What will happen to the existing 8GB devices once Apple Intelligence starts rolling out? I still have an 8G M1 iMac. Will it get limited features?
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Entire Mac Lineup Now Starts With at Least 16GB RAM, Ending 8GB Era
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Ah yes, just in time when the rest of the industry has moved to 32gb as standard.
An 8GB M1 Mac can run all Apple Intelligence features and should be good for a few more years.
Agree and of course! As time moves on so will software demands. I mean in time, eventually an M1 will feel slow and a 1TB SSD cramped. The generational leap to on device AI is what's caused this specific push for more RAM.
It doesn't matter that much but it's an annoyance. Most people only buy desktop type machiens every 5-7 years so it's annoying to miss a major peripheral cycle.
For example, I'd like to see wi-fi 7 and TB5.
I'm on an M1 Max and it's fine but I really wish it had av1 hardware decoding and wi-fi 7 (or at least 6e with the 6ghz band) for example.
My assumption is one of a few things:
1. It became economically infeasible to continue builds of 8, 16, 24, 32, etc.
2. Apple discovered AI needs more than 8 GB of memory for future workflows
3. Apple will use RAM as a cutoff in 4-5 years… and NOT the chip
4. (Wishful thinking) Apple got tired of being made fun of in the tech press
1. It became economically infeasible to continue builds of 8, 16, 24, 32, etc.
2. Apple discovered AI needs more than 8 GB of memory for future workflows
3. Apple will use RAM as a cutoff in 4-5 years… and NOT the chip
4. (Wishful thinking) Apple got tired of being made fun of in the tech press
That’s absurd isn’t it. Tim only cares about shareholders and his own greed is the underlying reason.
Sure it can
That might even be true today, but only a fraction of the promised AI is available today.No one has claimed 8GB is enough for eternity. It was bound to happen at some point, personally I think this year is very reasonable. Could have been last year, sure.
Treating it like it is some sort of admission by Apple is absurd.
You're trying to tell me that 8 gigs of RAM is not enough for browsing the web, listen to music, reply to a message or work on a spreadsheet, etc.? As I said. If 16GB of RAM is enough for gaming in 4K how come 8 gigs is not enough for the computer to run at all?
It couldn’t be because the M4 on TSMC’s higher yielding N3E process is cheaper than an M3 on the N3B essentially development process that has very low yields.
Nothing except if you utilize AI its possible you see a little more memory swapping in activity monitor between the DRAM and SSD. Its works out pretty well because the M1 memory access between DRSAM and SSD is sufficiently fast, not slow.
Wrong, it is officially supported. It will be faster with 16 for sure, and Apple decided that it pushed it over the edge where 16 is needed for those using AI, to give an acceptable performance for a new Mac. It was bound to happen at some point, AI or not.
I guess I forgot Option 5: TSMC told Apple it will cost more money to continue 8 GB builds if the highest end M4 flavor RAM maximum keeps increasing. In other words, let’s say Apple likes having 4 RAM configs… keeping the 8 GB would add a 5th RAM config… costing more money to maintain.
So, rather than do that… they just shifted everyone up to 16 to save money.
Uh, no they haven’t. Maybe for specific ranges. So far Microsoft is the only company I can find that has 16GB as base, everyone else is 8 or less(!).
Remember when the OG MacBook Air had a 64 GB SSD as an option? Just seems wild in hindsight.