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8GB RAM on M3 MacBook Pro 'Analogous to 16GB' on PCs, Claims Apple
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SSD lifetimes are measured in many many petabytes (that's from 2014, and life stats have only gotten better.) Until there's actually drive failures on Apple's laptops, the idea that you're going to cripple your machine with less RAM is a fairy tale.
Just count your lucky stars you're getting 8GB and not 4GB. Thank you, Apple and Tim Cook!
My 16 gb in my 14 inch gets filled up quickly just from five Firefox tabs, and if I try to play any demanding game or run generative AI I hit swap.
I had a 13" M1 MBP for 3 years the 8gb RAM was never an issue (then again I don't have 20 tabs open at any given time) the only issue I had was with the 256gb storage (ended up with only 40gb available after 3 years)
Having said that, I have upgraded to the 16gb RAM on the M3, not because I needed it, but rather just in case, as I intend to keep it for at least 5 years.
Just had my M3 delivered, the difference is immediately obvious.
Check out the Luke Miami review, it's the only one that gets the point.
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I call it Apple greed, and it is the major reason why I will not buy any M3 MacBook. The amount of money is completely over the top for such a low specced MacBook Pro, and I think it's downright bad that the company claims to be there for the creative professional, I see it as a money grab. No Apple I will stay with my MacBook Pro 16" i9 32GB RAM 2TB SSD Radeon Pro 5600m 8GB and will not pay for your marketing ******** under Tim Crook. it's all marketing wind.
Should someone paying 1600 bucks for a "pro" laptop have to omit certain programs from the list of things they are allowed to use?
That's because you don't have Dynamic Cache!
Also 16gb of RAM uses less swap than 8gb and 24gb would use even less than 16gb, the point is they all use swap, so stop misleading people 😡
My main PC has 64GB RAM, 16GB VRAM, and 4TB Storage.
Lowest I'll go is 16GB RAM and 1TB SSD and that's just for basic day to day usage.
I use my PC for gaming/AI/video editing. There is no way I'll get by on an 8GB/256GB macbook lmao. I don't care what Apple say.
16GB RAM and 512GB should be baseline across all macs.
if I were to buy a Mac I'd need 96GB RAM and 2TB minimum. You can see why 8GB/256GB is a joke.
Lowest I'll go is 16GB RAM and 1TB SSD and that's just for basic day to day usage.
I use my PC for gaming/AI/video editing. There is no way I'll get by on an 8GB/256GB macbook lmao. I don't care what Apple say.
16GB RAM and 512GB should be baseline across all macs.
if I were to buy a Mac I'd need 96GB RAM and 2TB minimum. You can see why 8GB/256GB is a joke.
It’s a Pro, 8gb is just not acceptable in this day and age for a premium machine.
My 15 inch pro in 2014 had 16gb as standard!
My 15 inch pro in 2014 had 16gb as standard!
And if you opted for the GT 750M on that MBP, you also had 2 GB VRAM added on. While on this 2023 machine, it is 8GB total.
I work in IT Support and my PC has 8GB of RAM and it runs Windows 10. I'm perfectly fine with it.
We definitely see performance difference between 8GB and 16GB AS machines. As long as the workload is light (students), this difference is insignificant to the point of being moot. But we see responsiveness issues on heavily-used staff machines that have only 8gb (most have 16, luckily). I would say that 8GB in these machines does perform much better than expected, but that additional RAM is still necessary for anything but the lightest workloads. The base 8GB will likely make those machines functionally obsolete significantly sooner, as the OS bloats, than they would be had the base RAM been more. (Try an intel MBA with the base 4GB of ram vs. one with 8GB of ram, for example. The latter is still a very usable computer, the former is unbearably slow. I expect the 8GB AS machines to be hit in a similar way at some point. I hope I'm wrong about that.) Anything than *needs* real ram (such as Parallels) will benefit hugely as well of course. As another point of reference; working on extremely large still images begins to chug badly, even on AS machines with 16GB, as compared to my 2009 Mac Pro 4,1/5,1 with RX580 and 96GB of ram. Just another example of how important RAM can be, because in light workloads there is no doubt the AS machines feel more responsive and ultimately perform better than my Mac Pro. But under heavy workloads the Mac Pro behaves vastly better, simply due to the amount of RAM it has. RAM: there is no substitute.
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Your Point being?
I don't really care whether the previous chip was bottle necked!
