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Better to have i5 quad core or 16gb?

T

TorontoSS

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Nov 9, 2009
1,117
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Hello,

I noted a refurb showing last years MacBook air with 16gb RAM and 256GB. It's at a similar price as the 2020 MBA with a student discount at 512gb with a quad core i5 chip.

Is it better to get 16GB with a dual core chip i5 or better to get 8GB RAM with a quad core i5?

I pretty much just use word/other Office 365 programs, browse the web and youtube etc. i'm not a heavy user and coming from a late 2013 MBP.

Thanks for you insight!
 
Go for the 16gb. i5 chip is too hot for you to really notice the difference. On the other hand 16gb helps a lot more because 8gb is very easy to reach. Source: I have an i5/16gb/512gb 2020 Air.
 
I have had 2019 with 16gb and 2020 with i5 and 8gb. Would get the 2019 with 16gb because the 2020 has issues with heating. The keyboard is not that much different tbh. It feels pretty much same speed and 8gb I didnt run out of memory for normal use (I do visual studio code with youtube some pdf and website reading, and hbo).
 
For your usage, I would stick with the Dual Core and upgrade to 16GB of RAM.
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lllc said:
I have had 2019 with 16gb and 2020 with i5 and 8gb. Would get the 2019 with 16gb because the 2020 has issues with heating. The keyboard is not that much different tbh. It feels pretty much same speed and 8gb I didnt run out of memory for normal use (I do visual studio code with youtube some pdf and website reading, and hbo).
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I strongly disagree with the recommendation to go with the 2019 over the 2020. The 2020 issues with heating are precisely because most people went with the quad-core processor upgrade (which gets hotter). The 2019 and 2020 MBAs have the same heatsink and thermal design.

Go 2020 MBA, but just stick with the stock processor (dual core). You'll have much faster single core speeds, faster RAM, larger standard SSD, and worlds better keyboard than the 2019.
 
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interesting! i would have assumed the answer would have been to get this years! i didn't think RAM mattered as much for someone who doesn't have much pro usage?
 
I must have an amazing i5 machine then because I (like OP) "use word/other Office 365 programs, browse the web and youtube etc." and have no heating issues at all.
 
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What is pro usage? Anyway ram doesnt really seem to matter that much.
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Bolanders said:
I must have an amazing i5 machine then because I (like OP) "use word/other Office 365 programs, browse the web and youtube etc." and have no heating issues at all.
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There is many people who are having heating issues, its just luck if you get good one
 
lllc said:
What is pro usage? Anyway ram doesnt really seem to matter that much.
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There is many people who are having heating issues, its just luck if you get good one
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Oh you mean like the guy who watched 5 videos at a time, while listening to music, browsing photos, looking up directions, and viewing the web all at the same time.

Get the newest one OP. Try it if you don't like it or it doesn't work for you then return it.
 
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Funny how freely folks say to get 16GB and not a single one thought to ask what your current usage shows via Activity Monitor memory tab / Memory Pressure graph?

Super easy to spend other folks money I guess.

Far fewer people actually need 16GB RAM than think they do. Typically I say if you have to ask you probably don't need it.

But since you already have a mac, it's super simple to see what your actual usage is right now when doing your typical workload. See https://support.apple.com/guide/activity-monitor/view-memory-usage-actmntr1004/mac

As for 2019 vs 2020 -- consider whether you want the potentially-still-problematic butterfly keyboard on the 2019 or the 2020 return to the hopefully-trouble-free scissor keyboard.

256 vs 512gb - again that's back to what do you need to have onboard the system when you're not sitting at your desk. External drives are great, but they're also a pain in the azz if you need to plug it in 80% of the time you're using the computer. Look at what your current storage usage is, and what it'll be if you clean up some of your old crud, utilize more icloud/offloaded storage/etc. If you're within 20% of the 256GB mark then it might make sense to go for 512GB
 
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deeddawg said:
Funny how freely folks say to get 16GB and not a single one thought to ask what your current usage shows via Activity Monitor memory tab / Memory Pressure graph?

Super easy to spend other folks money I guess.

Far fewer people actually need 16GB RAM than think they do. Typically I say if you have to ask you probably don't need it.

But since you already have a mac, it's super simple to see what your actual usage is right now when doing your typical workload. See https://support.apple.com/guide/activity-monitor/view-memory-usage-actmntr1004/mac

As for 2019 vs 2020 -- consider whether you want the potentially-still-problematic butterfly keyboard on the 2019 or the 2020 return to the hopefully-trouble-free scissor keyboard.

256 vs 512gb - again that's back to what do you need to have onboard the system when you're not sitting at your desk. External drives are great, but they're also a pain in the azz if you need to plug it in 80% of the time you're using the computer. Look at what your current storage usage is, and what it'll be if you clean up some of your old crud, utilize more icloud/offloaded storage/etc. If you're within 20% of the 256GB mark then it might make sense to go for 512GB
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thanks for that. that's very useful. the activity monitor shows about 6.1gb ram is being used. With about 6 of 8 being used, am I good to keep at 8?
 
