HMC: M-pro 14" M3 Max CPU 14/30, 96GB RAM OR CPU 16/40 64GB RAM

[98fxxd]

I'm currently using an MB PRO 2019, Intel i-9, 32GB of RAM.
I use it mainly for software dev, and I have 2x IDE dev instances running, tons of browser tabs, 1 virtual machine, and about 3 emulators.
I am tempted to go for the option with more RAM because these IDE and emulators are terrible RAM hoggers.
I also read that, the 16/40 CPU is heating up and loud when fans are running, on the 14" version.

On the other hand, I don't want to have "too much RAM" and too little CPU power.
I'm wondering if 64GB of RAM would suffice, since currently, on 32GB, I get RED RAM pressure most of the times.

Thoughts?

 

[bzgnyc2]

I'm currently using an MB PRO 2019, Intel i-9, 32GB of RAM.
I use it mainly for software dev, and I have 2x IDE dev instances running, tons of browser tabs, 1 virtual machine, and about 3 emulators.
I am tempted to go for the option with more RAM because these IDE and emulators are terrible RAM hoggers.
I also read that, the 16/40 CPU is heating up and loud when fans are running, on the 14" version.

On the other hand, I don't want to have "too much RAM" and too little CPU power.
I'm wondering if 64GB of RAM would suffice, since currently, on 32GB, I get RED RAM pressure most of the times.

Thoughts?

I would go for the extra memory in this case. I don't have your exact use case nor hardware but I can definitely see that combination of tools consuming a lot of RAM. You might fit within 64GB at the start but are you sure you won't need another VM and/or the IDE's RAM usage won't grow over the next few years? On the other hand, I doubt you would notice 16 versus 14 M3 CPU. 10 P-cores is already a lot. Even doing a full build of a large tree, would you notice the difference between 10 and 12 simultaneous compilers running? But once your system starts swapping, more CPUs doesn't help at all.

P.S.The other big difference between those two configurations are the number of GPU. You didn't explicitly mention GPU nor AI workloads so assuming 40 versus 30 GPU would just be extra baggage in your case.

 

[98fxxd]

I would go for the extra memory in this case. I don't have your exact use case nor hardware but I can definitely see that combination of tools consuming a lot of RAM. You might fit within 64GB at the start but are you sure you won't need another VM and/or the IDE's RAM usage won't grow over the next few years? On the other hand, I doubt you would notice 16 versus 14 M3 CPU. 10 P-cores is already a lot. Even doing a full build of a large tree, would you notice the difference between 10 and 12 simultaneous compilers running? But once your system starts swapping, more CPUs doesn't help at all.

P.S.The other big difference between those two configurations are the number of GPU. You didn't explicitly mention GPU nor AI workloads so assuming 40 versus 30 GPU would just be extra baggage in your case.

Thank you for your input, I am also leaning towards more RAM.
I am not doing any AI-heavy work right now, and in the near future (~~3 years) I believe I will still be involved into running emulators/simulatorsVMs. And, as you say, those will probably just hog more RAM, with the updates they get.