed or not, and I don’t think anyone has precise numbers on that. One thing that leads me to question that conclusion is the fact that the M3 is using a cutting edge 3NM process. The Intel i7s were just basic X86 chips. Could be wrong, but I’m guessing the M3 may cost more.
And I disagree that this is an “artificial bottleneck”. 8GB is a good base spec, and performs far better than 16GB Intel systems of yesteryear. 8GB is plenty for a base spec.
An Intel-based $1,099 13-inch current-gen MacBook Air would likely have the 134U and 164U options, for $332 and $448.
An Intel-based $1,599 14-inch current-gen low-end Pro would likely have the 115U through 165U options, for between $363 and $490.
Finally, the higher-end 14-inch and 16-inch models would likely go all the way to the 155H and 185H, for $503 and $640.
Now, Apple will likely get better volume discounts, sure. But I find it hard to believe they spend $332, let alone $490 on the M3.
Are you talking about just the Intel I7 chip alone, or the graphics cards as well? Where did you get those prices for Intel chips? I have never seen an Intel chip that costs that much. Not to say that it isn’t possible. And one thing I will say is that Apple is reported to have outlaid an unprecedented over 1 billion dollars on tape outs for the M3 alone, not even including the R&D or other production costs which are unknown as far as I can tell.
Nailed it! Adapting existing A series tech for use in Macs has provided an incredible financial boost for Apple.
Well, they also invest a lot of money into improving their CPU designs, and I think the key motivator was the Cook edict of owning or controlling all key technologies, and only secondarily to also rake in more margin.
These are Meteor Lake laptop CPUs. They include graphics.
Laptop CPU SKUs that are relevant for Apple have always cost this much.