Do I need 32 gigs?

[falcon511]

I plan on getting a macbook pro in 2020. I was going to wait for Intel's 10nm H series but it looks like that is a ways off for what I want to do in getting a new computer. So here is my question.

I am a web designer by day and I record gameplay videos in my spare time with my elgato capture card. However I am not doing this as often and streaming I might just do from the Xbox console. I do edit some gameplay videos in 1080p in Adobe Premier and share them on Youtube. I am by no means a pro at this nor am I making money. I also help run a gaming website on the side and do Photoshop and illustrator work on the site. I am not working with 4K video yet and if I do end up making any money I would probably start but I would most likely put my fiances elsewhere for that change. I should say that when i do use premier I am using total 95% of my 16 gigs of ram but mostly because chrome is open with like 20+ tabs and I have a bunch of other programs running on Windows that wont be running on a Mac for reasons.

With that being said I was thinking of just getting the base model and maybe upgrading the SSD to 1 terabyte or maybe the GPU to the 5500m. Thoughts?

 

[obargy]

Open all the apps which represent your regular workflow, and take a look in Activity Monitor about the used memory and swap memory. If you have more than 12GB of used memory or too much swap memory (larger than 10GB?), then you might as well go for the 32GB option.

Personally I prefer 1TB of SSD and the 5500M. I upgraded from a 2016 MBP with 512GB SSD and Radeon 460 Pro to the 16-inch one with i9 2.3GHz/16GB/5500M 4G/1TB. However in the last few days, I hit several times the RAM bottle neck so I reordered a 16-inch with 32GB RAM and 8GB vRAM as the vRAM upgrade costs only 100CAD. Actually for my PhD work I just need this MBP as a side machine for work on the go. But I found it very limited when using with 16GB RAM, especially when a windows virtual machine is opened on the side. And sometimes OneDrive is also taking too much RAM. So the upgrade decision really depends on your need. I'd say that the 16GB RAM really works well for most people.

But I think the i9 base model is a better deal than choosing the i7 base model with SSD & GPU upgrade, if you decides to go with 1TB SSD and 5500M.

 

[hardax]

Remember that OSX allocates as much memory as it feels is needed to apps so just because your system say that x amount is used doesn’t mean your running out of memory. The memory pressure window is a much better indicator of if your hitting yourself memory ceiling. If you have all the apps you normally use all open and doing something and you still green, you have nothing to worry about.

 

[mouthster]

If you have to ask, the answer is no.

 

[iemcj]

As others have said, if you have to ask, then no. 16 is a ton of ram. This sub has a rather warped view that "the max apple sells is the exact amount i needddd", for what you're describing 16 is more than enough. If your business takes off and you're going to get more serious about editing then you won't be doing it from a laptop anyway lol, you'll upgrade to an imac or similar.

I don't see that becoming an issue though, I follow many gaming youtubers and streamers and there's very little "high powered" tasks you'll need to do video wise. You're not needing to run NEET to clean up noise, you're not color grading, you're not doing warp stabilization, you're just going to need to clip a few pieces, add some voice overs, and slap on an intro and exit. All stuff you can do with imovie on my 8 year old macbook pro with 8 gigs of ram.