I only care the M3 is 37% faster 🤓
Apple RAM upgrade for 8-16GB is $200 always, regardless of sale price. Microsoft RAM upgrade is $300 always for 8-16GB, regardless of sale price because the sale isn’t on the RAM. It’s on the computer. Are you trying to say that the sale only applies to the RAM and not the whole unit? Proof? Give me the bill of materials and the itemized list of component prices MS charged the retailer. Oh, can’t? Guess you are wrong. Sorry, retail doesn’t work that way. Retailers pay the same amount to the manufacturer no matter what, unless they get a volume deal, but that’s on the whole computer, not the individual RAM. Consumers usually pay full price but occasionally get a deal… on the whole computer and the retailer takes less money while the manufacturer got the full wholesale price. Your comparisons make no sense whatsoever.
Once upon a time, Apple did offer discounts for Black Friday. They stopped that a few years ago in exchange for gift cards. Let’s throw in gift cards now, which in your world, makes Apple’s RAM upgrades cheaper. NOT, but that’s essentially the same kind of comparison you made. A sale doesn’t make upgrades any more or less money. It makes the whole computer cost less. Who’s to say your comparison wasn’t because Amazon decided to discount the Intel processor and not the RAM? See how far down the rabbit hole that goes where you can invent anything to prove a fallacy.
The M3 base destroys your machine in every task....but you stick to your guns 😂
Eats Pentiums for Breakfast too I hear.
But you won't ever see Tim Cook to a "bake off" to try to prove any of these spurious claims. My old Mac Pro from 2010 has 64GB in it!
Poor Timmy. You're no Barnum or Bailey, but, nevermind. Clearly facts don't matter here.
But you won't ever see Tim Cook to a "bake off" to try to prove any of these spurious claims. My old Mac Pro from 2010 has 64GB in it!
Poor Timmy. You're no Barnum or Bailey, but, nevermind. Clearly facts don't matter here.
If you're gonna be running VMs and containers why would you even consider buying a machine with so little RAM? Isn't that like buying a subcompact car and then being put out when you can't use it to move a sofa or tow a boat or whatever?
Or maybe in this case it's more like getting annoyed at the car company for not making a pickup truck that can tow boats and haul sofas that's also as cheap as a subcompact car?
People who buy a machine with 8Gb of RAM can do lots of basic stuff on it just fine. As an example: my workflow is text-based. Lots of tedious editing, scrolling, jumping around in documents. I'm prone to motion sickness, so having a crisp display with a higher refresh rate is super useful to me. That's actually understating it: it can be the difference between whether I'm able to work at all or not.
I use a 4K/144hz external display with a low response time when I know I'm gonna be staring at the screen for hours, but if I ever do need to work for an extended period on the laptop display I know I will eventually get queasy. I get way less queasy way less quickly on my 14" M1 Pro than on my 2018 15" Pro. It's night and day.
Suggesting that every "pro" workflow is RAM-heavy is just silly. Mine is a "pro" workflow in the sense that I use it to do my work as a professional. But I really don't need a ton of RAM to open a few Word docs and a handful of reference web pages.
I do greatly benefit from the ProMotion screens, though. I said for the longest time (before the 120hz M1 Pros came out but after the 15" Air was rumored) that my perfect machine would be a big-screened Air with a ProMotion display. Sadly, Apple has decided that I can only get the speedy display by purchasing a machine that is comically overpowered for my needs. Seen in that light, the 14" M3 base model is almost exactly what I was looking for since I don't need tons of compute, RAM, or even storage, but I do need the best screen I can get.
All that said, given the super low cost of RAM and SSDs right now, 8Gb on a $1600 machine still seems offensively stingy and I can't really think of any reason it makes sense outside of protecting Apple's high holy profit margin. If they had just gone with 16/512 as the base I'd honestly have no complaints. As it is, we don't come to Apple devices expecting them to be bargains and the cost to jump from 8 to 16 amortized over the life of the machine really isn't enough to quibble over in the grand scheme of things.
For me the M3/M3Pro/M3Max is not necessary and a complete waste of money. I have a MacBook Pro 16 late 2019 32GB RAM 2TB SSD Radeon Pro 5500M 8Gb who does all very well. In music production I get easily 105 tracks, the max I ever used was 55 tracks recording a classical orchestra with my RME soundcard. So I see no point in supporting Apple greed or listen to the marketing wind of Apple.
The M3 has no Pro in it's name or did you not notice that?
What it does have is, pro level hardware or have you not noticed that either?
When they are crummy apps, yeah. Like saying my car makes a crummy boat.