For the cores...I am not too certain. Of course there is definitely a benefit, but I don't recall what it is.
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I am really torn between 8GB vs. 16GB RAM
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I definitely do. That's why I'm confused as to why my memory pressure is still green? Gah, these chips are giving me a headache!
I did a quick test with my setup and workflow:
MacBook Air 8GB/8-core GPU/512GB. Apps used:
To me personally, this is extraordinary that M1 chip is able to drive this workload. It makes it significantly better than my 2017 MBP 15" 16GB/2GB GDDR5 machine which is not only 2 minutes slower to render the same video in FCP, the machine gets insanely hot with fans spinning in high speed!
Memory used when FCP exporting video with two 4k videos playing in YouTube in Safari
Memory used when FCP exporting video with one 4k videos playing in YouTube in Safari
Memory used when only FCP exporting the video
MacBook Air 8GB/8-core GPU/512GB. Apps used:
- Final Cut Pro rendering one of my YouTube videos
- This is 1080p 60fps video being exported as H.264 video (final size ~7GB)
- I don't use 4k video format (yet)
- Safari playing some 4k videos
- Normally I wouldn't play 4k videos when my FCP is exporting, but do browse some sites, but for this instance I am playing 4k videos to showcase memory used
To me personally, this is extraordinary that M1 chip is able to drive this workload. It makes it significantly better than my 2017 MBP 15" 16GB/2GB GDDR5 machine which is not only 2 minutes slower to render the same video in FCP, the machine gets insanely hot with fans spinning in high speed!
Memory used when FCP exporting video with two 4k videos playing in YouTube in Safari
Memory used when FCP exporting video with one 4k videos playing in YouTube in Safari
Memory used when only FCP exporting the video
Check if your Mac needs more RAM in Activity Monitor
Use Activity Monitor on your Mac to see if memory is being used efficiently and if you need more memory (RAM).
Anyone know of a way to check longer term history of memory pressure? I don't think I've ever seen anything other than green.
For those who complained he did not do a proper multitasking test, I think he listened. Looks like 8gb will be fine for the vast majority of people, the ram sure looks like it is better optimized on these new macbook.
I agree, besides no one ever complained they bought too much ram.
Yes, this was better, but instead of having 400 things open to stress the RAM he could have had a single big Photoshop file instead, that would be a more realistic example.
that wouldn't be any fun, would it? the obsessing and worrying is where the fun is. instead of spending that $200 on ram, you could buy bitcoin with it and watch it grow to $20000. now there's something to worry about!
well, it has zero payback at trade in time (at least with what i have seen so far), so in that sense, i do feel the need to complain.
Or throw it on the craps table in Vegas. Don’t think this is a good analogy.
I've seen this link, but it still scares me because my swap usage is quite high.Check if your Mac needs more RAM in Activity Monitor
Use Activity Monitor on your Mac to see if memory is being used efficiently and if you need more memory (RAM).support.apple.com
Anyone know of a way to check longer term history of memory pressure? I don't think I've ever seen anything other than green.
I am not seeing a reason to spend the extra dollars. I could spend those extra dollars for some FCP plugins I need
It may have zero payback at trade time, but the amount it saves on stress is priceless. For some people buying a new laptop can be very stressful, and they don't want to make a mistake, they want someone to hold their hand and tell them it's OK, you made the right decision.
nobody knows what the right decision is. ask someone who bought an i7/16GB/1TB machine about their satisfaction with their attempt at future-proofing now that the m1 is out. from my standpoint buying 16GB now is pointless since we already know how good memory management is. we have so many anecdotes of 8GB performing just fine today, and we have had multiple macOS releases to tell us that macOS isn't really getting any hungrier when it comes to memory.
Exactly! And not to mention this is the low end of Apple’s SoC. if the usage is editing 8k files and simultaneously doing the heavy lifting, Intel is your option. Otherwise for average users even like me that works with 1080p HD videos with FCP, I am confident from my testing that 8GB is fine for now. Of course I would consider more RAM if M2 proves to Apple’s high-end SoC.
I have nothing against anyone who wants to buy 8GB, if they are happy with their purchase that's all that really matters. More ram is always my preference.
It's hard to stress just how much this depends entirely on individual use cases.
I just left Activity Monitor open for a bit. I am using my laptop as I usually do which is about 15 Chrome tabs open, music playing in the background, Signal and Telegram open for messaging, my VPN client and Little Snitch running in the background, and a couple other things sitting there idle like Notes.
