That's hard to tell, because how much it can be compressed depends on what you are doing/what is in your memory.
But I have seen over 22GB compressed into 16GB on my girlfriends 2013 rMB and I guess in some cases it could be even more!
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Can a casual user ever exceed the 8GB RAM?
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That's hard to tell, because how much it can be compressed depends on what you are doing/what is in your memory.
But I have seen over 22GB compressed into 16GB on my girlfriends 2013 rMB and I guess in some cases it could be even more!
I am not really sure why people keep repeating that part. Games are not that RAM-intensive at all. The thing with games is that they require some minimal amount of RAM, and if you don't have that, the performance will be severely degraded. Don't forget that most current games are still 32-bit binaries which are unable to use more then 3GB RAM in the first place. Battlefield 4 is probably the only game right now which really needs a lot of RAM.
The compression algorithm that Apple uses is designed to compress application code and will get around 1.8:1 compression ratio. In the worst case, I would say that you still can expect around 1.5:1 ratio on average (e.g. compressing 3GB into 2GB).
that's interesting. so one should be able to "get" 24GB to 29GB into 16GB of Ram. that's impressive
Well, that is a slight oversimplification. You can't compress everything obviously, e.g.: kernel, active applications etc. should retain their full data in the RAM. However, it does mean that the system doesn't need to resolve to swapping until much later. And of course, if you have an application which absolutely requires lots of RAM (e.g. when processing a huge image file), the compression will help but only slightly. The compression feature is more about multitasking and responsiveness, when physical RAM needs to be quickly shifted from an app to app.
That certainly used to be the case, when the concept of 'upgrades' existed, but these are non-upgradable machines. The alternative is not 'upgrade later', but 'replace machine later'. That's a much more expensive strategy.
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Compression efficiency is HIGHLY dependent on the nature of the data.
There is no gaming system that requires 16 gigs of ram, nor will you see any realistic boost in gaming performance if you move from 8 gig to 16 gig. Almost every game in existence today can't use more than 4 gigs of ram, with few exceptions. So 8 gigs is plenty to cover any background programs and the OS while gaming.
And if the OP plans on playing any modern games at all he'll quickly learn that no amount of Ram will help you when it comes to gaming on a mac (unless your running bootcamp), the drivers are just that bad sadly. Theres a reason that Windows rules when it comes to gaming, and considering how cheap you can get a legit copy of windows for, it doesn't make sense NOT to install bootcamp.
The only people that I can see exceeding 8 gigs of ram in any real scenario is somebody that is doing professional video/photoediting, or running Multiple VM's simultaneously. The casual user could easily get by with even less than 8 gigs IMO.
People concerned with "future-proofing" need to realize that we are talking about a 13 inch Dual core machine. In 4 years theres a good chance the processor or the graphics (iris) will be the limiting factor, not the ram, and it will be time for a new machine anyways.
And if the OP plans on playing any modern games at all he'll quickly learn that no amount of Ram will help you when it comes to gaming on a mac (unless your running bootcamp), the drivers are just that bad sadly. Theres a reason that Windows rules when it comes to gaming, and considering how cheap you can get a legit copy of windows for, it doesn't make sense NOT to install bootcamp.
The only people that I can see exceeding 8 gigs of ram in any real scenario is somebody that is doing professional video/photoediting, or running Multiple VM's simultaneously. The casual user could easily get by with even less than 8 gigs IMO.
People concerned with "future-proofing" need to realize that we are talking about a 13 inch Dual core machine. In 4 years theres a good chance the processor or the graphics (iris) will be the limiting factor, not the ram, and it will be time for a new machine anyways.
That's what I said
Did you by any change do any tests using the WKdm algorithm and can give us more details?That's what I said
I agree - sorry if I was restating the obvious - I was responding the calculation that seemed to imply a lot of precision - not implying that you had missed the mark!
if your constantly viewing your RAM usage you will drive your self crazy, to me OSX uses RAM just because its available so you will use 16GB doing simple tasks but that doesnt mean those tasks actually need that much RAM, once your start runing another task OSX is suppose to re-allocate the RAM where needed.
I agree - sorry if I was restating the obvious - I was responding the calculation that seemed to imply a lot of precision - not implying that you had missed the mark!
The 1.5:1 average worst case is what I estimated by looking at various benchmarks; while I have the code of the Apple's compressor on my machine, I don't really have the time to do proper testing
This is why the mba comes with 4gb ram standard.
And its what i am always trying to explain. 16gb of ram in a dual core machine
I just hope that people who need advice dont waste their money on this.
I based my assumption about gaming and ram on my experiences 10+ years ago and gaming consoles.
I mightve been wrong about games needing so much ram.
I still think a macbook for gaming is a bad idea.
Even basic games from the app store lag like crazy and they should be optimized.
Could you ever exceed 8gb of RAM (in day-to-day usage)?
Yes.
Would it be worth paying more for 16gb of RAM?
