8GB RAM on M3 MacBook Pro 'Analogous to 16GB' on PCs, Claims Apple

[Abazigal]

Its both !

It absolutely is an issue that on Mac SoC machines - which are not upgradeable and have non-replaceable parts - insufficient ram and excessive swapping will impact lifetime.

And Apple are banking on most of their users not being aware of this. And hey, they'll upgrade anyway, so who cares? More money for us.

These machines are NOT cheap. They should not be regarded as disposable by anybody, especially when its due to deliberate design and marketing policy.

In a way, it's highly reminiscent of throttle gate. While people largely blame Apple for not notifying them initially that their phones were being slowed down due to weak batteries, what many people didn't realise right away was that this was only an issue then because more people were starting to keep their phones longer, thus allowing the problem to surface and become more prominent.

Over time, Apple would adapt to longer upgrade cycles by offering battery replacement services, allowing users to monitor the health of their phone batteries and redesigning their phones to make them more readily serviceable. Today, I have no qualms about holding on to an iPhone for 4-6 years, knowing that it will receive software updates for at least 5 years.

This also seems to be the deal with the devil we make with Apple's M-series processors. My understanding is that the ram and SSD have to be soldered to the processor in order to enjoy the superior performance that we do. This of course, is to Apple's benefit because we have to pay their higher prices for ram and storage (cannot upgrade on our own), and is next to impossible to repair, but I guess the point is that there is still some benefit to the end user, and maybe the majority will simply not reach a point where this aggressive swapping of memory becomes an issue for them.

I could get an intel laptop with user-upgradable ram and storage, but the implication is that then I lose out on the performance and power efficiency, and if I am going to replace my laptop 3 years down the road, is the fact that it's basically a sealed box really that much of a drawback to me?

 

[ric22]

Soldering the RAM doesn't make a great difference to performance- far from it. A tiny performance gain, yes, and a little energy saving on the RAM too, but the reports I've read suggest we almost certainly wouldn't notice any real world difference in performance. Storage being soldered makes bugger-all difference to power consumption or performance.

Certainly it isn't worth the trade off in making an otherwise repairable computer disposable. It saves Apple a few pennies on construction costs and makes them a pile of cash by preventing upgrades. There's an excuse for doing it on a tiny device like a phone, but not on a device like a laptop- especially any laptop that isn't ultra-thin!

 

[ArkSingularity]

curios what they opened? just empty tabs? 4 safi tabs open, mail open is using 11.5gb. I couldn't even have YouTube open with mail open on my 8gb matchbook pro, I got tired of it having to constantly swap or having to only duo one app at time. I couldn't watch YouTube and use chrome for example. I'd have to close safari and open mail, close mail and open safari. dont want to degrade my ssd unnecessarily. upgraded to 16gb and don't regret it. if I want to game I still have to close everything else but least now I can have chrome(5 tabs), safari( 4 tabs and YouTube) as well as mail and discord open. with everything closed its using 6gb. so on 8gb Mac I was using 80% or so of ram doing nothing. also can anyone explain why MacBooks use more ram doing nothing then Mac mini? Mac mini sits around 3-4gb doing nothing. I've been swap free since getting 16gb I'd never recommend anyone get 8gb. iPhones and iPads have 8gb ram and close background apps to deal with it. but yes using your ssd(slower then what's availably on market) it can do a good job of hiding its failure, but if you fill your ssd up like my sister then you're in for a bad time and it's going shorten your life span. ssd especially small ones like 256gb have limited life spans no way around that, they will die its only matter of time.

Oh it most definitely ran a lot of memory/swap during the test. They were opening normal everyday websites (I'd have to pull up the video again for the details, but it's on Youtube somewhere).

The thing about web browsing is that the majority of the RAM usage on inactive tabs is pretty easy to swap/page out. Most of the data in memory from a page isn't necessarily going to be particularly actively used once you leave the tab, so it's pretty easy for the OS to just swap that data out to make space for other tabs that you are actively using. This data can be loaded back into memory fairly quickly when it's needed again. If you've ever had a bunch of tabs open and seen the browser "flash white" for a split second when revisiting an old tab, that's what it's doing.

So in other words, you often don't feel the performance impacts very much during browsing (even if you have a few gigs of swap usage) because much of the browser's data isn't really being actively used at any one given time.

