Is 24GB “worse” than 16GB or 32GB?

[NewUsername]

This might seem like a strange question, but all M1 series chips had a “normal” amount of RAM (8/16/32…). M2 series of chips now also have irregular amounts: 24, 96 and 192GB of RAM.

Is there any downside of choosing a non-conventional amount of RAM or is 24GB simply exactly in the middle of 16GB and 32GB?

 

[Longplays]

This isn't a x86. No downside.

 

[ovbacon]

I'm confused... The MBA M2 has 8,16,24 and the MBA M1 had 8 or 16

 

[bill-p]

This might seem like a strange question, but all M1 series chips had a “normal” amount of RAM (8/16/32…). M2 series of chips now also have irregular amounts: 24, 96 and 192GB of RAM.

Is there any downside of choosing a non-conventional amount of RAM or is 24GB simply exactly in the middle of 16GB and 32GB?

iPhones have had irregular amounts of RAM for a while now. 3GB and then 6GB in the iPhone 14 Pro Max. If no one ever noticed anything wrong, it's fine.

Don't be bound by conventional PC hardware wisdom. Apple's new computers are based on single SoCs and thus the design can accommodate anything irregular without compromise.

 

[ISignedUpToAskThis]

I don't understand why there would be any issue. RAM is RAM. 24 > 16 > 8. It won't work any differently just because it's not the typical lineup of memory options.

 

[curnalpanic]

If it is using three channels it could even be an advantage.

 

[bill-p]

On that note, 24GB RAM has indeed helped me achieve better performance while wading through 80,000 photos in one of my older catalogs. So yeah, for my use case, I do find the extra RAM helpful.

Not everyone will need to search through 80,000 photos even on an irregular basis, but I do end up doing that once or twice a month.

Another use case I've found that benefits from the extra RAM is virtual machine. I can now dedicate 8GB to a Windows virtual machine in Parallels or spin up way more docker containers to help me with my tasks. All the while keeping my Mac from getting bloated up due to elaborate coding package setups. It's a much better system with more RAM. 8GB would have cried with this many containers running in the background.

 

[xraydoc]

This might seem like a strange question, but all M1 series chips had a “normal” amount of RAM (8/16/32…). M2 series of chips now also have irregular amounts: 24, 96 and 192GB of RAM.

Is there any downside of choosing a non-conventional amount of RAM or is 24GB simply exactly in the middle of 16GB and 32GB?

On some Intel machines, the RAM was accessed in pairs for best speed, so amounts evenly divisible by 8 were required for best speed.

The Apple M-series chips doesn't have this design, so the RAM speed of 8 is the same as 16 is the same as 24.

So the only thing to worry about is purchasing what you need (since you can't increase it later on).