Guys, get 16 GB.

[FrozenDarkness]

* Claims Activity monitor is to simple minded and doesn't give enough of a detailed picture as to the memory usage

* Goes to the most uninformative summarized portion of memory analysis in Activity monitor and uses that as a counter argument against the more detailed analysis in Activity monitor

Most people w/o computer science degrees misinterpret colorful graphs that were made for consumers .. Misinterpret it and interpret it as science much to the contrary of the more detailed info already being provided by you.

Image

An example of the memory hierarchy and the different (access times associated with them)

To make it simple for you : If something is in RAM, it takes a shorter amount of time to access.. If something isn't, it takes longer. This principal applies from left to right. If your ram is packed full of *****, it is packed full of *****. The velocity or pressure graph shows, to what level things are having to be evicted and replaced in your already maxed out ram... 0 on the graph equals no eviction... 100% = you're ****ed.. So, the pressure graph is more or less telling you, once you have exhausted your ram, how much of a performance hit you are taking on. This varies from none to a huge impact.

Don't come rambling about :
#1 - Saying Activity monitor is too simple of a picture
#2 - Using the most uninformative piece of info Activity monitor shows you to back your case w/o even understanding what the hell the graph is telling you.
#3 - KISS (Keep it simple stupid) : If your ram is being used 100% .. As indicated by Activity Monitor.. something useful is in your ram and it is being fully utilized. Period. Don't speak beyond that common understanding, as you have no clue what the heck you're talking about

OH LOOK another wall of text! First of all, I didn't claim activity monitor is too simple a picture, YOU who made the argument of needing a comptuer science degree to understand it. Well guess what? You don't, there's a simple graph apple made for people ike you. It's actually not uninformative, it's the best summary of how your computer will perform. Becuase when it's green, it's good, when it's red, it's bad. gee that really is difficult.

Back to my original point, the OS can offload as mucha s it likes to RAM. It can cache all the programs to ram for all i care. But if you don't access them, why does it matter? Again, you're arguing against the point that teh amount of ram you need is equal tot he amount of ram needed by the programs you are using ACTIVELY. You actually made the point that in the off chance you opened an app that is in a swap file and you had to wait for that extra couple of seconds, it's not worth it. THat's ridiculous.

Quite simply, if your usage > 8GB of Ram, get more, if it's not don't get more. Don't take what mavericks activity monitor tells you int erms of RAM used without a grain of sale.

 

[puma1552]

Hardly. You just brought back something that has already been debated ad nauseam in this forum.

glad you enjoyed it

 

[davidinva]

Anyone here still using 2008 machines and plan to for a while yet? Seems a lot of posters here don't need to worry much about future proofing as there is a limited future

My Macbook will be 5 years old in April and is not upgradable to Mavericks. I would like a new Macbook Pro but money is not available now. So far, what I have works for me, and I will continue to use it for a while.

 

[unimac]

Issue with this comparison is that 8 GB isn't "dodgy" like third party batteries.

To me, 16 GB MIGHT BE the guy who buys a super-sized battery for his camera when he's just going to be doing shots in his studio.

To me, I see a bunch of clowns running around w/ DSLRs MAYBE because its the new Fad who MIGHT intend to use them to post pics on Instagram.

The DSLR fad died down some while ago... thankfully people just use their smart phone's cameras which are more than sufficient and portable.

Same can be said for the explosion in tablet sales vs. laptops....
A large number of tech companies are going to macbook pros for standard issue to their employees. By buying a MBP (even the base model), the intended use is already something bordering high utilization and professional.

No one debates what DSLRs were intended for .. the same goes for MBPs. What clowns use it beyond that is a topic for another discussion.

 

[Count Blah]

But it can be sold! Seriously, the second hand market people! It's the answer to non-upgradability!

I have to believe that the second hand market for glued/soldered in components will be less than people are used to, in a couple years. With image retention problems on the rMBP, zero upgradeability, quickly draining batteries, and substandard RAM amounts in 2015, etc... The market is asking for a letdown, especially since I find second hand buyers to be a tad more particular/knowledgeable about what they buy.

 

[john123]

The market is asking for a letdown, especially since I find second hand buyers to be a tad more particular/knowledgeable about what they buy.

