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Benefit of 16GB of RAM
- Thread starter pcd213
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Again, pretending you’re right, where are the mass of posts?
You said my claims aren’t backed by my own experience. How is 8GB being insufficient 7 years ago somehow a reason for 8GB to be enough now?
As you keep banging on about posts, go look and see how many people wondered why their brand new Mac mini couldn’t run a 4K display properly on 8GB of RAM. Or how many people ask how much ram they need for editing home movies or editing photos or whatever. Heck there are a bunch of threads about how much memory to get right below this reply box.
Your arguments are getting dumber and dumber as the thread goes on. Admit defeat and bow out somewhat gracefully.
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He can't find any. So he's essentially just vamping instead.
I feel 16gb should be standard. While 8gb is still fine today for basic things, cost-wise it is a ripoff. Same with 128gb ssd as a base model option in 2019.
Go read what I replied to.
Or don’t, and use a slow computer. What do I care.
And yet you’re the one resorting to ad hominem attacks.
You DO realize the today’s macbook is not the same as the one from 7 years ago? And we’re not running the same version of macOS? You are aware that these things have changed?
How many of those threads conclusively show that 8GB is not enough for an average user?
The ZX80 had 1KiB (expandable to 16KiB) in 1980. It was replaced one year later by the ZX81 which was expandable to 64KiB.
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Really? Your argument is that software now uses less memory than it did 7 years ago?
Have you told the entire computer industry about your revelation? I think they’ll want to know because literally every computer maker on the planet is doing the opposite, and putting more memory into computers.
So that’s still a no to being able to find widespread complaints about memory in Macs?
Again, show me the posts. No need to keep showing your lack of understanding, I think that’s firmly established.
It's a bit more complicated. There are primarily two reasons why RAM needs grow over time: software abstractions (allow programmers to write more complex software faster at the cost of runtime efficiency) and data (images etc.). There was a sharp jump in data sizes few years ago when retina displays became commonplace, now, not so much. As to software abstractions, on the Mac side the tendency is actually the reverse — as more applications embrace Swift and immutable data structures, the RAM consumption is going down. Web apps are a problem since web frameworks tend to be very inefficient. And finally, we don't know what the future will bring — some sort of disruptive software tech might come along in few years that will suddenly need more RAM.
For the next couple of years, I see no need to go over 8GB for an average user.
In the case of Chrome, I tend to think it's their multi-process architecture that's to blame here:
https://www.chromium.org/developers/design-documents/multi-process-architecture
Note each tab has additional overhead running as a separate process under Chrome, and as such, it consumes more memory vs a more traditional architecture (i.e. single main process + threads). When inevitably we all wind up with more and more tabs open vs prior times, it adds up. I haven't done any recent analysis to dig any deeper on this vs i.e. Safari and Firefox, Opera etc., but it's on the TODO list.
In general, with the web evolving, ALL browsers are using more RAM today than previously, regardless (very few truly static web pages nowadays), but Chrome seems to add to that even further.
Yeah, it absolutely plays a role and I won't pretend to know the architecture of Chrome enough to be absolutely authoritative on all the reasons they have such high RAM use. But a lot of RAM used, and paged out to disk, for a tab or tabs that the user hasn't accessed in a while isn't a major impediment to performance. Unlike, needing to examine large data sets entirely to perform focused calculations.
Why settle for "fine"? I mean unless you can't afford it - go for great over "ok" or "fine". There is nothing wrong with not settling for passable. I'd argue that more RAM will make far more speed difference over a faster processor and SSD.
Maybe you just don't use yours like most people. I vehemently disagree with this notion that apps haven't gotten more resource heavy over the years or that technical advancement lets us do more with less. Things have only become more complex and intensive over the years and IMO, 8GB is the absolute bare minimum and that's if you can't afford a 16GB system. I'd much rather try to save up and get 16GB unless you absolutely have to go with 8GB. My current MBP has 16GB. My next one will have no less than 32GB. Using 4GB of RAM in 2019 is absolutely foolish and mind-boggling.
I really don't understand this hesitance over people choosing higher end specs. "You don't need it". Well there are a lot of things one doesn't necessarily need, but I won't get into that today. I think you get my point. If you are already dropping cash on a MBP, get the damn 16GBs of RAM, ffs, and don't put so much money into something that won't last very long.
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Well said, Stephen.R. Who knew that talking about the need for more RAM would bring out the armchair quarterbacks and keyboard warriors?! lol
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Surprise, still no threads linked where people are experiencing issues due to only having 8gb of ram. Just a bunch of limp “You just need it!” arguments. Again, don’t fall for lame empty arguments when it’s your 200 dollars they’re spending.
Fine vs ok - you’re just being pedantic.
But let’s say you’re right and my needs are far less than most, maybe you can show us the posts of folks routinely having problems with 8GB.
And again, nothing wrong with going for 16GB, I’m just saying most people don’t need it.
24/7. My phone has 8GB.
Then, my other phone, which has 3GB of RAM, simply cannot keep even ONE tab in Safari open, because it does not support swapping. Every single time I go back to any random app now, it reloads the app.
If the bare minimum amount of RAM works for you, then it just works. No need to be snide. But for some of us, and I can see we are not really in the minority, 8GB simply isn't enough. Again, just connect a 4K display and watch:
That's already past 8GB even with just 2-3 tabs in Safari.
True. But if it's that old, it probably has socketed RAM that you can upgrade.
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No I didn't say fine vs ok. You said "fine". I said why settle for fine OR "just ok" when instead you can have great?
I love how you keep saying where's the posts about 8GB RAM not being enough. Who's to say everyone would even post about that? Most would realize they need more RAM. And while there aren't a lot of posts dedicated to it, a lot of the people that post in threads like this that wish Apple would put 16GB in the base config for the 13" MBPs are these people who are having problems with 8GBs. They just aren't posting new threads about it because it's not like we can offer a hack or workaround to make 8GBs work better. They know they are stuck, so there is no point in whining about it.
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See my post above to Howard2k.
When “fine” is blazing fast, I’ll take fine. I love how people are just ignoring the use case in the OP to push this insane agenda that you should pay for something you don’t need. And four pages later no one can still link to users complaining about struggling Macs due to insufficient ram. I wonder why that is...hmmmmm
Yes, but it is so old that buying 8GiB RAM may not make much sense. Maybe upgrade to 6GiB if it becomes necessary.