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Current rMBP users, what is your RAM usage?
- Thread starter ieani
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It depends on what you do. Obviously video editing and other content creation may run over 8 GB for RAM.
But I consider myself a computer enthusiast and my work comprises of compiling large 100k+ SLOC projects and even 8 GB is quite enough for my purposes.
But I consider myself a computer enthusiast and my work comprises of compiling large 100k+ SLOC projects and even 8 GB is quite enough for my purposes.
i have 8, and with most things i do, usually have 2-4 gb free. I use lightroom 4, occasionally imovie, and always have open a few windows in chrome, the mail app and usually spotify.
I've gotten to 10GB a few times the last couple days. Runnign photoshop, a bunch of tabs in Safari, Powerpoint, and Excel. Most of the time I'm below 5GB though.
Still, I'm glad I paid the extra $180 for the 16GB
Still, I'm glad I paid the extra $180 for the 16GB
Sigh... a thread full of people talking out of their ass pro-claiming 16GB is a necessity for certain jobs/enthusiasts nowadays, it's not.
Opening up 20 tabs in your browser, and leaving every single application running all the time doesn't make the RAM necessary, it just makes you lazy.
Opening up 20 tabs in your browser, and leaving every single application running all the time doesn't make the RAM necessary, it just makes you lazy.
16GB. I originally had an 8GB model, but I was already using up about 6GB just having Photoshop, Spotify, and some Safari tabs open. One reason that I upgraded to 16GB was because in a few years, 16GB will be more necessary and the education discount brought the price back to a base model, but also because it's better to be safe than sorry if I do end up needing all 8GB or more at some point
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If I'm actively using several applications at the same time, how is that being lazy? Just because *your* use doesn't require you to multitask doesn't mean everyone has the same usage requirements.
If I'm making a presentation - I'll have Safari open for finding references. I may be looking at several journals at the same time so I'll keep multiple tabs open. I'll have Excel open because much of my data is in Excel format. I'll use photoshop to design and edit any graphics as necessary. And of course, I'll use powerpoint to bring it all together.
Is 16GB absolutely essential? No. I've managed on less for quite some time. But it is allowing me to be more productive. I'm not forced to quit the memory intensive applications all the time - so when I need to go back to them, all of my work is still there just as I left it; I don't have to wait for it to relaunch, and I can quickly switch to another application for a few seconds if necessary.
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All the things you mentioned I could do 2 years ago with a core2duo on a windows PC with 4GB of ram, keep telling yourself you need 16.
Not without paging out, which does slow the system down, even with an SSD. One also has to consider that modern OS's use more RAM than before. My iMac at work (an older Core2 Duo model w/ 4GB RAM) was beachballing so much with the use I was trying to get out of it - I gave up and just started bringing my personal laptop to work.
I checked activity monitor several times just for my own curiosity's sake. The ram usage was usually around 9-10GB with only a couple hundred megs as "inactive". Photoshop was consuming about 2GB. Most of the other applications I was actively using were just under 1GB each. And then the OS by consumes quite a bit of memory just when idle.
As I type this - I'm at 3GB ram usage right now - only 357 MB is inactive. And Safari is only using 140MB at the moment (2 tabs open). So all of the background OS processes are taking about 2.5GB. In the past an OS w/ no other applications open would barely consume 1GB. So 8GB really doesn't go as far as it used to.
Doing it and doing it well are two difference thing. In addition, software requirements change over time (as you may know).
So where is the point where we stop calling it multi-tasking? and start calling it lazy? in a few years? when we have 64GB in our computers and you start up with 20 applications open? I multi-task a fair amount, use ram intensive applications and yes I've come close to points where I have reached the 8 GB limit. But this was when I was using my computer for more than a week straight having more than 10 applications running doing absolutely nothing. While I was busy browsing. The system is also aware of the amount of ram it has available. The second is realizes it's reaching it's limits it's going to start trying to make ram available, if you have 8GB it should do this efficiently enough for you to not notice it at all.
This question is pointless, I can just ask you the same thing, why do you care so much that I care? my useless debate.. I can express my opinion and state the facts if I want.
I work on feature film visual fx. I have 1 application open and can easily use all 16gb ram. Sorry for wanting to get my work done without waiting forever. It obviously offends you that some people actually have a need.
If the only way I got above 8GB is by leaving applications open and letting them idle, that would be lazy. But if I'm actively using each -and closing documents and programs which I feel I'm done with, that's not laziness. I'm just using the equipment I have to its potential.
And you're not taking into account the increasing requirements of programs. For example, Photoshop CS6 requires a much more powerful system than Photoshop 6.0 requires. At one point 1GB RAM was more than sufficient for even high-end desktop computers - now phones are starting to struggle with that little memory. So at some point in the future - one may very well need 64GB to efficiently perform the tasks expected of him/her. That's just the way it is. If it wasn't that way, then 640k would likely still be more than enough for all of us.
At this point, 4GB memory is found in even the lowest-end systems (sub $500). 8GB is becoming increasingly common in mainstream computers - so you'll see more apps taking advantage of the extra memory. So 16GB would definitely be a worthwhile expense if you want to be able to keep up w/ memory requirements beyond the next year or so.
I should mention that the images I work with tend to be fairly high resolution. That's a big part of why I bought this laptop in the first place. High resolution assets take a lot more memory than low res assets.
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