You might be wondering about background javascript and things of that sort, and that's true. You'll find plenty of websites that do run stuff in the background (refreshing ads, etc), and the OS can still manage these pretty efficiently. The reason is because the OS is NOT just swapping out entire tabs at once, but is rather splitting up all of the memory into 16KB chunks and is keeping track of which ones are most actively used. MacOS is able to get as granular as it wants to with these, so it can keep actively-accessed portions of a tab's data in memory while swapping out the rest. (I'm simplifying how this stuff works a bit, but you get the idea).

 

[ThomasJL]

 

[ProfessionalFan]

Just as most of us suspected. 8GB RAM in an M3 is not the same as 16GB RAM in a Windows machine.

Will those of you who disparaged his earlier work now apologize to @vadimyuryev?

 

[jkmoses]

If 8GB is the same price as 16GB and it's not hurting you then why would you be against 16GB being the default?

I'm not sure where I said that I'm "against" 16GB. Could you show me where I said that? People often think that everyone in the world has the same use case on their computers as that person does. I'm here to tell you that most people on this forum are NOT the typical user. The typical user has their computer for 5-10 years and uses it for web surfing, basic photos, email, etc. I use PhotoShop and Illustrator among other things and find that 8GB on my M1 iMac does the job just fine. And, yes, I have a degree in Information Systems and have been working in the tech industry for 23+ years so I know what I'm talking about. I also agree that 8GB on an "M" processor is better than 16GB on an Intel machine. I know because I had a MacBook Pro for a work computer and it was sluggish even with 16GB of RAM doing what I needed to do.

 

[magbarn]

I'm not sure where I said that I'm "against" 16GB. Could you show me where I said that? People often think that everyone in the world has the same use case on their computers as that person does. I'm here to tell you that most people on this forum are NOT the typical user. The typical user has their computer for 5-10 years and uses it for web surfing, basic photos, email, etc. I use PhotoShop and Illustrator among other things and find that 8GB on my M1 iMac does the job just fine. And, yes, I have a degree in Information Systems and have been working in the tech industry for 23+ years so I know what I'm talking about. I also agree that 8GB on an "M" processor is better than 16GB on an Intel machine. I know because I had a MacBook Pro for a work computer and it was sluggish even with 16GB of RAM doing what I needed to do.

To be fair, the last Intel MacBook pros really had ancient 14nm Intel chips that were severely outclassed. Their AMD GPUs were also well behind and not state of the art. Get a modern Intel 13th gen laptop with 16gb and it is pretty fast.

 

[Abazigal]

If 8GB is the same price as 16GB and it's not hurting you then why would you be against 16GB being the default?

All other things equal, I won't complain to getting a machine with 16gb ram instead of 8 for the same price. But that's not what is being discussed here.

First, there's the assertion that Macs need to come with 16gb default because 8gb ram is apparently insufficient for users, which is what I am disputing. I am fairly confident that 8gb of ram in the MBA lineup (and to some extent, the M3 MBP) does suffice for the vast majority of users (especially the demographic that Apple is targeting with said lineup). It's not about forced obsolescence either, because Apple is actually facing the opposite issue where users are not upgrading precisely because the M1 chip was that good, and more ram likely won't let users eke out an extra year of software updates (Apple will probably choose to just unilaterally stop supporting all M1 Macs at a certain time regardless of spec).

The minority of users who do genuinely need more ram either opt to spend a little more for the extra 8 gb, or they are possibly using professional software like photoshop and would likely benefit from getting a Mac with the pro, max or ultra chip for the faster performance, in addition to the additional ram.

As to why I would seem to be arguing against my own self interests, I go back to my original point. While I wouldn't mind getting more free stuff, I am not so desperate and hard-up for free ram that I would knowingly lie and put my name to something I feel is patently false just to achieve those ends.

 

[Corefile]

First, there's the assertion that Macs need to come with 16gb default because 8gb ram is apparently insufficient for users, which is what I am disputing. I am fairly confident that 8gb of ram in the MBA lineup (and to some extent, the M3 MBP) does suffice for the vast majority of users (especially the demographic that Apple is targeting with said lineup). It's not about forced obsolescence either, because Apple is actually facing the opposite issue where users are not upgrading precisely because the M1 chip was that good, and more ram likely won't let users eke out an extra year of software updates (Apple will probably choose to just unilaterally stop supporting all M1 Macs at a certain time regardless of spec).

Computing isn't about neutering and constraining headroom available. All through computing history the upgradability of systems has allowed an existing system to be incrementally bettered. Now we have a company which neuters the ability to future proof systems without paying the upgrade tax. Apple is wringing every dollar from the masses. A better class of company would build in the headroom for their non-upgradable systems. But with Tim Apple in charge, he only know dollars and cents, not sense.