I have 8GB with 6.44GB used and my swap is only 571MB while the memory pressure graph is low and green. Especially impressive when a lot of that software is running through Rosetta 2.
Have also installed Logic Pro X on this machine and it runs super fast. Didn't look at the numbers because it was doing initial setup, installing extras, etc but it did it all very quickly and ran smoothly afterwards. I do plan to use this machine to mess around with light music production. My 2015 rMBP struggled to run Logic but no problem at all for the M1 MBA.
iMovie is similarly super fast on my MBA. iMovie on my rMBP could not even play back 4K video from my iPhone without hanging let alone do actual editing. Exporting even 1080p made the fans sound like a 747. The MBA doesn't break a sweat. I will also be curious to see how Handbrake performs when it is optimised for Apple Silicon.
Something I'll probably do more often is run Unix tools once Brew is properly supported. Then I will use this machine for some light scripting work, generating static websites, and so on. But I'm not doing anything heavy like game development and writing Python scripts or static webpages is not CPU or RAM intensive. Even my ageing rMBP can do that quickly.
I know the majority of my use will be Chrome, Music/Tidal/VLC, Signal/Telegram, occasional Unix/dev stuff, with basic software like a VPN and Little Snitch running in the background.
If I was, say, exporting multiple FCP projects daily, rendering 8K video in Blender, or opening huge RAW files in Photoshop I am sure this machine would struggle. As many have said "it is not magic." But it does have superior memory management to a traditional x86 machine. It makes more sense to compare the M1 to the A12Z or A14 where you get much less than 16GB RAM but they are still blazing fast SoC's in real world usage.
If your use cases are 8K video rendering and manipulating huge RAW files in Photoshop, yes, get 16GB RAM and make sure you have an actively cooled machine (so, not the MBA) or just wait for the next gen Apple Silicon chip which will most certainly be better for your usage and come with more RAM to begin with. The M1 is an entry level chip as has been said many times already.
For the vast majority of users though, who will be like me and mostly use their laptops for light tasks with heavier stuff featuring only here and there, even a base MBA would do this fine. I went for the 8 core GPU and 1TB SSD for some future proofing but I am pretty confident 8GB RAM is fine for my use cases.
I therefore recommend people stop watching YouTube videos and reading about what other people do on their computers and instead think about what they do on their machines and what their hardware requirements are. Also consider how long you are planning to keep the machine as well. All this should drive your decision rather than potential speculative resale value or what people on a forum say is better.
As a final note, these YouTube videos are mostly running software through Rosetta 2 or beta versions of Apple Silicon ports. It is highly likely that a properly optimised Apple Silicon build of whatever given software you use will run far more efficiently than it does through Rosetta 2. R2 is mostly reliable but you do see big efficiency gains in CPU/GPU intensive work with native apps, as you'd expect.
I just left Activity Monitor open for a bit. I am using my laptop as I usually do which is about 15 Chrome tabs open, music playing in the background, Signal and Telegram open for messaging, my VPN client and Little Snitch running in the background, and a couple other things sitting there idle like Notes.
I have 8GB with 6.44GB used and my swap is only 571MB while the memory pressure graph is low and green. Especially impressive when a lot of that software is running through Rosetta 2.
Have also installed Logic Pro X on this machine and it runs super fast. Didn't look at the numbers because it was doing initial setup, installing extras, etc but it did it all very quickly and ran smoothly afterwards. I do plan to use this machine to mess around with light music production. My 2015 rMBP struggled to run Logic but no problem at all for the M1 MBA.
iMovie is similarly super fast on my MBA. iMovie on my rMBP could not even play back 4K video from my iPhone without hanging let alone do actual editing. Exporting even 1080p made the fans sound like a 747. The MBA doesn't break a sweat. I will also be curious to see how Handbrake performs when it is optimised for Apple Silicon.
Something I'll probably do more often is run Unix tools once Brew is properly supported. Then I will use this machine for some light scripting work, generating static websites, and so on. But I'm not doing anything heavy like game development and writing Python scripts or static webpages is not CPU or RAM intensive. Even my ageing rMBP can do that quickly.
I know the majority of my use will be Chrome, Music/Tidal/VLC, Signal/Telegram, occasional Unix/dev stuff, with basic software like a VPN and Little Snitch running in the background.
