Benefits of having 16gig RAM on the M1 MBP 13"

[nph]

A question for those who have the upgraded to 16 Gig RAM 13 MBP.
What are the benefits you see?
I have noticed with a lot of programs it slows down a bit and if I play BG3 it gets real hot and can slow down more unless I quit every other program.
Looking at the new 14" having 16G as a base kind of tells me that is where the base should be.
I like the 13 MBP, it is light and fast enough for my needs and I really like the Touchbar so I am thinking about trading in my 8g version for a 16G.
This would probably help me to keep it for quite a few years to come.
To me it is the perfect combo if size, weight, speed and screen size/quality!

I tried the 14" and I don't need the extra ports, weigh or extra cores. I fully expect the 13MBP to disappear next year and be replaced with an upgraded Air.
Hence I will keep my 13 for years to come and if they do come out with an upgrade I expect the 16G version would keep it value as trade in even better.
But question is will I see some real world improvements with 16G RAM? Less stress of the SSD so maybe even some improved battery life?
I love to have a ton of apps open at the same time, Mail, Music, Safari (lots of tabs), Note, Monitor, XCode, Photos, Firefox and one or two Office apps.
Also will hook it up to my digital piano and use with Garage band and I assume with a lot of instruments it will eat RAM or?

Appreciate any advice/info from those who upgraded or went directly to the 16G Ram version.

Thanks

 

[Fatus_Asticus]

I started with a mba 8 gb of Ram it’s possible to do it but really 16gb should be the minimum for anyone doing coding or any kind of photo editing.

I ended up going with a 16 mbp with 16gb and if I got the mba again it with be 16gb.

 

[nph]

Was that with M1 or intel? I notice a lot people state M1 8Gig ram is equal to 16G with intel. I find that a bit hard to believe, RAM is RAM no matter how you utilize it.

 

[iamMacPerson]

Was that with M1 or intel? I notice a lot people state M1 8Gig ram is equal to 16G with intel. I find that a bit hard to believe, RAM is RAM no matter how you utilize it.

The M1 is much more RAM efficient compared to Intel. What they mean is the RAM stretches more. While it is more forgiving with less RAM, I would still get the 16GB unless you’re just doing basic tasks. Sure, you can video edit on 8GB, but from what I have seen it can do some extensive disk-swap, which is not exactly great for the SSD. Before getting my MBP, I was running Final Cut, Pixelmator and multiple Safari tabs at a time on my 16GB M1 mini and was using around 10-12GB of RAM.

 

[madat42]

There are some YouTube videos out there of BG3 on the M1 Macs comparing 8GB to 16GB and it sounds like the game's producers are taking full advantage of the higher memory. Not sure how that deals with heat though.

 

[MrGunnyPT]

I had a base model air when I sold my 16" i9, and I gotta say it's doable to do cloud work on it and with a VM but the problem is that you'll be swapping like crazy. For anyone doing work you should definitely go for 16GB and if you into VMs the 32GB is a must.

 

[Fishrrman]

Get the 16gb version.
It will the best $200 you ever spend on a Mac...

 

[nph]

Well I need to trade in my 8Gig machine that I have had for a year so I will assume I will lose some money on it.
On the other hand I will have a fresh battery...

 

[photoj2754]

I had the 2015 13” MacBook Pro for the last 6 years with 8G and was running Photoshop Elements and Photo Mechanic while working on my website and never had problems. But on the new 16” I just bought I went with 16. Figured I'd be fine for the next five years or so.