My experience selling 20+ Macs in the last decade has been exactly the opposite. But I suppose we'll see.

 

[raybies]

DO NOT BUY A MACBook, THEY DON'T HAVE ENOUGH MEMORY.

Next year Adobe Premiere CC2 is going to need 32GB, for 4K content.

 

[unimac]

OH LOOK another wall of text! First of all, I didn't claim activity monitor is too simple a picture, YOU made the argument of needing a comptuer science degree to understand it. Well guess what? You don't, there's a simple graph apple made for people ike you. It's actually not uninformative, it's the best summary of how your computer will perform. Becuase when it's green, it's good, when it's red, it's bad. gee that really is difficult.

Back to my original point, the OS can offload as mucha s it likes to RAM. It can cache all the programs to ram for all i care. But if you don't access them, why does it matter? Again, you're arguing against the point that teh amount of ram you need is equal tot he amount of ram needed by the programs you are using ACTIVELY. You actually made the point that in the off chance you opened an app that is in a swap file and you had to wait for that extra couple of seconds, it's not worth it. THat's ridiculous.

Quite simply, if your usage > 8GB of Ram, get more, if it's not don't get more. Don't take what mavericks activity monitor tells you int erms of RAM used without a grain of sale.

You suggested Activity Monitor is too simple minded and not sufficient to capture the overall complex issue of memory usage. What analytic tools do you think engineers use? Things from space? If Activity monitor is good enough for the engineer who makes the product you use, it's good enough for you.

You then go off and, amid the myriad of complex data it shows you, chose to read off some silly arse graph you don't even understand.

 

[mneblett]

I have a 2011 4GB RAM MBA that performs just as well today as it did when I bought it. In fact I can argue that when it comes to speed, performance, and overall smoothness my 2-year old base-model MBA is slightly better than my 8GB RAM rMBP. I have no doubt it could go another two years. This is why I am absolutely certain that 8GB of ram is all the future-proofing I need for my particular usage patterns. No one can tell me otherwise.

Not trying to tell you otherwise -- for YOUR usage case.

I, on the other hand, have a 2008 unibody that was notably more pleasant to use when I went to 8GB RAM, as most of the spinning beachballs went away from greatly reduced swapping to the hard drive. For MY case, more RAM was definitely worth the investment. Adding an SSD made the machine all the more responsive.

Today, the 2008 no longer meets my needs -- on the RAM side specifically, because I've discovered Parallels and *really* like the way it integrates a virtual Windows environment into OSX.

But the 2008 is still perfectly useful for MY WIFE'S significantly lower memory demands, so it will happily compute away, hopefully for another few years.

The point of all this (for everyone) is that no one should be giving blanket "max it out" or "you don't need it" advice in a vacuum. Providing info as to the plusses and minuses of different amounts of RAM so that a buyer can make an informed decision is one thing -- making generic "you should do X or (you'll regret it/you'll never need it) is not helpful.

 

[nathairtras]

I have to believe that the second hand market for glued/soldered in components will be less than people are used to, in a couple years.

This is probably true, we seem to be moving towards a "disposable computer" market. That being said, many will still see Apple products as status symbols, and many others will likely view it as a sign of quality, despite the age.

I know I personally wouldn't bother buying a second-hand Mac with a non-user-serviceable battery, unless it was an Apple refurb off of their website. Still, others are already doing it, and probably will still be doing it in a couple of years.

 

[nathairtras]

DO NOT BUY A MAC, IT HASN'T GOT ENOUGH MEMORY.

Next year Adobe Premiere CC2 is going to need 32GB, for 4K content.

I'm not denying this, admittedly I have no idea, but it would be pretty... interesting for Apple to deliberately sell new laptops that cannot meet the requirements of a major upcoming software release that is frequently used by people that buy their laptops. Not that they wouldn't do it, maybe we will see a huge refresh next year with 32GB options, "just in time," but that would alienate a lot of users.

EDIT: Or maybe that's the plan. Mac Pro to the rescue.

 

[Count Blah]

My experience selling 20+ Macs in the last decade has been exactly the opposite. But I suppose we'll see.

The simple tag line of "this machine is upgradeable" usually quelled most concerns I have encountered. Not true anymore.