If I was, say, exporting multiple FCP projects daily, rendering 8K video in Blender, or opening huge RAW files in Photoshop I am sure this machine would struggle. As many have said "it is not magic." But it does have superior memory management to a traditional x86 machine. It makes more sense to compare the M1 to the A12Z or A14 where you get much less than 16GB RAM but they are still blazing fast SoC's in real world usage.
If your use cases are 8K video rendering and manipulating huge RAW files in Photoshop, yes, get 16GB RAM and make sure you have an actively cooled machine (so, not the MBA) or just wait for the next gen Apple Silicon chip which will most certainly be better for your usage and come with more RAM to begin with. The M1 is an entry level chip as has been said many times already.
For the vast majority of users though, who will be like me and mostly use their laptops for light tasks with heavier stuff featuring only here and there, even a base MBA would do this fine. I went for the 8 core GPU and 1TB SSD for some future proofing but I am pretty confident 8GB RAM is fine for my use cases.
I therefore recommend people stop watching YouTube videos and reading about what other people do on their computers and instead think about what they do on their machines and what their hardware requirements are. Also consider how long you are planning to keep the machine as well. All this should drive your decision rather than potential speculative resale value or what people on a forum say is better.
As a final note, these YouTube videos are mostly running software through Rosetta 2 or beta versions of Apple Silicon ports. It is highly likely that a properly optimised Apple Silicon build of whatever given software you use will run far more efficiently than it does through Rosetta 2. R2 is mostly reliable but you do see big efficiency gains in CPU/GPU intensive work with native apps, as you'd expect.
Typically the difference between used values is much less than the difference between new values. Having browsed listings from used retailers, I would guess 25-50% of the original price difference most of the time, depending on age. I use the used retailers more often than private parties, because retailers tend to reliably list things at prices that someone will actually pay.
There will always be the M2, M3....the unicorn, etc....if you live for tomorrow you don’t live at all.
I've seen this reasoning somewhere before ...
Oh, I remember. It's all those people with lots of disposable income with expensive SUVs in their driveways in case they ever decide to go off-roading in the future. Which they never do.
Helpful video. He concludes that 8 is enough for many, even with heavy multitasking. He also says he'd get 16, but clearly he's accustomed to getting whatever he wants in computer gear.
He says 8GB on the M1 is like 16G on the Intel, and 16GB M1 is better than 32G Intel. He evidently needs to be reminded of the usual tautologies about RAM: RAM is RAM; if you need more RAM, you need more RAM, etc.
And he says not to worry about the effect of swapping on SSD life.
I’m sorry you’re so judgmental on what potential “disposable” income I might have or what car sits in my driveway, but you couldn’t be more wrong.
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With you. I have a 1Tb/16GB on order and just picked up a 512/8 today. So far, so good. Part of my reasoning is that since it's a first-generation product, I'll likely be more inclined to buy a new model sooner rather than later, so maybe I don't need to go heavier on the specs (my definition of 'heavier') because I can do that later when I have a machine I think I'll keep for longer. With that said, this machine does seem pretty quick, and I'm enjoying it so far. Good luck. Happy to hear what you discover, too.
It is a 1st gen product but it isn't. The hardware for the 13 MBP/AIR is super refined. Only thing that really changed is the cpu which has been in iOS devices for years in various iterations. Its not a completely new/different product so if you can swing it why not future proof it a bit. I don't really update my computer every year like my iPhone etc. give had my 2014 iMac since 2014 but decided it was timeWith you. I have a 1Tb/16GB on order and just picked up a 512/8 today. So far, so good. Part of my reasoning is that since it's a first-generation product, I'll likely be more inclined to buy a new model sooner rather than later, so maybe I don't need to go heavier on the specs (my definition of 'heavier') because I can do that later when I have a machine I think I'll keep for longer. With that said, this machine does seem pretty quick, and I'm enjoying it so far. Good luck. Happy to hear what you discover, too.
Ha, sorry you feel judged, which I didn't intend. I didn't say or imply anything about what your income is or what's in your driveway. I pointed out parallel reasoning, and suggested by that analogy a flaw in the reasoning I quoted.
If the analogy isn't clear enough, the reasoning I quoted doesn't consider and is in one case dismissive of consideration of actual need. For those for whom $200 is a significant amount of money, even for a $1000 purchase, need may be the chief rational consideration. I don't see any short cut to avoid that.
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