 

[Motorola68000]

You can go back to the first few Mac mini m1 threads and read all the doomsayer posts you want.

So you can't post a link? The M1 Mac mini came out in November 2020 and I took delivery of mine on 17th November 2020, so if anyone was suggesting back then about doom and gloom 2 year predictions I'd be somewhat surprised. However Apple had not indicated its intention to seriously enter media services and games then, which require more memory, and potentially more swapping. Because of this clear advertising from Apple in their latest M3 advertising, about devices being used for games and intention to grow that area, there really could be a nightmare awaiting those with 8Gb devices now, bought on the back of Apple suggesting 8Gb was equivalent to 16Gb, where games could induce significant swapping and even newer software where RAM demands may be higher, could also accelerate deterioration of the SSD, which cannot for most customers be replaced or upgraded.

Yes it might last and hopefully will, but if it doesn't it won't be in warranty and for all intensive purpose the device could be unusable for anything but minor functions.

Personally I believe Apple will make 16Gb the base as the cost of doing that could be far far less than the cost of a class action, and where Apple really does want devices that customers are happy with.

Cost to Apple of 16Gb instead of 8Gb.....Suspect its about $20, or less as there would be a saving on producing the 8Gb form, keeping the range more streamlined, and where of course $20 and where if customers devices start to fail early, or not function for the purpose Apple themselves suggested, the cost could be far greater.

So even if they had to hike the price $30 for an increased base RAM configuration it would make sense, and I will be surprised if the next Mac computing devices don't step up the base RAM to 16Gb albeit configurations other than 16Gb are plausible.

Would be very difficult for Apple given the comment about 8Gb is equivalent to 16Gb which is just WRONG!

 

[magbarn]

So you can't post a link? The M1 Mac mini came out in November 2020 and I took delivery of mine on 17th November 2020, so if anyone was suggesting back then about doom and gloom 2 year predictions I'd be somewhat surprised. However Apple had not indicated its intention to seriously enter media services and games then, which require more memory, and potentially more swapping. Because of this clear advertising from Apple in their latest M3 advertising, about devices being used for games and intention to grow that area, there really could be a nightmare awaiting those with 8Gb devices now, bought on the back of Apple suggesting 8Gb was equivalent to 16Gb, where games could induce significant swapping and even newer software where RAM demands may be higher, could also accelerate deterioration of the SSD, which cannot for most customers be replaced or upgraded.

Yes it might last and hopefully will, but if it doesn't it won't be in warranty and for all intensive purpose the device could be unusable for anything but minor functions.

Personally I believe Apple will make 16Gb the base as the cost of doing that could be far far less than the cost of a class action, and where Apple really does want devices that customers are happy with.

Cost to Apple of 16Gb instead of 8Gb.....Suspect its about $20, or less as there would be a saving on producing the 8Gb form, keeping the range more streamlined, and where of course $20 and where if customers devices start to fail early, or not function for the purpose Apple themselves suggested, the cost could be far greater.

So even if they had to hike the price $30 for an increased base RAM configuration it would make sense, and I will be surprised if the next Mac computing devices don't step up the base RAM to 16Gb.

Would be very difficult for Apple given the comment about 8Gb is equivalent to 16Gb which is just WRONG!

One of the few recent AAA macos titles BG3 is pretty bad on 8gb. You really need 16gb to run. If/when more AAA titles come to macos with ray tracing, the 8gb will be even more pathetic.

The cost to Apple for making 16gb standard is more than $20, they see it as a loss of profit from those willing to pay the extra $200 or 10% more profit for AAPL for the 16gb models. Since Tim Scrooge is a dollar and cents guy, he's not giving away that cash cow anytime soon.

 

[GalileoSeven]

Another burn (based on the earlier Max Tech review)

Sorry Apple, turns out 8GB of memory on a Mac isn't anything like 16GB on a PC after all

Apple's claims unsurprisingly aren't true.

www.pcgamer.com

 

[ric22]

Computing isn't about neutering and constraining headroom available. All through computing history the upgradability of systems has allowed an existing system to be incrementally bettered. Now we have a company which neuters the ability to future proof systems without paying the upgrade tax. Apple is wringing every dollar from the masses. A better class of company would build in the headroom for their non-upgradable systems. But with Tim Apple in charge, he only know dollars and cents, not sense.

Precisely! Providing the absolute bare minimum in non-upgradable systems is simply indefensible.