 

[alphaod]

Maybe I'm upgrading next year or I'm just doing Word documents?

I have a four-year old ThinkPad with 16GB of RAM. I can tell you I've never used more than 4GB.

I usually had Outlook, along with half a dozen more applications running.


Just got a new computer (X1 Carbon); decided I should get the 8GB option. Again I've never seen usage go about 4GB.


So, no 16GB is not for everyone. If you spend $200 less this year, maybe you can upgrade a few months earlier.

 

[unimac]

As I was explaining to another user who PMed me because of this thread, the #1 reassurance to secondary buyers is actually warranty. Selling a machine becomes easier when you can "insure" their purchase by proving that you're the original owner and that it's under warranty should something go wrong.

----------



Says the guy who took my line, boosted his e-peen because he thinks he made an epic thread, and got involved in a finance discussion he had no business touching. Right.

If MBPs are considered to be reliable, I can't imagine why ...
I've had hard drives go bad.. I've had batteries hit end of life.
I've never had a CPU/motherboard 'die'. I've never had ram die.
Apple allows you to pay $100-200 or wtvr to upgrade the battery which is definitely going to die.

My 2007 17" MBP's only issue was nvidia's shatty GPU. 6 years later...
Other than that, it still boots right on up and purrs like a kitten.

I.E - No one is going to get concerned if you are selling them a used out of warranty honda (because they are generally reliable) .. A VW, I wouldn't touch w/ a 10 foot pole.

 

[Count Blah]

As I was explaining to another user who PMed me because of this thread, the #1 reassurance to secondary buyers is actually warranty. Selling a machine becomes easier when you can "insure" their purchase by proving that you're the original owner and that it's under warranty should something go wrong.

I agree 100%. We're mixing lots of different cases. #1 is "is it still under warranty?"

 

[shaown]

Meanwhile - my 2011 4 GB MBA is struggling. Primarily with Swap outs - not huge ones, but decent size. The apps I use are messy (Lotus Notes, Lotus Sametime, MS Offfice, Skype, Trillian, Little VMWare).
-Shaown

I have a 2011 4GB RAM MBA that performs just as well today as it did when I bought it. In fact I can argue that when it comes to speed, performance, and overall smoothness my 2-year old base-model MBA is slightly better than my 8GB RAM rMBP. I have no doubt it could go another two years. This is why I am absolutely certain that 8GB of ram is all the future-proofing I need for my particular usage patterns. No one can tell me otherwise. But then again I usually take 'max out everything' advice with a grain of salt.

 

[adnbek]

It was a 'mild' scenario and nowhere near my typical usage (software was not available in-store). So, using simple logic, if 7.68/8GB is being utilized in a mild scenario don't you think >8GB will be in above mild?

No, it is by design. Regardless of whether you're only doing "light" work on it or not, since Lion, OSX loves to use as much RAM as possible to use it as a cache. You'll quickly see RAM usage hit its max even if you have only a few apps open. Basically, the philosophy is to keep as many files in memory to reduce how often the OS needs to access the hard drive. However, Lion and ML in my view, were horrible at managing RAM by often leaving inactive RAM intact even when the OS is paging like crazy. Mavericks though seems to be brilliant at it.

You'd be surprised how much more you can go before it goes past that physical RAM threshold. Even with my RAM maxed out as we speak (8gb) I've yet to have a single page out in Mavericks and my Mini has been running for days with many different app launches in the mean time. It's quickly purging inactive RAM to make room for other apps I launch. You have to understand that of the 8gb being used, only a fraction of it is actively being used by the OS while the rest is inactive (kept in memory just in case it is needed later) and can be freed up by the OS whenever another app is in need.

In activity monitor under memory, pay attention to the headings "App memory" and "File Cache" (ignore "wired" since that is the bear minimum the OS takes for itself to function and can't be used by the user). A lot of RAM is used by "File cache" but it's RAM that can be quickly discarded by the OS if it needs more RAM for apps. Watch as "File cache" instantly drops when the amount of App memory needed goes up. Right now, my File Cache is almost at 4gb (of the 8gb which is all used). That same 4gb cache will drop instantaneously if RAM is needed elsewhere. The drop in performance is almost insignificant when a purged item needs to be re-accessed. It's simply being read from the hard drive again, but these are usually small files we are talking about so the impact is minimal. Keep in mind, my Mini has a 5400rpm drive. I'm willing to bet that on an SSD, you won't even notice a difference at all.