TorontoSS said:
thanks fort hat. that's very useful. the activity monitor shows about 6.1gb ram is being used. With about 6 of 8 being used, am I good to keep at 8?
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If that's your typical usage, than I say you should be fine.

Remember that macOS does use virtual memory and will swap out stuff from ram to ssd that's not been touched in a while if it needs to do so. Then bring it back into memory when needed. You don't "run out of memory" - the OS just pushes unneeded stuff off to the SSD until it's needed again.

Years ago with slow spinning hard disks this made a noticable difference -- especially if frequency switching between programs which consumed most of the memory.

With today's fast SSDs, it is not really noticeable except with very specific workloads.

Unless you plan to start into heavy development and intend multiple virtual machines, 8GB should be fine for the forseeable future (~5yr).
 
deeddawg said:
If that's your typical usage, than I say you should be fine.

Remember that macOS does use virtual memory and will swap out stuff from ram to ssd that's not been touched in a while if it needs to do so. Then bring it back into memory when needed. You don't "run out of memory" - the OS just pushes unneeded stuff off to the SSD until it's needed again.

Years ago with slow spinning hard disks this made a noticable difference -- especially if frequency switching between programs which consumed most of the memory.

With today's fast SSDs, it is not really noticeable except with very specific workloads.

Unless you plan to start into heavy development and intend multiple virtual machines, 8GB should be fine for the forseeable future (~5yr).
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Awesome - thanks for your help! i think i'm good to go with 8 then and just get this years! i think it's worth it just for the keyboard!
 
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Don't most apps even basic ones use multicore?

I would think i5 then, unless you got a million things running at once or are doing lots of heavy encode stuff in which case you might want to get a Pro instead anyways since you'll be limited by thermal throttling and a lower voltage class chip.

The value prop is better too $100 bump, vs. $200 for 16gb.
 
Bolanders said:
Oh you mean like the guy who watched 5 videos at a time, while listening to music, browsing photos, looking up directions, and viewing the web all at the same time.

Get the newest one OP. Try it if you don't like it or it doesn't work for you then return it.
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I was just stressing the machine a little. I generally don’t watch 5 videos together. Isn’t it the same as performing a benchmark test? Although I really don’t think what I tried was particularly stressful.
 
Actually watching videos does not stress the cpu but the gpu chip. I dont know if its integrated to the cpu? but it doesnt seem to draw any usage from cpu watching youtube video
 
thadoggfather said:
I would think i5 then, unless you got a million things running at once or are doing lots of heavy encode stuff in which case you might want to get a Pro instead anyways since you'll be limited by thermal throttling and a lower voltage class chip.

The value prop is better too $100 bump, vs. $200 for 16gb.
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Question was more about choosing between 2019 refurb i5 config and a 2020 i5 config. but yes, for a 2020 I'd say the i3 to i5 bump is worthwhile, and the memory bump depends on ones specific usage / need. (and again, most folks who are unsure if they need it probably don't)
 
TorontoSS said:
i mean i don't do video / photo editing.
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I would recommend the 2020 model. For what you describe 8GB should be sufficient. MacOS is pretty efficient at using RAM. The keyboard is better on the 2020 model, and the quad-core will offer more of a boost when opening programs, etc. than the additional RAM.
 
thadoggfather said:
Don't most apps even basic ones use multicore?

I would think i5 then, unless you got a million things running at once or are doing lots of heavy encode stuff in which case you might want to get a Pro instead anyways since you'll be limited by thermal throttling and a lower voltage class chip.

The value prop is better too $100 bump, vs. $200 for 16gb.
Click to expand...

While it's true that many apps will use multi-core capabilities when available, the kinds of usage the OP listed all tend to be predominantly single-core usages.

In this particular case, neither quad-core nor 16 GB may turn out to be necessary. Overall, though, I think that more RAM will tend to be more useful - multitasking usage (lots of browser tabs open while working on a word-processing document, for example) will tend to put more stress on RAM than the CPU, as most of those tabs, etc. are inactive at any given time - CPU has low utilization, RAM is still occupied.
 
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deeddawg said:
Funny how freely folks say to get 16GB and not a single one thought to ask what your current usage shows via Activity Monitor memory tab / Memory Pressure graph?

Super easy to spend other folks money I guess.

Far fewer people actually need 16GB RAM than think they do. Typically I say if you have to ask you probably don't need it.

But since you already have a mac, it's super simple to see what your actual usage is right now when doing your typical workload. See https://support.apple.com/guide/activity-monitor/view-memory-usage-actmntr1004/mac

As for 2019 vs 2020 -- consider whether you want the potentially-still-problematic butterfly keyboard on the 2019 or the 2020 return to the hopefully-trouble-free scissor keyboard.

256 vs 512gb - again that's back to what do you need to have onboard the system when you're not sitting at your desk. External drives are great, but they're also a pain in the azz if you need to plug it in 80% of the time you're using the computer. Look at what your current storage usage is, and what it'll be if you clean up some of your old crud, utilize more icloud/offloaded storage/etc. If you're within 20% of the 256GB mark then it might make sense to go for 512GB
Click to expand...
Superb...
Agree with this.
 
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