 

[trip1ex]

So you can't post a link? The M1 Mac mini came out in November 2020 and I took delivery of mine on 17th November 2020, so if anyone was suggesting back then about doom and gloom 2 year predictions I'd be somewhat surprised. However Apple had not indicated its intention to seriously enter media services and games then, which require more memory, and potentially more swapping. Because of this clear advertising from Apple in their latest M3 advertising, about devices being used for games and intention to grow that area, there really could be a nightmare awaiting those with 8Gb devices now, bought on the back of Apple suggesting 8Gb was equivalent to 16Gb, where games could induce significant swapping and even newer software where RAM demands may be higher, could also accelerate deterioration of the SSD, which cannot for most customers be replaced or upgraded.

Yes it might last and hopefully will, but if it doesn't it won't be in warranty and for all intensive purpose the device could be unusable for anything but minor functions.

Personally I believe Apple will make 16Gb the base as the cost of doing that could be far far less than the cost of a class action, and where Apple really does want devices that customers are happy with.

Cost to Apple of 16Gb instead of 8Gb.....Suspect its about $20, or less as there would be a saving on producing the 8Gb form, keeping the range more streamlined, and where of course $20 and where if customers devices start to fail early, or not function for the purpose Apple themselves suggested, the cost could be far greater.

So even if they had to hike the price $30 for an increased base RAM configuration it would make sense, and I will be surprised if the next Mac computing devices don't step up the base RAM to 16Gb albeit configurations other than 16Gb are plausible.

Would be very difficult for Apple given the comment about 8Gb is equivalent to 16Gb which is just WRONG!

You can write a book but you can't look for the early M1 Mini threads on this site?

 

[Motorola68000]

You can write a book but you can't look for the early M1 Mini threads on this site?

As I never made the claim I need not validate it? But I did give a cursory look and could find no claims. It would have seemed strange if there was, because as I mentioned our intake of Mac mini's never arrived until 17th November 2020? So it would require extra sensory perception for those receiving Mac mini's in that cohort as the timeline would appear to be shot. But by all means I'm happy to accept there were, but it was not our experience, and it was not me quoting the comment, so quite why anyone believes the burden should fall on someone else? To not post a link quoted then expect me to find it smacks of obfuscation.

 

[trip1ex]

As I never made the claim I need not validate it? But I did give a cursory look and could find no claims. It would have seemed strange if there was, because as I mentioned our intake of Mac mini's never arrived until 17th November 2020? So it would require extra sensory perception for those receiving Mac mini's in that cohort as the timeline would appear to be shot. But by all means I'm happy to accept there were, but it was not our experience, and it was not me quoting the comment, so quite why anyone believes the burden should fall on someone else? To not post a link quoted then expect me to find it smacks of obfuscation.

This sounds like it was written by AI.

 

[Motorola68000]

This sounds like it was written by AI.

OBFUSCATION AGAIN. The old saying is put up or.... but I'm not going to fall out over someone falling to back up their comment. Our M1 iMacs and our M1 Mac minis have performed over and above the course of duty. Looking to replace the Mac mini's with M3 and we've left the M1 iMacs out in the field as they are still doing their job well. Not updated to iMac M3 for that reason. Not gone to anything M2.

 

[trip1ex]

OBFUSCATION AGAIN. The old saying is put up or.... but I'm not going to fall out over someone falling to back up their comment. Our M1 iMacs and our M1 Mac minis have performed over and above the course of duty. Looking to replace the Mac mini's with M3 and we've left the M1 iMacs out in the field as they are still doing their job well. Not updated to iMac M3 for that reason. Not gone to anything M2.

Which AI?

 

[Motorola68000]

Which AI?

Sad when someone can't back up their post and resorts to obfuscation for all to see rather than just post the quote they allege others were making. As the old saying goes PUT UP OR S UP.

 

[trip1ex]

Sad when someone can't back up their post and resorts to obfuscation for all to see rather than just post the quote they allege others were making. As the old saying goes PUT UP OR S UP.

Grok? Is that you?

 

[Motorola68000]

trip1ex. As I think we've exhausted the situation, so in the air of goodwill in the season of goodwill I wish you and yours a Happy Christmas and a Healthy, Happy and Prosperous New Year, and if Christmas is not your thing, then the same wishes whatever you celebrate or believe.

We must never forget that what might seem so important on these bulletin boards pales into insignificance with what is going in the world, and yes, I've been around the block a long long time, in my 72nd year now, so being in God's waiting room (whichever God or belief system you have- or not), don't want to take any chances falling out with anyone.

 

[trip1ex]

ChatGPT?

 

[Motorola68000]

ChatGPT?

No its Trip1lexCantSupplythelinkGPT