Memory compression is another thing in Mavericks and that can easily allow you to go even beyond the 8gb of RAM that's available without page outs.

Remember, page outs (swap used under Mavericks) is the only thing to really worry about. If you don't get page outs, even when your RAM is maxed out, you will be fine and won't notice any performance hit at all. Even if all your RAM is used, in most usage scenarios, a good chunk of it is available in an instant since it's mostly cache. App memory getting maxed out is when paging occurs and I could only imagine that happening if you're a professional using a bunch of memory-hungry apps, not the average person with normal usage scenarios.

 

[jz-]

you keep saying evidence and trend. what are you talking about? is there a graph somewhere? are we pinpointing this trend happening in the next 3? 4? 5? 6? years?

In the last six years, the minimum ram has increased from 2GB to 4GB. Fast forward another six years, and we're looking at an increase to 8GB. And that's not taking into account recent efficiencies such as memory compression. 16GB is a waste of money for the 'average' user.

Speaking as somebody still using 4GB, and having no trouble running Lightroom, Netbeans, XCode, iTunes, Safari, Libre Office, etc.

In 2006, you could buy a Macbook with 512MB of RAM
In 2008, 1GB
In 2011, 2GB

Five years ago, 4GB was a BTO option for ~$600, but it doesn't seem so ridiculous now.

 

[john123]

If MBPs are considered to be reliable, I can't imagine why ...

There's a reason the insurance industry is a booming one, though. People will pay a premium for peace of mind. AC adapters and batteries are the biggest issues, with fans probably next in line...but I've had problems with thermal sensors and motherboards in the past too. Some people just don't want to take the gamble.

 

[FrozenDarkness]

In 2006, you could buy a Macbook with 512MB of RAM
In 2008, 1GB
In 2011, 2GB

Five years ago, 4GB was a BTO option for ~$600, but it doesn't seem so ridiculous now.

so 2013, 4gb

by this standard, we're looking at 8gb standard in 2015- 2016

 

[rMBP2013]

So will a 16gb RAM machine run faster than an 8gb RAM machine or not?

More SSD (from 256 GB to 512 GB) will make your computer "run" faster than the extra RAM.

 

[john123]

More SSD (from 256 GB to 512 GB) will make your computer "run" faster than the extra RAM.

If you're referring to SSD degradation, that too tends to be overblown. Plus, it's a function of how much a user writes to their disk.

 

[Mr. Mad Vibes]

My last MBP had a whooping 2 GB of RAM. Now I have 16!!! Maybe its much for now but I plan on keeping this beast for a loooong time.

 

[RngRngBananaRam]

Not trying to tell you otherwise -- for YOUR usage case.

I, on the other hand, have a 2008 unibody that was notably more pleasant to use when I went to 8GB RAM, as most of the spinning beachballs went away from greatly reduced swapping to the hard drive. For MY case, more RAM was definitely worth the investment. Adding an SSD made the machine all the more responsive.

Today, the 2008 no longer meets my needs -- on the RAM side specifically, because I've discovered Parallels and *really* like the way it integrates a virtual Windows environment into OSX.

But the 2008 is still perfectly useful for MY WIFE'S significantly lower memory demands, so it will happily compute away, hopefully for another few years.

The point of all this (for everyone) is that no one should be giving blanket "max it out" or "you don't need it" advice in a vacuum. Providing info as to the plusses and minuses of different amounts of RAM so that a buyer can make an informed decision is one thing -- making generic "you should do X or (you'll regret it/you'll never need it) is not helpful.

You mentioned that you use Parallels. Hooray!

I have a question: Do you use Parallels on a dual-core processor? If so, are you happy with its performance?

 

[T-Bob]

More SSD (from 256 GB to 512 GB) will make your computer "run" faster than the extra RAM.

Err why? Unless the MBP's 512 is faster than the 256 or it uses two 256s in RAID 0.

Many (most?) 256 variants are same speed as 512s now. Depends on how the nand configuration is per model.