Probably not.
If you ever -do- bump up against the 8gb "ceiling", you may or may not notice it (due to swapping out of the RAM to/from the drive). If it becomes noticeable to you, the solution is simple: close one or more open applications.
A very simple way to clean out RAM is to log out, then log back in.
Takes but a few seconds.
Yes.
Would it be worth paying more for 16gb of RAM?
Probably not.
If you ever -do- bump up against the 8gb "ceiling", you may or may not notice it (due to swapping out of the RAM to/from the drive). If it becomes noticeable to you, the solution is simple: close one or more open applications.
A very simple way to clean out RAM is to log out, then log back in.
Takes but a few seconds.
What good would upgrading later do?
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No!
The OP will never ever exauste 8gb with his usage.
What good would upgrading later do?
I think I must be misunderstanding your question. In olden times people used to buy the ram and storage they needed now, and upgrade later when and if they needed more. You can't do that now.
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You cannot possibly know that. Even if he doesn't, the os uses extra ram as a cache, and having more speeds everything up even more than it used to. Who knows whether that technology will continue in the direction its going?
Who knows whether the OP will begin to work with large video files in two years time?
I am from the "old times".
Why would you need to upgrade your ram later?
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The OP was quite precise about his usage. So I do know that there is no way he can exceed 8gigs.
Because getting the base model is much cheaper. If later on you want more, it's cheaper to add it yourself, plus, you save money if you end up not needing it. Am I missing something in your question?
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He was precise about his current usage - he also has no way of knowing what his usage will be in two years time.
You are missing the question. But I dont know how to reformulate it...
With this string of arguments you can justify any upgrade.
If he wants to get into video editing he should get the 15" quadcore.
Cores help rendering - ram doesnt.
If he decides to run several VMs he should get 16gb of ram.
And sure we can find a reason for 1tb ssd in the future.
I am not happy about the non-upgradeability either but that is no reason to spend all your money on expensive updates that you ever might maybe need in a distant future.
Even the rmbp 8/256 i5 2.4 is utter overkill for the OP
Precisely - it's a huge problem, although I certainly don't agree that ram is not important for video work. The problem here is the removal of the concept of upgrading. It forces users to lock themselves into their current usage for the life of the computer, or buy a machine that is more powerful (and expensive) than they need. I'm sure that is good for Apple's bottom line, but it's bad for users.
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"640K ought to be enough for anybody."
You'll probably be fine with 8gb...but in the future, who knows. I have 16 and I like having the space. After a few weeks without rebooting, the machine definitely gets close to using that much with all the caches creeping up in size.
Whoever said 4gb is fine...I beg to differ. When I had 4gb in this machine, it ran out quickly and it was agonizing. 8gb is the minimum I would use.
I feel like my usage is moderate...Safari with 10-15 tabs, Chrome with 8-9, iTunes with a large library, Plug for Hype Machine, Twitter, Messages, Mail, Preview with several documents, many times Word and Excel both with at least one document, a few things in the menu bar, a couple extra widgets, and many times a book or two in iBooks. Sometimes Transmission, any one of the Creative Suite apps, and sometimes an iLife app. With all that, I feel 16gb definitely gives me enough headroom that I don't need to worry about paging no matter what.
I've seen up to 26.xx gigs compressed into 16 gigs of RAM in this machine...but it was running fairly slow at that point. Compression helps up to a point, but it's not an invisible solution. If you're speccing up a Retina, I'd just say go for the 16 gb if you can afford it.
Whoever said 4gb is fine...I beg to differ. When I had 4gb in this machine, it ran out quickly and it was agonizing. 8gb is the minimum I would use.
I feel like my usage is moderate...Safari with 10-15 tabs, Chrome with 8-9, iTunes with a large library, Plug for Hype Machine, Twitter, Messages, Mail, Preview with several documents, many times Word and Excel both with at least one document, a few things in the menu bar, a couple extra widgets, and many times a book or two in iBooks. Sometimes Transmission, any one of the Creative Suite apps, and sometimes an iLife app. With all that, I feel 16gb definitely gives me enough headroom that I don't need to worry about paging no matter what.
I've seen up to 26.xx gigs compressed into 16 gigs of RAM in this machine...but it was running fairly slow at that point. Compression helps up to a point, but it's not an invisible solution. If you're speccing up a Retina, I'd just say go for the 16 gb if you can afford it.
If you have to reboot each day to recover used RAM you don't have enough RAM.
If only I had flash storage next. Saving up to drop a couple 1tb 840 Evos in this thing, and hopefully use it like that for a couple years. Rebooting off of the stock 500gb 5400 rpm drive is painful enough that I like to avoid it.
I would tend to agree...I wish they mad 16gb DIMMs for this application but I doubt that will ever happen. RAM is so cheap when you can replace it yourself.
Woah bro slow down.
I'm not a complete tech noob, but I was perfectly fine with my 4GB sony laptop for the last 4 years.